The paper in the Moleskine sketchbook is soft and lovely to touch, but it’s thin. I most often work on watercolor blocks or digitally, so it’s been a while since I had to worry about wrinkling and bleed through. The early decision I made about using Sharpie marker to trace line drawings into the book created the biggest challenge of the project.

The line drawings bled through to the back side of every page. I had a spread with a lizard, snake, frog or turtle followed by half of one animal and half of the next spread. It was like I had half a book of mutant creatures. How could I deal with this?

I committed to myself that I was going to work with whatever emerged. I was under time pressure. I’d just have to do the best I could. I tried a lot of different things using a variety of materials in layers on top of the mutants. Here are some of the solutions I came up with (click to see larger)

One of the hardest parts of these pages was deciding when to stop. I never felt they were completely resolved, so I was continuously tempted to add just one more layer or detail. In the end, it was the thin pages that began to dictate. I could only work back into them so much before they started to tear.

What do you do?

What does it take for you to see a challenge as a creative opportunity? When you are struggling for a solution how do you know when to stop?

Other posts about the Sketchbook Project

Embracing procrastination in a creative project

Sketchbook Project: Creating a base

Solving problems when short on time

Sketchbook Project: Putting it together

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In Embracing procrastination in a creative project, I talked about committing to letting go of perfection. After laying down my base layer for the pages in my Sketchbook project I had lots of second thoughts. I started to think about replacing the moleskine, or rebinding it with new pages. All of these options would slow me down or set me back several days. I only had a couple hours a day I could work on this for a couple of weeks. I had 100 pages to fill.

My usual behavior would have been to start filling the pages when I got it three months before. Then I would have had time to switch, change, redo. When I procrastinated starting, I lost that luxury. Instead I decided to:

• Accept what I did each step of the way
• Look at everything I did as a creative opportunity
• Work with what I had
• To redefine ‘mistake’ as just another problem to solve

Redefining acceptable

Once I decided to take this approach, all the rules I had in my head rushed to the surface. Ideas about what is cheating like using photographs instead of drawing from life. Or when it is acceptable to show others rough sketch work. Even what is acceptable subject matter to be taken seriously.

Where was all of this coming from? All the memories from critiques in art school. I have been working on letting all of that go for almost 30 years. I was amazed at how much was still there. I started to see I had come up with my own rules to hold down their rules. In reality, I was responsible for all of it. All I had to do was to redefine what was OK and let it go. It could transform in an instant.

Ok, so it could transform in an instant, and I would have to practice doing it a few times. I should know by now that my art is a doorway to the deep. I’m grateful I can observe the process and keep moving at this point in my life.

Getting out of my own way

	Deciding on some basic structure really helped keep this project moving. I decided to approach the pages as spreads with a reptile or amphibian coded with a piece of the message I was sending in secret code (the theme of my book) on every other set of pages.
	I did a quick image search on Google to find a bunch of photos. I imported them into Photoshop, added a layer, and traced around the basic shapes. I printed out the lines drawings and used Sharpie markers to trace them into my sketchbook.

I had a few challenges along the way. My light table is buried somewhere in the garage, and I had nowhere near enough time to address that, so I had to remember to trace the images during the day when I could use my studio window. Seems easy, except that the days are pretty short this time of year and I was doing most of this in the evenings. I also noticed the markers were bleeding through the paper. This would create some interesting creative challenges later.

After getting the basic shapes down I started adding the codes. I used Morse code since it has more meaning for me than others. [My husband is a ham radio operator/designer, so I proposed to him by beading the request in Morse code.] I like that while not everyone can read it, there is a sprinkling of people everywhere who actually speak to each other in this code regularly.

Working in layers

My first goal was to get something on most of the pages. This way if I ran out of time I could send the sketchbook in and  no one would really know if any page was finished or not. I worked back and forth on the different images with layers of different media. Sometimes I was using things that would dissolve with Citra-solv other times they would be water soluble. This turned out to be harder to keep track of than anticipated and created lots and lots of things that I could easily label as mistakes. Except I had committed to reframe them. So they turned out to be the things that pushed me to try new things, new ways to make the messes work. Some were more successful than others, all of them flexed my creative muscles in new ways.

Here is a selection of those pages. You can click on them to see them larger. I added my overall secret message to the world on some of these pages in a variety of different kinds of codes.

What is the difference between a mistake and a creative opportunity?

I started to see mistakes as the pessimistic side of the more optimistic creative opportunity. Deciding to experiment with this for this project, I got better at embracing what was happening on the very thin pages. I watched how I can be my own worst enemy and harshest critic. Even though I have been teaching and preaching acceptance of all this for a long time, there were remnants of these mean thoughts in my mind around every corner. The saying you teach what you need to learn most rang true.

What do you do when you do something you judge as bad or wrong? Can you turn it around? How do you do it?

Other posts about the Sketchbook Project

Embracing procrastination in a creative project

Sketchbook Project: Creating a base

Greeting challenge with creativity

Sketchbook Project: Putting it together

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As I mentioned in Embracing procrastination in a creative project, I delayed starting to work on my Sketchbook Project until three weeks before the deadline. I was determined not to make this a crisis, but rather embrace producing what I could in the time I had.

Citra-solv transfers

I have been playing with melting magazine photos with Citra-solv then scanning then into the computer and using it as a background for drawing. Just as I was starting to wonder what I was going to do for my sketchbook, a new video appeared on the Citra-solv facebook page showing how I could transfer images I printed on my laser printer.

	I was just back from The Canvas Art Bar where I created a small painting that has a mask like feel to it. I scanned it into the computer and mirrored it in each quadrant. I then printed it out on the laser printer.
	I decided to use Citra-solv to transfer the image into the centerfold of the sketchbook. I folded the laser print in half so it would lay better into the sketchbook with the printed side toward the paper. I then painted Citra-solv onto the back of the image and rubbed it with the back of a spoon.
	The transfer had the worn look I was looking for, but not as much vibrancy as I wanted. Later in the process I worked back into the image with metallic pigments mixed into Gum Arabic.

Next I decided to use one of the Citra-solv melted backgrounds I had scanned in. I’ve been fascinated by reptiles and amphibians for a long time, and I’ve always had a sense that they carry secrets. So I decided to use them to hold part of the message I was sending into the world.

	I drew the outline of the lizard on a new layer in Photoshop. Underneath that I colored in the lizard and painted patterns. Not exactly a quick process. I coded the my overall message in the background and the specific page code on the lizards back.
	I printed out the image, flipped it over, painted the Citra-solv on the back, and rubbed across with the back of the spoon. Good thing there are mirror codes, so when I forgot to print the image out in reverse, I could embrace the reversal as another level of code. The first of a series of opportunities to let go of perfection.
	I certainly got a worn look, but it was really hard to read. I also lost the detail in the lizard which would be fine, except it took a long time to draw, and now you couldn't see it. The code was particularly hard to see, so I drew into it with Sharpie marker, which the Citra-solv partially dissolved. I ended up coloring back into this image with colored pencils to add back some contrast.

Then, I ran out of laser toner. Next solution?

I thought I would try to use a combination between melting magazine photos and the transfer technique to lay backgrounds right into the sketchbook. I coated the pages of a National Geographic and waited. This time instead of creating interesting patterns, it just loosened up the ink a bit.

	Apparently the magazine was too old. The process works better with magazines less than ten years old, and the ones I tried were from the mid 90's. Since I had a Citra-solv soaked magazine I thought I'd just start rubbing it on the pages of the sketchbook anyway.
	I decided to embrace the randomness of the patterns, and just go with it. It did create a worn kind of look. And it was a way to get something on a lot of pages fast. After I finished I had a moment of panic. What kind of mess did I just make? And what was I going to do with it?

One good thing, the Citra-solv made the sketchbook smell like oranges.

Other posts about the Sketchbook Project

Embracing procrastination in a creative project

Solving problems when short on time

Greeting challenge with creativity

Sketchbook Project: Putting it together

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I’m working on a new series of tools for personal and professional development. To be the first to know about them and introductory specials, sign up to be on the Early Explorer list.

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The Brooklyn Art Library created the 2011  Sketchbook Project . Over 28,000 artists received Moleskine sketchbooks which were to be filled based on a theme. I requested ‘raining cats and dogs.’ I got ‘secret codes.’ So instead of getting to work when I received it, I sulked and didn’t do anything with it.

Fast forward, it’s three weeks before the Jan 15, 2011 deadline and my book is blank. I still had lots of work to do for my company as well as all the usual holiday gatherings. I needed to figure out how to do something quick and dirty.

Finding something to spark my interest

I used holiday gatherings as an opportunity to gather ideas for how I could approach this idea. I borrowed some books on secret codes. I was still all over the place. I needed an overarching idea so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore and just get started.

I decided to play with this question;

What is the most important message to send out into the world?

And then it was clear. It’s all in the book in secret code. I’m ambivalent about telling you here, since it kind of wrecks the secret part. Maybe later in the series or leave me a comment and I’ll tell you on email.Or you could figure out the codes……

Letting go of anything remotely resembling perfection

There weren’t a lot of rules about what to do from the organization, but I had a lot of rules in my head about what I thought was acceptable or not. However, due to my procrastination in starting, I didn’t have time to follow them. Instead, I decided to go for a worn messy sketchy look, which is not my usual style.

The sketchbook pages were really thin, so none of my usual very wet watercolor techniques would work, the paper simply would not stand up to them. I decided to use it as an opportunity to branch out and actually use the pile of other art materials on my shelf. And to embrace experimentation and exploration of a range of ideas.

Layers, layers, and more layers

I don’t often do art work under pressure. It’s more often a relaxing treat. I found myself remembering the skills I used to produce tons of work in short order when I was in art school. It was actually very freeing. There was no time for agonizing, I just needed to keep moving.

There were a lot of things that might be considered errors that I needed to embrace and integrate. I worked with a lot of media, and they would dissolve each other at times. As I built up layer on layer, I started to see how it related to the theme of secret codes. The theme started growing on me. I began to make friends with it and play with more aspects of it.

Learning from procrastination

I don’t think procrastination will suddenly become my modus operandi, but I did learn a lot from the experience. I had to let go of the execution details, and embrace the core idea. When I work in my regular ways, I can get into a rut and just produce without reaching deeper into my creativity. I had to use my visual problem solving skills in unusual ways.

What do you do when you don’t leave as much time as you wished you had? Do you embrace the reality of what you have and work with in it, or fight it all the way? I think this project showed me it is possible to go with the flow and not fight with myself on top of the time limit. After all, it’s a creative project, it can be fun.

Pictures of the sketchbook coming soon.

Other posts about the Sketchbook Project

Sketchbook Project: Creating a base

Solving problems when short on time

Greeting challenge with creativity

Sketchbook Project: Putting it together

---

I like to hear your comments and stay in touch.
I’m working on a new series of tools for personal and professional development. To be the first to know about them and introductory specials, sign up to be on the Early Explorer list.

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