Intuitive Play In The Sketchbook…

Last night I stared at this for a long time and I had an awakening. I have written here, these last couple of days on Patreon, about how stuck I have become with the illustrations for Maisie’s book and how I had begun to allow myself to play in my sketchbook before approaching an illustration. I mistakenly called what I was doing Abstract Art but of course it wasn’t. I know nothing about abstract art and I realized whatever I was doing wasn’t that. I didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that. And then suddenly I knew.

Because I am a deeply intuitive person, an empath, things that I am working on often have messages for me, in fact a thing I might be doing I might only do long enough to get a message that I needed to receive to go on to the next step. I realized that this thing I am doing in the sketchbook — and the above image in the sketchbook in the graphic above is not nearly finished, it is a work in progress, a journey, and I think there are many more messages to come — was a process I had discovered that is very important for me. Because I am self-taught with no training and don’t know proper words for artistic processes I make up names that make sense for me. I have a somewhat odd vocabulary around my art but it works for me. To that end I realized that what I am doing is a kind of subconscious expression, or, while my mind is stuck my unconscious knows what it needs to know and will tell me in this new form of play, hence I am calling it “Intuitive Play In The Sketchbook,” and though I am not finished with this page yet the message I have already received is very powerful. 

I will be 67 next month. I did not start drawing and painting until I was 59, and I fiddled around with things until I found a way that worked for me. It would not have been considered “good art” by any stretch by anyone in the art world but it made me happy, and as you get older when you find things that light you up and bring you joy hopefully you GO FOR IT! and I did. Off and on at first, and finally, a little over 2 years ago, I started drawing and painting Maisie and her world. I had no end in sight, no book in mind, I just went painting by painting, playing, joyful, and by the time nearly 2 years had gone by I had over 40 paintings! And all of a sudden people were saying “You have to do a book!” and it came to make sense to me that that’s what I should do but while I have been a writer for a lifetime, written books and created journals and zines  and more, all word things with graphics, I had no clue how to do an illustrated book. The paintings I had done were big and very detailed. An illustration for a book is a whole different animal. Finally I set sail on the journey of creating the book but then I got afraid. What if I “didn’t do it right?” What would people think? I felt timid, being self-taught, with no experience of doing such a thing, and I began to doubt my ability to do it at all. Finally, I started, as I said above, playing in the sketchbook to loosen up, and it helped, but, as I wrote here in Patreon yesterday, given my past play does not come easy for me.

When I started the above page I just made big watercolor circles for what reason I had no clue. It just felt good, it felt right. And then I outlined the circles with, of all things — and as I said yesterday I just LOVED this — liquid chalk markers — and still I had no clue what I was doing, but then something started happening. What I saw was a page full of eyes, and so I drew the black pupils at the center of each circle. And then for fun I looked up “pupil” and it said, “Pupils are the dark-colored openings at the center of your eyes that let light in.” What that said to me was that in creating a page of eyes with prominent pupils I was opening a portal to let light in. Light, understanding, illumination, a vehicle to allow a message to come in, my very own “crystal ball.” And this is the message I received…

You are worrying too much about what other people think, you feel like “all eyes are on you,” when in reality past a passing glance other people are more concerned about their own lives, their own work, as you should be. Whether or not anyone is “watching you,” and no matter what anyone else might think, the only thing that is important for you is that you do your work. Trust it. Stay with it. Only when you stay connected to your true nature and do the work you are meant to do will you be able to complete this project.

Those words came to me pretty much verbatim as clearly as if someone was standing next to me speaking them. And my own eyes grew wide, and wider, and I had that knowing you feel inside when you have touched down on something real. I was startled for a moment, and then I knew it was exactly right, and then I closed my sketchbook and had the first really good night’s sleep I’ve had in months. I woke up happy instead of anxious for the first time in a long time. I did not have to take Xanax just to be able to even get up and navigate my way into the day, shakily and afraid, I felt like I knew what I had to do, and it felt like such a relief, and I was somewhat amazed, and then I sighed and my whole body relaxed. It had been a long time coming. Now the real work begins.

I will be continuing this practice of playing in my sketchbook before moving on to working on Maisie’s book, “Intuitive Play in the Sketchbook,” will now be an integral part of my work, and the art I am creating there is, for me, like an oracle card. Each day a new message will come, will guide me in the day’s work. I needn’t worry about how everything will turn out, I simply have to tend the work of the day and let it grow into what it was meant to be.

I don’t know how long it will take me to finish the above page, and it doesn’t matter. It will let me know when it has said all it needs to say, and I will go onto the next page. It’s not rocket science, it is the God given intuitive system that we are all born with. We simply have to get quiet, and listen, and let it guide us. And so I am.