Focusing on the process

Staying at home as usual

I'll be honest, lockdown itself hasn't really phased me all that much. Having M.E, I'm always pretty limited in what I can do and how much I go out. I'm also used to there being no end in sight to those limitations so the past year with all its uncertainty hasn't been a massive change for me.

There are some obvious differences and I wouldn't want to to minimise the horror that's going on or imply that the past year's been easy, that I haven't felt fearful, depressed or even hopeless sometimes.

But when it comes to having to just stay at home and not do some of the things that I'd like to be doing, the past 16 years with a chronic illness and all the grief, frustration and anger that come with it, has been useful training.

Rebuilding a sketchbook habit

I'm trying to make the most of the extra time to work on getting back into a regular sketchbook habit. It’s something that’s fallen by the wayside a bit and for a while now my focus has been on making work that I can sell.

Experimenting with art materials

My plan for the next couple of months is to use my sketchbook(s) to play and experiment and just enjoy creating for its own sake. Right now I'm drawing from lots of my own photographs and using materials that I'm a bit less familiar with.

I don't know where this will go (if anywhere) but my aim is to focus more on the process and less on the outcome.