Open Studio with Adam Ming

A writing exercise and planning a retreat

I’ve been doing a kind of free-writing exercise on at off.

I call it start with an image. What I do is i find an image from a magazine, collage paper, or sticker book, and stick it in the middle, and write around it. What it does is turn the page into a kind of terrain that the words need to navigate. I find the extra effort and the strangeness of the exercise occupies the monkey mind enough, that it forgets to censor and criticise enough that the writhing just flows.

In today’s example I used an image from ‘The Eclectic World of Julia Rothman: Sticker Book’ I use to work from a different book where I cut out the images, but I don’t know, there is something so satisfying about choosing and using stickers

Here’s an idea of what I get to choose from…

I’ll be honest, when I learned they were making a book of Julia Rothman drawings as stickers I was so jealous! I was also covetous, even now as I’m writing this, my 5 year old is going on and on reserving stickers for herself.

So imagine my delight when the publisher reached out to me to ask if I would like a copy to review! I think I would not be happier if they asked my to collect my own drawings to be turned into a book. It’s funny how happiness works.

I got these books in the mail, days later, courtesy of the publisher.

The sticker book is like a curated sketchbook, collage paper and sticker book in one. It’s a beautiful usable artifact. And a book of wrapping paper is pure genius, first because Julia’s art elevates any gift, and second because a book is a genius way to store wrapping paper, if you currently store any wrapping paper, you’ll know what I mean!

You may have guessed by now that I am a Julia Rothman fan, I’m also a fan of sketchbooks and icons, so it’s just been wild to get to share her work with you!

Deadlines, I have them…

And oh so many of them! I’m on the home stretch of a couple of books (please recommend some good podcasts and audio books to listen to while I work)

I went to bed last night so exhausted, but also satisfied, it’s one of the greatest pleasures in life to go to bed exhausted doing something you love.

Sketch for a picturebook

I’ve long days ahead colouring spreads, this is the fun part, it’s also lonely. It makes the time I spend with family so valuable. Also the time I spend writing things like this.

I’m planning a retreat, in real life

That is exciting, it’s like planning a holiday that some of you will take with me.

I’m calling it ‘Drawing playful picture stories’, the idea being that illustrations are picture stories whether it’s a postcard, a comic or a picturebook spread, pictures do the heavy lifting to tell a story.

I want to create an experience where participants tell a picture story with a character in different formats, I want you to experience this Medieval village in Portugal through the eyes of a character we’ll create together.

The retreat will run for 5 days and the 3 modules I’m covering are:

1. Discovering Story Moments, which is all about working with a sketchbook and moodboards

2. Bringing Characters to life, which is about techniques that you can start using at any level

3. Telling stories with pictures, the nuts and bolts of creating a picture story image

I’m going to use the opportunity of working with a group in the same place and time to do a lot of collaborative workshopping, but also give participants a chance to work on their own.

I’ve written thousands of posts and ‘known’ some of you for years, I’m really looking forward to the chance of meeting you in person and create some art together. I’ve also planned 2 unique keepsakes one that i will prepare for you in advance and one that we will produce together with no extra time.

And I’ll be offering each participant 1-1 office hours.

That’s the gist of it, I would love to hear your questions and thoughts about the content I have planned.

Finally, can I introduce you to Katja Stern who’s been a part of the community for 6 months, showing the results of her using the Ten Minute Visual Journal Method my free 5-day mini course to starting a creative practice in 10 minutes a day.

What are you working on? Write back!