I think most of you know that I’m based in the UK right now, and one of the things that’s been up front in my day to day is the way summer sort of sneaks up on you here. I’m from Massachusetts, and have lived most of my adult life in NYC & Philadelphia, and it gets hot in those places in summer….here it sort of feels like this lovely forever spring. I really love it, but also, I can’t believe it’s July already!
In terms of sketch booking, it’s felt a bit all over the place, but when I look back to put together this post I can really see some things emerging. I had some tests and things in hospital last week, and so my sketchbook varied from the abstract lines above to desperately trying to find something to look at and draw below:
When I was in hospital last fall, drawing my room and some of the spaces and things were a good way for me to keep my mind and body busy when I couldn’t really do anything. This visit was shorter and I wasn’t in a room of my own. There were lots of people there I would have liked to draw, but I felt like it just wasn’t the place to do it (or ask). And then I got an IV in my left wrist and all drawing was stopped :(
But then this week, I got to attend some lectures in a conference at my uni that they call the Festival of Learning (!). Here are the first few drawings from a talk about student advising:
I had a lot of trouble connecting to the the talk…I usually write words and use pictures that connect to the meaning of the talk, but all I could do was make patterns. The talk was hard to get into for me….
But then all of a sudden I started having responses to what the speaker was saying…not notes, but my own thoughts and feelings about the topic.
It was really cool to feel like I just kept moving during the listening, and then—Boom! All of a sudden I was writing down responses and my own ideas. It felt like that’s how it should be….not just recording what the other person was saying, but developing my own ideas around the same topic…what do you think? Have you ever found note taking to be like that?
I also did a talk at the Festival of Learning, and I’ll share more about my presentation and workshop next week :)
Enjoy the sunshine out there, and if it’s raining I hope you find beauty in that as well.