blogging, writing

Functional Sketching

Forestwood

Hi I’ve always had a yearning to sketch.

As a young child, at times in my teens, and now in semi retirement, I find great joy in sketching. Sketching doesn’t have to be perfect.

Sketching is almost a semi conscious activity. I let the pencil, or pen, do the work and don’t think too much about what I am doing.

In that way I find it is relaxing and therapeutic.

Sometimes it works ans sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.

I’ve been making some sketches with a view to decorating a few basic Calico shopping bags.

Re-useable bags are going to be around from now on and they’re a great way to reduce our use of plastics.

I added a little colour to one of them as a gift to a neighbour. Asking her what her favorite colour was and then adding a little dry brushed/watercoloured style gouache, here and there.

I then heat set it with a hot iron.

What do you think?

From the Home by the sea.

Published by Forestwood

A philosophic Aussie writes here at StPA, one who will readily admit to loving Scandinavia. I'm interested in global politics and what drives us to be who we are. Scratch the surface and you'll find a practical Environmentalist with an egalitarian bent, trying to unleash a little creativity via the written word. Scandinavian culture, literature and traditions are close to my heart, even though I'm Australian. Travel and courteous discussions greatly broaden the mind, so I travel if I can and am always up for a vigorous, respectful discussion. I'm an avid reader, I enjoy photography and craft, particularly traditional art forms. I hope you'll find 'Something to Ponder About,' in my WordPress Community.

21 thoughts on “Functional Sketching”

  3. Great bags. Unfortunately here they are only using plastic bags during this pandemic 😦 I hope to start using my own soon. On the plus side, I do use plastic bags for used kitty litter and coffee grounds, so, although they still end up as more plastic in the landfill, they do make it to the landfill and are used more than once…

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    1. That is a good use of plastic, Trent, firstly to use it more than once and to use it for rubbish like litter and coffee grounds. I think you can put coffee grounds in a compost heap, if you have one?
      It seems crazy to deliberately buy plastic plastic rubbish bags just for trash, when we have so many our homes and environment already, that we could re-purpose for this use. I understand that there is a lot of disposable plastic waste at the moment, because of Covid 19, but here, in Australia, we are still relying on folks to bring their own bags into stores, for shopping. I think there is a alight trend back to wrapped packaged goods, like fruit and vegetables as well. Which is understandable and hopefully, only temporary.
      I will pop over to check out your coffee share for this week.

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      1. I don’t have a compost system yet, but want to set one up this year – I throw away too much vegetable matter! The biggest thing with plastic is to try to keep it out of the environment and to reuse as much as possible.

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      2. Absolutely, I agree on the plastics. It is fairly easy to set up a compost. If you don’t have a garden, there are compost containers you can use. I love to return all my veges scraps to the earth.
        There might also be a community garden near you, that utilizes vegetable scraps?

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      4. Yes – there is also a portable tiered product called a worm farm. It is a different way to compost , collecting the worm tailings and juice from vege scraps. You then use both these directly on your garden. That’s probably much easier in some ways and much faster.

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  7. I’ve tried drawing but it’s not where any breathe of talent lays for me. We are still using our own bags here to purchase groceries but the baggers or checkers are not allowed to touch them so now we must bag our own groceries too. Gets a little tricky with people waiting behind you so it’s best not to get much at once. Or when my daughter and I go together, I put the groceries up on the conveyor belt to be priced and she bags them while I pay. Seems fair to me, right. 😉 I have more bags than I’ll ever need for anything and my daughter had plenty too. But drawing is good therapy for many. I always had to mangle tracing to do my painting projects. Enjoy.

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    1. Tracing is a good way to start drawing, for those who do want to develop that skill. And I understand that it may not be worth it for you as it does take time. For the likes of those who do want to try, I can vouch for this as I did it too. Tracing begins to get your mind to think artistically, using negative spaces and shapes rather than named items or parts of items. This taps into the right side of the brain which is the side that helps us to draw better. The next step is copying patterns or objects that are drawn by someone else. This is also for those not naturally inclined. After some time, the brain will learn to be more confident with the pencil, the muscle memory will slowly develop and new ideas might form as they are drawing ( or copying). I began with slight adjustments to patterns, and then progressed to drawing originals. It is a process and a technique I guess. But it took me a couple of years before I produced anything I liked. Tracing is still great hand therapy too!
      The supermarkets are following the same rule here. We bag our own! And the Moth does the bagging and I pack the belt. His choice, though! Stay well!

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I love a good discussion. What do you have to say?

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