February 12th, 2014

On January 29th I posted a blog about sketchbooks. Book By Its Cover has this
wonderful page where you can have a look into artist’s sketchbooks. Very inspiring.
Nonetheless filling those sketchbooks myself keeps being a challenge.
The blank page remains an obstacle. The content of the page still should be “perfect”
or at least good enough for others to see. Why can’t I just let go of that?
A sketchbook should be a little private place where an artist should feel total freedom
to do whatever they feel like.

Why can’t I just splatter my ink all over the pages, scribble relentlessly on top of the mess?
Why can’t I just experiment BIG?! I can’t think of any other reason but fear. Fear of making
ugly things, fear of losing control, fear of being found out? How will I ever know what I’m
capable of when I keep being scared? I won’t, it’s as simple as that and I had enough.

First step to overcome fear is to show you a page from my current sketchbook that I would
never show without being embarrassed. It was done after a dream I had. I used ink, pencil
and felt-tips.
I was not happy with the result and I stopped working like this right when I started.

Melissa, start experimenting, start making a mess!!