The Resolution Bandwagon

Yes, this year I'm on it.  The resolution bandwagon.

I don't think I've ever had a formal 'New Year's Resolution'.  In fact, for years, I rather turned my nose up at the whole idea.  What a silly girl.  I used to think,"if there's something I want to change, I will change it' - and, for the most part, that has been true.  I quit smoking without premeditation, cold turkey(16 years ago this month!).  I went back to school, grew a business, sold a business, and made other major changes in my life, all without joining into the western-culture-resolution-thing.

This year I really had a feeling that the only thing that I really lack in my life is the time to do more drawing. Actual drawing. Pencil to paper, no net, no parachute. I know that nothing in my life happens unless it is scheduled in, I have decided to actually TAKE those Illustration Friday challenges that roll into my email inbox each week.

Surprise, surprise.  This week's challenge word was "Resolution". 

Now, I've taken IF challenges before, but never religiously.  I've read them each week for the past few years, and often had an idea sparked from the suggestion of the topic.  I've just not often made good on that idea and actually sat down to make something happen.

Today, I did.

I paid a lot of attention to the process:  all the little things that I did to procrastinate vs. the actual time spent drawing. (I'll give you three guesses which took longer....the procrastination part or the drawing).  It was good for me, as part of my goal setting for something that I enjoy and welcome in my life, to look at all the ways that I put it off - that I avoid that moment of commitment, of putting pencil on paper!  I know from all the schooling I've done over the past few years that the main things that need to be in  place to make a goal happen are to be able to visualize it completed, and to schedule a time in daily life to ensure that the goal is done and not forgotten. My goal is to do my drawings on Saturday mornings (scheduling - check), and my first drawing is a self portrait of me drawing myself doing my drawing (visualization - check).


Not the greatest scan of my drawing, but it's a start.  I realized after doing this that my last couple of self portraits have been my early morning hair, comfy sweater, just-got-out-of-bed-clothes.  I may have to consider (if self portraits are going to become a habit) waiting until later in the day to make the drawings happen!
:)
Happy New Year to you, whatever your resolutions be.  May you hold to them all, and be a happier person for it.

Lisa