Warm sunshine, cold cheeks.
Reflections on changes, in the season and in my work
I wrote this observation on the season beginning to turn about six weeks ago now, but things haven’t changed all that much since, except for it being much lighter into the evenings;
Monday 4th March, 5:13pm
It’s still light enough to go for a long evening dog walk. Golden sunlight glows against the bare trees. It’s almost too warm to have a coat on in the sun, but as it starts to set the wind picks up and whips around my hair and face, stinging my cheeks with the cold.
~~~
It feels like Spring might never actually arrive. But, the trees are slowly unfurling their fresh green leaves and flowers are gently starting to appear. The birds are singing cheerfully outside, and there is a resident family of deer in the fields surrounding our village. One day soon everything will be lush and green, and my cheeks won’t hurt from the wind chill.
I’m looking for a metaphor within this to apply to my progress so far with making new work. It’s also a slow-burn, and often feels like any real breakthrough will never happen, but deep down I know that one day it will.
I have been continuing to get out with my sketchbook fairly regularly. There was a couple of weeks when I didn’t get anything done and I felt very guilty about it, but then remembered a couple of weeks off is no time at all in the grand scheme of things. I think the hardest part of doing any sort of personal project is just continuing to show up; to make a proper start and to keep up the momentum. There’s no one to answer to but yourself, no one to tell you to keep going, or to pull you up on lack of effort.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to use this space to document things, to have some accountability and something to work towards on a regular basis. I’ve not written here for four weeks and it feels like ages. But again, it’s not really ages. As long as I keep going and don’t give up before I’ve even really got started.
I’m not great with change. I like comfort and routine and familiarity. Before we moved house nearly two years ago, away from the city and into the countryside, I had a huge wobble about the whole thing and worried about making the wrong decision. So much so we almost ended up staying in the city in our dull & damp flat that had made me feel so miserable. A new place felt unknown and scary. Fast forward to now and I am so very glad we took the chance and moved here.
I am feeling a bit like this about my work; it’s a period of change and it feels daunting. I am very slowly working away in my sketchbooks and exploring things, figuring out what I’m drawn to and discovering new things to become obsessed with. Although I’m making progress, I still can’t really picture what I’m going to do or where I’m going to take the ideas. I worry that what I do won’t be good enough. Like a bare branch with tiny little buds, with new leaves shy and unwilling to reveal themselves.
I also know that if I just keep going I will find my way to something beautiful. I know future me will be glad I did. If I keep trying, keep believing in myself, keep putting in the work, it will come together eventually. The leaves will unfurl.
Reflecting on what I’ve done so far, I can see quite a bit of progress already from when I started working in my sketchbooks a couple of months ago. I can see more confidence coming through, better observations and a stronger sense of freedom. It’s definitely going somewhere.
Here are a few of my favourite pages from the last few weeks…
In the last few pictures the wind was strong and freezing cold against my face and hands but I kept drawing. In between gusts, the sun was warm. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
And in other news
I’ve also taken a bit of a step back and had a think about how to run things here, and I have decided to hold off on paid subscriptions for now. I still feel like I’m finding my feet with this platform and I want to develop my writing more, and figure out what exactly I can offer here. So for the foreseeable, all posts will be available to read for free.
I’m toying with the idea of having another newsletter specifically for promotion & marketing purposes (i.e. updates about new prints & originals, commission openings, shop updates etc.), so that I’m more focused on just writing & sharing personal work within this space… if that makes sense! Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you’d prefer to just have everything all in one place, or if you’d like to have the choice of subscribing to just this newsletter, or a separate one just for promotional stuff (or both!).