Sketching inspired my prior career. I have drawn and doodled since I was a child. I was an enthusiastic, but not necessarily skilled drawer, illustrator, or painter. However, I was able to quickly simplify, abstract, and express ideas in simple, loose sketches. 

This ability allowed me to explore many creative options and varied ideas quickly. And to spark an idea for a client in a quick napkin sketch that gave them confidence in an otherwise imaginary end result buried deep in my brain. 

While I admired other artists’ sketches and development processes, it was many years before I acknowledged that my sketches were an art form in and of themselves. This began a journey of daily sketch journals that I value so much they are stored in a fireproof safe. Not only is a sketch journal faster than a written journal for me, the sketches immediately unlock emotion and memories when revisited years later. 

Counterintuitively, COVID was a complete disruption to my sketch journaling habit. Though there was even more time, the inspirations for my sketching had mostly been from our travels, my work and social interactions, and life events that ground to a halt. I look forward to restarting this practice. 

Inspirations: Life, a blank page.