the poop saga
It all started when I was visiting my sister this spring in Calgary. She and her husband had just welcomed baby number two in February and were gearing up for the task of toilet training their two-year-old daughter. There was a LOT of talk about poop: how normal it is, how everybody poops. It was like a little mantra repeated throughout the day to normalize poop because, if you’ve had kids, you know that they can get a bit weird when it comes to number twos.
How does this relate to art making, you might be asking yourself? Well, art imitates life, right? That’s what they always say? I found myself with a new, cute af pink 4.5x4.5” Talens sketchbook I was itching to start. Yes, this is despite having already started a 7x10” sketchbook weeks prior. A girl simply cannot survive on one sketchbook alone! Okay, real talk, that is nonsense, but this girl does enjoy working in multiple sketchbooks at one time. I find it infinitely more freeing to be able to switch between them, whether it is because I don’t want to wait for something to dry, or I just plain get uninspired in one sketchbook. So, my mission was clear. I was going to dedicate this cute lil pink sketchbook to…poop! What? You read right! Poop. Stinky, icky poop, because, as the saying goes, everybody poops. Even adorable animals.
I have now completed 47 pages of poop-filled goodness (okay, okay, farts, too). My mission started small. Make simple art. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t feel the need to precisely detail each hair on a monkey’s beard or fleck of a lizard’s eye. Illustrative. Do less. Needless to say, I was not able to K.I.S.S. for long. That being said, I am really happy with so many pages I’ve danced my brush along. My tools for this sketchbook have been very focussed. I am using gouache - specifically two palettes I created in my much-loved Romney’s Kendall Mint Cake tins in which I have potted some of my favourite colours from my cheaper gouache, Arteza and the lovely Paper Fashion gouache (as well as some that are not my favourite and that I rarely use but I always feel compelled to add reds, don’t come at me red lovers, I am trying!). In addition, I am using a variety of paint markers for the lettering, which is the key here, otherwise, how would you know these guys are pooping, right? I am sticking with a smallish stencil for every piece, and my paint markers are a wide variety, Jane Davenport, Posca, et cetera. The odd page I have added some coloured pencil details (often Prismacolour, sometimes Caran D’ache Luminescence) but I find it a bit of a bother to have to fix pages and I have had these pages transfer to each other, so I’m definitely less inclined to use those now. Finally, and perhaps most importantly from my perspective, is glitter. I cannot exist without glitter. I know, it’s a problem.
My colour palette is largely limited in this endeavour, as I’m trying desperately to get better at, you know, not throwing everything and the kitchen table at a piece. Light violets, pinks, peaches and greens make up most of the pieces, and I am loving adding accents of blue and orange, colours I don't often gravitate towards. The result has been really enjoyable and rewarding for me. I find working in square sketchbooks to be so fun. Don’t ask me why. It’s one of those weird inexplicable joys, I suppose. I also have a real soft spot for small sketchbooks as I find it much less intimidating to fill a page. And I don’t feel the need to fill a page. It is really freeing to just suggest a background without stressing over what, if anything, I am suggesting.
It is funny to me that I have decided to write this blog post on the day when I seriously considered putting this sketchbook aside for a spell. I don’t know if it’s the caribou I have sitting on my latest page, staring at me, questioning my early colour choices, or just the restrictive approach I’ve taken to this particular project, but I have begun to find myself feeling…stuck. Deciding to write about what has, for the most part, been a fun little journey at a time like this might seem odd, but believe it or not, as I come back to this blog post one day later, I do feel ever so slightly more prepared to finish that page. And maybe take myself up to 50 completed pages before I expand my focus once again to that lonely, forgotten 7x10” Strathmore mixed media sketchbook I’ve been lugging around, swatching colours in. Sometimes it helps to remember why you started something. I was inspired, and I let that inspiration take me to, well, a strange and wonderful place. Now, my task is clear: let the next wave of inspiration sweep me up and take me on a new adventure!
If you’re interested in seeing any of the other pages, you can check them out on my Instagram, linked at the bottom of this page, or @zenandgigglesart :)
