This is the anxious face.
She is a shy girl who always wants to try new sketches from daily encounters. Steadily and silently, the time has come to the busiest final weeks of the spring semester. And, I find it more difficult to explore Vancouver within limited time to share with you.
Since I continued to build up this website, I have been watching a lot of YouTubes (e.g.tutorials, TEDtalks, music) that would inspire myself to create something meaningful. And, often, that is not the case. Speaking of ‘Inspiration‘, I found a familiar, truthful TEDtalk on YouTube to share new ideas of Elizabeth Gilbert. Take a rest and listen to the talk, please.
The concept I learned form her speech: ‘Show up and do your job’. When things do not go the way we expect after the ‘Effort’, we have to stay at our position to do our job. This means: keeping writing nonsense, sketching whatever, thinking wild, reading backwards, singing out loud …… Whatever that would be, it is important that we all stay on the tracks we dream of. More or less, I am suggesting our routines (writing for small sections of newspaper/ magazines, volunteering, even just swimming). There are so many little things that could make us so happy everyday.
Me?! I sketch whatever whenever I could. Hmm… I should readdress here; I meant ‘sketching whatever whenever I feel the need to’ as a daily routine. Keep myself busy and be familiar with my brushes and pencils everyday. This is my goal. Another recent example, I started to illustrate for The Peak, Simon Fraser University based newspaper. I would take whatever assigned images based on weekly articles as challenge. It is small thing, but it is something I can participate and feel good about it. Fear and anxiety would always be ahead of us, I find. e.g. There are group projects, finals papers to hand in, and I don’t even sure what I am thinking/ proposing would be working/ successful. I have adjusted my mental state; the only thing we could do is to keep doing our jobs, continue to expect the most of ourselves.
I sketched my school’s bookstore. A corner that is filled with Fairtrade products from other countries. Mostly, they are handmade products such as pencil bags, small pouches for coins/ cards, tote bags etc. Bookstore is always a good spot to sketch. 1) They are colourful. So you could just pick interested corner, and sketch accordingly. 2) People. You could always sketch people that are moving fairly slowing in this kind of area (I know what it is like to sketch people in the streets; lord, mostly impossible for me) 3) Accessories. Often, bookstores would include many things that attract people to come in, but not necessarily a sales point. Pencils, notebooks, bags and extra weird stuff would always keep you as sketchers busy.
Keep busy,
show up and do your jobs.
I am sure we could always feel something different that pushes us to move forward, and accomplish something. The inspiration is based on our routines.
