Fuelled by a potent mix of Berrocca, caffeine and nervous adrenaline,

it was time to kick start Week 2.

 

First off, a little sabbatical house keeping:

 

* I posted blogs on Flourish and Turning Pro – 2 books that I consumed last week.

 

* Arranged the first of my new skills courses: Japanese brush calligraphy with Campbell Sandilands.

This divine combination of oriental inking and typography might cause me to implode.

 

* Brought together by Twitter, I’ve arranged a shoot with photographer Blazej Marczak.

The freedom of the sabbatical has allowed me to team up with amazing people like Blazej – an opportunity that the whirlwind of commercial work prohibits.

 

* The good folks over at Digital Arts will also be publishing all my Sabbatical blogs.

In addition to reposting what’s here, they’ll also have some bonus behind-the-scenes snaps.

 

 

This week I’ve continued working on my first supersized illustration.

I’m creating a forest of delicately hand penned trees, each between 60 and 100cm tall.

 

The opportunity to work large is wonderfully self-indulgent.

Filling huge sheets of paper with inky intricacies is massively time consuming and rarely plausible on commercial budgets and lead times.

It’s this type of work though; the tiny details, the little areas of curious and the delicacy of working with a 0.05 nib that makes me happy.

In an age when speed and mass production is everything, dedicating your day to crafting something so meticulous both enchants and delights.

 

I do however, on some level, have a need for speed.

I’m no arborist, but I’m guessing 4 trees does not a forest make?

I’ll definitely need a few more.

And maybe a squirrel or 2…

 

The completed woodland will form the first exhibit at my DCA show.

An illustration presented in such a way that you become immersed into the inkiness and wander between pen strokes.

 

This week I picked my way through Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial podcasts;

An audio Aladdin’s cave brought to my attention by Alex Barton of Student Designer

– if you haven’t met him, DO.

 

Although not a fan of the term ‘Entrepreneur’ –

(I lump it in the same category as Social Media Guru, i.e. if it’s in your bio you probably aren’t)

– I loved the podcasts.

You need to shuffle, some are bit Venture Capitalist / Silicon Valley centric.

One absolute gem is a 2005 talk by a young guy called Mark who’d come up with this thing called

‘The Facebook’.

 

My osmosis-like approach to listen and learn means I don’t always catch the details, but I latch onto the nuggets.

Case and point:

 

“Problems are just opportunities for creative thinking.

The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity”

 

Awesome, inspired, game changing advice.

I have no idea who said it.

 

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know I’ve been searching for a white car to form part of an inky installation.

It proved tricky and the little automobile of my dreams was not materializing.

 

I trawled social media, gumtree, ebay, garages and scrap yards.

Nothing.

 

This was problematic.

Or was it actually opportunistic?

 

At 4:23am on Thursday morning, inspiration struck!

I emailed myself: “boat not car” (along with some other dream based nonsense) and went back to sleep.

If I couldn’t source a car, I’d look for something else, something better.

 

The solution to my problem was the little white fishing boat I found the next day.

Now, to call the long-suffering parents and ask if they’ve got room at the farm for a boat…

 

Week 2 and I’ve:

 

·      Blogged about Flourish and Turning Pro

·      Adopted What Went Well into my daily sabbatical diary (see the Flourish blog)

·      Arranged my Japanese brush calligraphy course

·      Discovered photographer Blazej Marczak 

·      Begun preparations for my Wonderland book

·      Drawn more of my inky super sized forest

·      Bookmarked the Stanford Entrepreneur Podcasts

·      Bought a boat

·      Resolved to check email just twice a day

·      Learned never to leave a studio pup to roam the house freely…

“It wasn’t me”

 

Follow the progress of my 4 month sabbatical via

www.mydesktoday.com – daily studio snap shots

Twitter or Facebook – random snippets and lots of linkage

 

Big thanks to Creative Scotland who supported the Sabbatical through a Professional Development Grant.