Monday Evening with New Markers

Yesterday, instead of taking a lunch break, I went to the art supply store.  I wanted to buy 12 more markers--I have nothing in the red/yellow/orange range.

I may be done buying markers for awhile.  I wanted to buy 12, since they are steeply discounted at that rate--I had trouble finding/choosing the last 2 markers.  I now have a good variety of colors.  My first group of markers that I bought had all dark colors--hard to write words on top of dark colors, and that's been appealing to me.

Last night, we ate our supper on the front porch.  I feel like these days of spectacular weather are numbered and that we should take advantage of them.

My spouse wanted to practice his violin--he's got a lot of songs to practice for Sunday.  I read more of My Life in Middlemarch, and then I wanted to play with my markers.  Here's the final image:

I began by making big swooshes with the new colors.  Then I filled in the swooshes and made a variety of other shapes.  I used all of the Copic markers that I have.

The words are from 2 of the songs that my spouse played.  I love the idea of being a blessed and pilgrim people, although it requires a skill of living with uncertainty that I don't yet have.

I kept filling in the white spaces as darkness fell.  I also had about 10 minutes of sketching with the porch light on at the end--but the porch light makes it much too buggy.

In the end, I'm torn--part of me thinks that the sketch is too busy, and part of me likes the frantic energy.

For more on the sketch that I did on Sunday while our pastor preached his sermon, see this post on my theology blog.

I am interested in the ways that this type of journaling is both similar and different from journaling I've done before and journaling that I do regularly.  It is more symbolic.  When I journal with words, I'm looking to explain, to explore, to tease out meaning.  I may be doing the same with sketching, but it feels more like writing poetry than journaling.

But it's also similar.  It's a way of marking the days. 

It's too early to know if I will go back and remember things I wouldn't ordinarily remember, but I think that visual journaling will have that effect the same way that journaling with words does.

One thing that I do know is that I am enjoying this immensely.  It's similar to painting, but with less mess, less clean up--and thus, I'm more likely to do it, even if I don't have a big expanse of time.

What will I create with these 24 markers?  Stay tuned!