16 Comments
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Emma Cavill's avatar

Love this idea, Adam. Looking back on my first few sketchbooks this is really what they were - somewhere along the way I have lost that as perfectionism and overthinking takes over! I’m going to follow along and get back into this - thanks for the inspiration. :)

Adam Ming's avatar

Thanks Emma, as visual people it’s easy to be influenced by all the pretty pictures we see on social media, but if you go to museums or watch documentaries, you’ll often find the messy scribbles where things originate from… and that aside, just the permission to play is so underrated!

LizzyCash's avatar

Well Santa left me a cute sketchbook in my stocking and I was so intimidated to do a sketch in it.

Thanks for this gift from you!

I’ve recently retired and have dabbled with drawing and doing watercolor paintings and am enjoying learning techniques but am definitely intimidated. This artist diary is going to be just for my eyes and the creative side of my mind and we shall see what may transpire from there. Or not. Either way is good because it’s my diary!

Adam Ming's avatar

You can write down how you feel intimidated (and maybe excited) in your artist diary, and maybe draw a picture to go with it.

At the end of the book you can draw another one and say how you feel then!

Elizabeth Page's avatar

Thank you!!! ☺️🎨🖌️📚

Adam Ming's avatar

My pleasure Elisabeth

Cobalt Blu's avatar

So funny that this showed up today! I have been looking through my old sketchbooks/planners and have enjoyed seeing the images and writing snippets that were important at the time. I just pulled out a brand new Beechmore journal (green hardcover- serendipitous) and am ready! I

am one of the creatives hanging by a thread…so…

Adam Ming's avatar

Colleen Serendipitous indeed! Keep hanging on!

Soundarya Soundararajan's avatar

Thank you. Started my artist diary today (or realized I already have one) 🙌

Dayna Robinson's avatar

I guess I started doing this a couple of months ago in a different way. I called it my artist codex, haha. But I made it complicated by having different sections for things and I've started over, like 4 times, cause my ADHD brain needs it just right. But reading this (and I already read Day 2)...I'm going to stick with what I have and keep going.

Thanks for this!

Val Stark's avatar

I appreciate this so much Adam! I’ve always had an artist’s heart. But having little raw talent and being very practical chose another profession. I’ve just retired and am just now ready to call myself an artist. Your thoughts here will be so very helpful to make that lifelong desire a lifestyle! Thanks so much.

kinkarobotina's avatar

Love this idea! So stoked!!

LizzyCash's avatar

Yes!!! Great idea. Thanks again.

Julie's avatar

This is terrific! Any chance you can link your MUJI notebook? Can it handle watercolor washes or do you just use pen/pencil? Thanks!

Adam Ming's avatar

Hi Julie,

Here’s a link to the notebook I use.

https://www.muji.com/my/products/cmdty/detail/4550002469238

It handled a layer of watercolor, i don’t know if it will do more than that

On Day 3 I’ll invite people to a chat to say hello, share their notebooks and discuss other aspects of their artist diary

Julie's avatar

Thank you!