‘Drawing is Looking and Looking is Loving’
The Art of Paying Attention, a Guide for Freelancers, and Slowing Down
If you have thirteen minutes to spare, watch this lovely TED talk, The Art of Paying Attention, by Wendy MacNaughton. I may be biased because she’s one of my favourite illustrators, but I’d still urge you to make time and watch it. When the pandemic broke out last March, she began to go live on Instagram every Friday for a bit, so kids around the world could draw along and the parents could get a break. (DrawTogether has since grown into something huge!) My daughter and I watched a few sessions together and drew together and we absolutely love the enthusiasm she brings to the table. Once you watch it, take a few minutes out to do the blind-portrait exercise. I have fond memories of doing it with both my daughter and my mother last June, and exploding into laughter when we saw what each other had drawn.
I particularly love what she says about drawing slowing us down, and also, this bit:
...it sounds hokey, but it is true. Drawing is looking and looking is loving. If we can give kids the right supportive environment, drawing helps them let go of perfectionism and fear of failure… We can let go of these harder self-judgments so we don't have to undo them later in life.
As much as I love drawing, and despite being a big advocate of visual journalling, I fall off the wagon sometimes. These reminders of why I love drawing and why we need to draw are just what I need. So, if you’ve had a hard time lately with taking time for yourself, or slowing down, watch the video, and consider this your permission slip to spend sometime drawing today. Nope, not the weekend, not tomorrow — today. Just take five minutes, right after you read this email :) And if you’re wondering what to draw, here’s a fun idea to draw what you might look like one year from now.
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A couple of friends and I started The Yada Yada Collective, a platform for freelance artists and designers in India. We launched with a pricing survey, because, honestly, when we start out as freelancers, we’re often quite clueless on how to quote, or whether what the client is offering is fair or not. The idea was to take the guesswork out of pricing in India. Now, a year since we started, we’ve learnt so much, and decided to put our learnings together into a book. If you’re a creative freelancer, or know someone who is, we definitely recommend picking up The Pitch-Hiker’s Guide to Creative Freelancing.
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Like I mentioned in my previous newsletter, I’m doing a series of monthly Slowing Down sessions, where we’ll come together for 60 minutes and write and draw, based on prompts. If you’ve attended one of my Visual Journalling workshops this year, you’ll have received an email with the details. The first one is next Saturday, 30 October. If you’d like to sign up, let me know.
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If you’ve read either of my books about zero waste living published by Hachette, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Better still, if you could leave a review on Amazon, nothing like it!
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Their is my fourth newsletter since starting in May. I’m hoping to keep it regular, monthly, to start with, and then maybe more frequently if I can manage it. I would love to hear your thoughts and what you’d like to see more of, or just a hello would be great too. I realise, as I write this, putting this newsletter together is a way for me to really slow down, and pause, amidst everything else that is going on. I leave you with these lines from Mary Oliver.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
I hope you, dear Reader, are paying attention and constantly finding things that delight you and astonish you.
Warm Regards,
Shub