Your life is worth recording comic panel

Thank you for checking out the Illustrated Life Substack!

I’m Amy, and I’ve been talking about creativity, drawing, life, memory, journaling, and personal documentation for years, especially through the Creativity Matters Podcast, which I first launched (first as the Creative Mom Podcast) in 2006. More than 17 years later, the substack has become my new home. (I share my weekly art at Instagram as oamyoamy.)

I work full time and have full-time responsibilities outside of work. Making sure that my creative life is given time and value in the margins of my days has been important to me from the beginning. Even in five-minute windows, we can create, write, draw, look, and see. I use most of my margins for creative work in a variety of mediums, and I hope to always remind people that finding pockets and windows of time for our creative lives is important.

For me, creative margins = self care, mindfulness, calm, balance, and the search for meaning in life.

I like to think of the substack as my podcast on a page.

In addition to weekly posts that include book reviews, essays, how-to information, and more, I share weekly prompts for Illustrate Your Week, a freeform approach to keeping an illustrated journal of your life.

Why subscribe to the Illustrated Life substack?

Almost all posts and newsletters are currently free to all.

Paid subscriptions are available to those who can and want to support my writing, the podcast, Illustrate Your Week, and other things I make available to the community. I don’t like to shut people out of posts, so it’s a bit of an honor system. If you value the content, I hope you will consider a paid subscription. But I am well aware that not everyone can manage that.

I also draw with a group of people (women for now) on the weekends via Zoom. If you are interested in an hour of casual drawing, let me know.

Thank you for your support of my work and words now and through the years.

Subscribe to Illustrated Life

Musings on creative life, drawing, writing, habit, memory, gratitude, being creative in the margins & more. Plus, free Illustrate Your Week prompts for keeping an illustrated journal.

People

Making art in the margins. Writing, drawing, illustrated journals, diary comics/graphic novels, memory, creative life, Creativity Matters Podcast, and #illustrateyourweek prompt series.