You and Me - Lyrics © Jon Crosby of VAST

Many apologies for my absence here. Dreaming takes a back seat in importance when you’re finding yourself in an inter-continental move once more.

Do you draw? Do you find the time to sketch? Paint?

I own several sketchbooks. Some of them are barely filled. Others are a mess of words, scribbles, and ideas.

My favorite sketch diary is small and green, and was purchased many years ago from Bookbinder’s Design in my home town of Melbourne. It’s a highly personal portable work space for me; not only does it contain imagery, but phone numbers, overheard quotes, tear stains, coffee stains, and secret codes. My green book is a seasoned traveler and her favorite vacation spot has been London, where she made two visits in the last five years to the TATE modern.

Have you noticed the people who take small diaries to galleries? Some of them sketch, some of them write down their interpretations of individual pieces ,and some simply write down the name and artist for future reference. If you’ve never brought paper and writing tools with the honest intention of using them to a gallery before, I highly recommend it. It’s not easy at first for some; there will invariably be strangers walking past and looking over your shoulder as you stand a meter away from an artwork, interacting with your page. I remember being terribly self-conscious about this at first, until I eventually realized that I was doing too good a thing for myself to stop. As galleries are public spaces it’s not reasonable to expect privacy. Mercifully, though, they tend to have nice benches/couches in front of some works.

Now that I live in Toronto, my green book will be introduced to new spaces, new couches, new stains, new marks.

I hope that you will all join me. Sketching is a wonderful hobby. Here is my most recent illustration, inspired by the music of Jon Crosby of VAST.

You and Me - Lyrics from VAST album 'You and Me' and several volumes of Jon Crosby's 'Generica' series.

If you haven’t heard any of the tracks, I recommend ‘It’s not you (It’s me)’. Heart-achingly good stuff. If you don’t require a box of tissues to listen to this, you probably aren’t human.

Happy sketching, lagoon swimmers.