June Botanical Sketch a Day & Finishing Things

Botanical Sketch a Day, June 2012
Tombo Makers, Sharpie Pen, Sakura Gelly Roll Pens

I started this sketch-a-day in June but just finished it last night.  One of my areas to work on:
I start a project or challenge with great gusto and get distracted by another shiny project or idea
and leave the previous project unfinished.  This is not just with art projects but also weight loss
plans, reorganizing plans, and the list goes on, throughout my life. 

I do need to acknowledge myself for completing my BFA and extensive graduate work
(three Masters) while admitting it took me from 1969 until 1988 to complete the BFA (sigh).
The masters were easier--two (or three) years, easier in some ways.  But think I am a sprinter
and not a distance runner.  That makes it sound so...athletic, doesn't it?  Chasing whatever leaps
or dazzles within eye shot has meant that I have often been confounded by narrowing down
my intended destination.

Images and ideas excite and inflame me!  New art techniques and materials are akin, for me,
what others gain from that expensive new purse or pair of heels.  Me, just show me a pretty or
intriguing flower, leaf, fruit, seed and I'm in artist heaven.  Don't know what it is about color,
curve, line, texture, that seductive negative space and shape. 

My life is heaven and hell, the pain of forgotten things, unpaid bills, unfinished things, living
space messes; the ecstasy of being a witness to beauty and the pleasure of noting my visual
impression of what I experience.  I haven't given up on learning to steer a little straighter
on my path, but I have to quote one of my favorite contemporary artists, in a CBS interview
series "Notes to My Younger Self": "I am confident that no artist has more pleasure, day in
and day out, than I do".  I believe that what you say is true, Chuck, but ME TOO.

I've provided this link before in this blog, but think it is worth repeating, in case you did not get
around to  viewing it.  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7404806n