These daily sketches are in no particular order - just a random choice. The silver bridge is a lovely sweeping arch, one of three bridges in our little town.

This is the model I have made for the fetal mold, which will be cast in handmade paper.  I will use latex mold compound.

HAIKU
My child is woman,
Mother to her baby-child
My mother, child-like.

Although the sketching challenge is unrelated in subject matter to the main body of images and sculptures that I am working on, the exercise is helpful anyway.  These are very quick, most being finished in less than 15 minutes.  They are purposely limited to the view out our second floor apartment window which is of the main street in our town.  Everyone, sooner or later, passes under this window.

November 7, 2009
Earlier this year (2009), I participated in a remarkable, week long workshop attended by seven other women and mentored by Dorothy Field, a poet and writer, paper maker, sculptor and world traveller.   We were each searching for a new direction, or a strengthening of the direction we had already found ourselves heading.  From this time at Metchosin Summer School of the Arts, which was spent at Pearson College of the Pacific, I found a part of me that I thought I had lost.
During the workshop, I was greatly encouraged to explore a motif that has been part of my life for many years.  The elements of dreams, of sleep, of birth and death all seemed to be tied together for me and have, within the last ten years or so manifested themselves in a tiny, fetal form.  I began playing with a large Hake brush and gorgeous indigo watercolour paint.  The strokes evoked the motif and so I began to pursue it with great enthusiasm.  This idea is evolving into sculptural forms and will, eventually become an installation.
In order to keep a certain lightness and flow, I have also begun to answer a challenge put to me by my good friend, Sue.  The challenge is, a sketch a day for a month, no matter what.  I am presently at day 20 and have struggled through boredom, lack of motivation - every nasty little trick of those voices in my head.  But I still persevere!
This blog will be my method of documenting the process.  I hope to be honest, even when it hurts!  But, it will also motivate me to know I have made a commitment to others, and will not be so easily broken.
And so, it begins...