Taking Flight

One of the ways I am helping myself face that fear of the blank page I wrote about yesterday is by participating in The Sketchbook Challenge, which encourages me to try to draw things.  It's something I've always wanted to be able to do and usually avoid but now I have begun and it's not going too badly, although there is a whole lot of erasing going on as well.  But that's okay.  It's the practice that is important.

I also signed up for an online course called Art Journal 52, taught by a woman named Sherrie JD.  You can read about it here:  Art Journal 52 info.  It's a weekly tutorial on techniques.  Last week's exercise involved a couple of videos of Sherrie painting and doing a little bit of drawing. It's a great way to teach because she talks us through what she's doing as she does it.  The idea is that we will then go off and try it on our own.

Which is exactly what I did and here is my finished result:

The birds in flight are a Tim Holtz stamp but everything else is drawn or painted by yours truly.  I got the quote (attributed to be a Chinese proverb) off the Internet and I thought it was perfect for the start of the class, as I feel like we are spreading our wings and taking flight in turns of our artwork by signing up for this class.