Recently, I started sharing updates and behind-the-scenes looks at the various creative projects I’m working on: writing, painting, photography, whatever works I happen to have in progress. It’s probably going to take a couple of tries before I figure out the format, but you can expect to see these Sketchbook posts on the last Monday of each month. Love it? Hate it? Have something else you’d like to see? Tell me what you think!
Writing is still going surprisingly well. I’ve mostly been focussing on one scene-that-turned-into-a-short-story (it still fits within the universe of the other writing I’ve been doing, but it stands on its own better than it slides into the rest of the story), but I’m making progress on the story as a whole, too. Though I still haven’t gotten round to, you know, outlining the thing. And I need to do that soon; the ideas are growing faster than I can keep up with them, and I need to put them in some sort of order or the whole thing’s going to turn into a mess.
I haven’t been painting much this month (though I did buy the canvas for the giant piece I’ve been thinking about), but I have started actively drawing again. It’s been a few years since I really put any effort into drawing (before this recent work, the last page in my sketchbook was dated ‘2009’, so…) but I’ve been feeling the lack, lately. I want to move beyond the semi-abstract paintings I’ve been doing, I want to be able to storyboard some of the photo projects I’m thinking about—hell, I’ve got a weirdly-ambitious video project rolling around in my head, and I need storyboards for that before I even think about starting it.
Of course, since it’s been so long since I put any real effort into drawing, I’m kind of rusty. I’m back in skill-building mode, and trying to approach things the same way I’ve been doing with my writing: take it easy, try not to be too much of a perfectionist, and trusting that, eventually, I’ll be ready to tackle some of the projects that I’m so excited about.
Reghan Skerry 