Well, the starting pistol has gone off, and I’m still sat here, procrastinating, allowing myself to be distracted, doing anything other than what I should be concentrating on: producing something for the pop-up show. My problem with deadlines is that I tend to ignore them until the very last minute – goal driven, that’s me.

What, with thinking about the pop-up and trying to come up with an inspirational text for Tuesday’s session, I’m feeling just the tiniest bit sick. I would say that I have stuck my head in the sand but apparently that’s a popular misconception: when they sense danger and cannot run away, ostriches will flop to the ground and remain still, attempting to blend in with the terrain – that sounds just about right!

Anyway, following on from my ‘Less’ post, I’ve been thinking about working with a limited palette and how it narrows choice. Using a pen narrows choice even further – just black and white and nothing much else in between. Using a pen forces you to think about mark-making in order to create tonal values and areas of interest. So, I’ve been using my time constructively by doodling with a pen in my sketchbook whilst listening to an audio book – who says I can’t multi-task!

I found the process of mark-making to be meditative and grounding, totally different from the anticipation of putting ink onto wet paper and waiting to see what happens. Strangely, I like it. I think I am a person of extremes: I’m either fastidiously tidy or chaotically messy; organised or haphazard; focused in on the minutiae or just wanting to see the bigger picture. Somehow I have to find a path along which both sides of me are satisfied.

I will definitely use pen again, if only as a way to order my thoughts. Going forward I think I should try to build up a bank of possible marks, almost like a painter might have a bank of colour swatches. Having said that, I’m mindful that I’ve still got to do a few things to which I’ve committed in earlier posts, so I think I need to embark on some self-accountability first.