Sketching for the Second Half

7/27/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolors, Hand Book sketchbook

Journal writing is a habit I acquired from my mother. Seeing her write daily with a fountain pen in Japanese since I was very young, it seemed like a natural thing to do. Since third grade when my journal was a red leatherette diary kept closed with a lock and key, I’ve been documenting my thoughts, feelings and experiences with words (a practice I still keep, though no longer with a book locked shut). When I read old journals now, I’m not necessarily impressed with profound, diligently documented thoughts, but I’m convinced that the regular practice of writing made me a better writer in general.

When I started sketching, I was 52. Now I’m 53, and in the past 11 months I’ve sketched nearly every day and filled several sketchbooks. Sometimes I think about the hundreds (thousands?) of sketches I could have made during those five decades I’ve already lived and how interesting it would be to look through those sketchbooks now. I know it’s “never too late” to start any new practice, but I can’t help feeling some regret that I didn’t start sketching sooner. If writing regularly in a journal helped to improve my writing, imagine how much better my drawing skills would be now if I had been drawing all that time! And more important, imagine how much more I would have seen in my everyday life.

I often feel like I have to make up for lost time – sketch now as much as I can for the next five decades (my parents were both in their 90s when they passed away, so it’s possible). ‘Bye – gotta go. I have things to see.

8/1/12, F-C Pitt Artists Pen, watercolor, S & B sketchbook