Start Here!—Looking for an Illustrated Life?
Make the most of creative margins, document your life with an illustrated journal, and generally seek balance and mindfulness through art.
“Poetry is inspired by the elements of random thoughts, an overflow of gazing at the unseen.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson
This post is based on the 1-year anniversary post, which took a big-picture look at some of the themes and series on the Illustrated Life Substack.
Welcome to Illustrated Life! My illustrated life. Your illustrated life. We all should have an illustrated life, and that’s true whether life feels ordinary or extraordinary.
I started the Creativity Matters Podcast in 2006 as the Creative Mom Podcast. The show grew along with me (and my kids), ultimately morphing into the story of art in the margins, the ongoing search for meaning, and the process of documenting life.
After many, many years, the podcast has waned (down but not necessarily out), and I’ve set up a space here where I can share the things I was sharing on the podcast, but on the page. Frequent topics include gratitude, drawing (especially portraits), keeping an illustrated journal, creative habit, memory, loneliness, simplification, mindfulness, and more.
This format also allows me to share some of my weekly art, the Illustrate Your Week prompt series, and my own exploration of digital art as it intersects with my interests in graphic novels and diary comics.
October 2024 update: I share thoughts on creative habit and the keeping of an illustrated journal as a balancing and mindful act, a mapping of the passage of time. I love fountain pens, birds, and connecting the dots in the world around me. Into that mix is the reality that my partner of more than 30 years died four months ago. Many of my recent posts make reference to the layering of grief and loss onto the ongoing search for meaning. This remains a search for light.
I currently send a Sunday post (once a week) that contains my weekly writing and links through to anything else that is new, including the set of Illustrate Your Week prompts for the new week.
I enjoy doing community read-alongs. In 2023, we read Julia Cameron’s Write for Life. In early 2024, we read Robert Moss’s Sidewalk Oracles.
The lists below are designed to help you pick and choose posts you might be interested in reading or seeing.
I hope that these posts inspire you to think about your life, your art, your habits, and your balance. I hope these posts nudge you to try new things, practice mindfulness, and find more contentment in your day to day. I hope these posts make you grab a composition book or sketchbook and a pen and make a note about your day, today, and tomorrow, and the next.
We all have a story to tell. It is unfolding each and every day. It is yours to capture. You may want to look back on it someday, but even if you don’t, there is great mindfulness in the process itself.
An Index of Sorts
Some of My Favorites
I am not good at picking favorites, and some of the newer pieces with digital art are most exciting to me right now. But here are some posts that stand out for me:
A Marathon in 5 Parts (and doors)
Perspective, herons and crows, flamingos, and a tiny book on happiness
Milk Jug Luminaries (the intro)
Making and Moving Piles - A Tower of Hanoi View of Decluttering
Tracking Grief and Loss
Making and Moving Piles - A Tower of Hanoi View of Decluttering
Not all stories have a plot—Not Reading, But Didion and Jansson
100 Day Project - Diary Comic Affirmations
52 Weeks Project
The "Philosophical" Series
Making and Moving Piles - A Tower of Hanoi View of Decluttering
Making and Moving Piles - A Tower of Hanoi View of Decluttering
Of Science and Metaphor
The Postcard Prompt Series
Posts that Contain Comic or Graphic Novel Panels
Paneled art is a recurring element even though the posts don’t always talk “about” the panels. Combining my words and illustration is an ongoing goal. You can find comic art in these posts. (In 2024, I am working on a weekly diary comic list series as part of my weekly post.)
Posts that Contain Sketchnotes
Fun with Fortune Tellers (Episode 305 sketchnote)
Glimmers, Sea Glass, and Gratitude (Keep Going by Austin Kleon)
Practice, A “Listicle” Sketchnote, Comics Panels, and Tattoos
A Podcast Birthday, Rainbow Hair, and Creative Life (Episode 487 sketchnote)
Messages in a bottle and a Neil Gaiman sketchnote (Neil Gaiman’s “Make Good Art” speech)
The "Morning Stories" Series (morning poems written during 100+ days of morning in 2023 and shared as Instagram stories)
Posts About Illustrated Journaling
Post About Series and Other Challenges
A Few Favorite Book Mentions
I talk about a lot of books, and you will have to scroll in these posts to find them, but here are a few favorites:
Seek You (by Kristen Radtke)
Look Again (by
)Written and Drawn by Henrietta (by Liniers)
The Parakeet (by Espé)
Draw Your Day for Kids (by Samantha Dion Baker)
Notes from a Sickbed by Tessa Brunton
Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies (by Léonie Bischoff, translated by Jenna Allen)
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