I’ve been reading You Are Here, by Jenny Lawson… each night I read and admire a few pages of her artwork… I don’t want to binge read it because I am being inspired by her artwork. Her art is kinda like Zentangle, but she learned these patterns long ago and has been using them since she was young as art therapy for her mental illness of depression and anxiety. Jenny Lawson has two other books (Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, Furiously Happy) that I really enjoyed.  Those weren’t art books, but I found them to be funny and a look inside the mind of someone with depression. I find myself going to her blog often, because I love the way she writes and always brings a smile to my face. She is indeed an inspiration for finding light when you are surrounded by darkness.

I was really drawn to one pattern in particular, and it looks like I’m obsessed with it at the moment. It is kinda like Hollibaugh but with more lines which are straight, some of which tend to come together in the distance if you want them to.  Also for some reason I keep drawing this flower that starts with a spiral and sorta looks like a daisy, I drew it on my husband’s mug one morning and then it kept showing up on my tiles…

I’ve also been playing around with a brush pen, that gets thicker when you press harder and thinner when you lighten your stroke… the pen is typically used for brush lettering, I’ve been using it to emphasize certain lines.

I had an idea to use a white gel pen to lighten some of my lines where I imagined my light source to be, then thicker black in the shadows…

Until next time…
~nic