Then and Now--Comparing Your Art to Learn About Your Life

This past weekend I've been preparing to give a little talk and workshop on my experience keeping a sketchbook over the last year and a half or so.

That led me to go back through the work I was doing before I started Sketchbook Skool klasses, which was mostly playing with color and design.

I loved doing this kind of work, and I still do it.

But if you had asked me to draw a tree or a realistic animal, as much as I would have liked to, I wouldn't have done it.  Because I believed I couldn't have done it.

But now...

It's really worth it to look at your art from a year or more ago and compare it to what you are doing now.  Not to judge it--not that kind of comparison.  But to ask yourself "What was I doing then?  Why was I doing that?" and then to ask the same questions about your work now.

It tells you as much about yourself as it does about your art.  How did you pay attention then?  How do you pay attention now?  Has your relationship to creativity changed?  Are you using your sketchbooks differently?

What does your art mean to you?