What I Learned on Break

Some flower sketches done over my break.

This post is about some of the things I learned while I took a 3 week blogging break.

About Breaks in General:

• Short term breaks are good for you. A few weeks ago, I was totally out of ideas and figured I'd never have another. Now, I'm ready to blog, keen to blog, and I have ideas. Even enjoyable things can become a drudgery and a break from them is helpful.
• You don't want to be on break forever. Three weeks is about my limit. If I was still on break, I'd be grumpy that I hadn't written a post.
  

About My Art:

• Sketching. I really enjoyed grabbing my sketchbook when I had five minutes and just drawing whatever was in front of me. I had no goals or objectives in mind, I just wanted to enjoy the process of drawing again. It also gets easier to just dive in when you are drawing several times a day.
• Coloring. Honestly, it was good for me to get away from fussing about with color for a few weeks - just graphite sketching, with one or two spots of pen and ink. I'm ready to come back and dive in to color again.
• Ideas. While I was in "just sketch for fun" mode my brain worked out some ideas, particularly some ideas about style. I've studiously been trying to not worry over style for a few months now - clearly I was getting nowhere. Then, one day, just sketching and relaxing...BOOM...ideas starting pouring forth.
• Organization. Well, I'm not sure if it's organization or attention to detail, but I found myself lacking. Some of my break coincided with a family holiday...I did not purchase a particular item before I left that I desperately wanted on the trip and I left a sketchbook on an airplane (without info in it.) I'm still kicking myself about those things! :-)
  

About Blogging:

• People. I really missed my virtual friends while I was away. In many ways, it felt a little lonely (at least for art conversation.)
• Reading. I glanced at my reader a few times, but did not keep up on blogs for the three weeks. Even though it is a slow time for blogs, I still had over 400 entries. Considering how much time it would take to read everything through, I decided to skim many, delete others, and just read over my favorites. That process has made me think that I need to reconsider how much time I spent reading blogs. Maybe I am oversubscribed. Maybe I just need to read my favorites and ditch the rest...not sure about that, but I am thinking about it. (BTW, I still have not fully caught up!)
• Writing. I missed thinking about art issues and writing about them.

In short, I missed you all terribly and I'm ready to dive in!