A New Day. A New Year. A New Name.

I stopped to talk to a friend just the other day and we were talking of how I started sketching.  I never felt I could draw much, but I have found the more you do it, the better you become.  I first began to think maybe I could do this drawing thing, during the few months I lived in the Peace House.  It was a house where students could rent a room, about half were international and half were from the United States.  I only stayed there for 3 months, sharing a room with my sister while I finished the last of my student clinical work.  In the evenings I had a lot of free time because I didn't really have any homework, so I would fill my evenings with reading to the neighbor kids, doing puzzles, and shooting baskets in the backyard.  One day, I found a package of art pastels in a cupboard in the kitchen/dining room and asked if I could use them.  They had been left there by a family who had lived there before and left a some months before I came and the new caretakers didn't think they would mind if I used them, so I began to spend my afternoons sitting at my sister's desk, looking out the window and sketching anything I could think of.  Inspired by something I saw or something that happened that day and I found I really enjoyed it.

I kept it up some once I left the Peace House, but soon I was working full time and finding many other things to fill my time, until about 4 years ago.  Over the years between I had still found great joy in art supplies and frequently tried out different things and recently had gotten a box of watercolors with a water brush.  I took it with me when I went on vacation to Upper Peninsula Michigan and one afternoon, I decided to try to sketch/paint the sailboat at the dock and it struck me, that was fun, I should do that more. And thus began my sketching and watercolor.

And now four years later, I am pondering just stepping back from my job for a year and spending some focused time sketching.  Not trying to use it as a job but just to spend time enjoying the process and sharing joy with others.  I don't know exactly what I am doing, it takes a bit of faith, but if I am brave enough and maybe crazy enough to take that step, I am excited to know what adventure I will find.  So for the next month my plan is to post a sketch from the past 4 years on my blog for A to Z Blogging Challenge.  In honor of this I am changing the name of my blog-it may change again but since this is April and not November, and sketching not writing, I felt a change was appropriate --however I am not changing the web address, just the title of the blog, so long live the nano rebel!

The sketch I added today is one from over 20 years ago, made with those pastels I found forgotten in the cupboard.