She Sure is {Moving}

You can now find all your Brooklyn ramblings and pencil rants at 
http://shesureissketchy.com/ 

So let it be written.
So let it be done.

She Sure is {Sketchy}

http://instagram.com/p/cwIPz5S8RQ/

Survelliance

Lately, in full game-design mode at job-job, I find myself people watching in earnest. This is my morning commute on the F. 

She Sure is {Sketching Again}

Once upon a few weeks ago day, when it was just getting nice outside, the artist and the bosom friend, who is also known as "the running writer",  ambled down one Atlantic Avenue in one Brooklyn neighborhood. They passed a little shop, just a tiny shop - and upon consulting with one another entered its doors. They wandered thru the wares. They sifted thru the stores, and then - it happened! The artist stumbled upon an object of magic!

Then a lot of things happened. Maybe the artist realized she'd forgotten her purse at a nail salon a few blocks away, and maybe the shop keeper was skeptical about the particular mysticism of a particular object, and maybe there was a seagull that chased the poor girl down her block while she carried the object aloft- but at any rate, soon the magical object sat upon the artist's studio table. After the artist had begun to recover from a cold and been to new jersey back and forth, and had a really intense dance class, and took a really long two day workshop at General Assembly and worked like a happy little coal miner at her fancy game designer job-job, the time came to test the power of the new-found object. It had its moment, and the artist pronounced it good. 

All is right in the world. We're back at the drawing table. 

She Sure is {Wandering with Whispering Thoughts}

Psssst.... Lately I've been thinking a lot about 'being nice'. Last weekend I had the chance to go to an anniversary memorial service for a woman who knew me seven years ago when I felt like my life was falling apart. I had just started working at job-job days after ending a years long relationship. I felt like a shell of a person and everything felt overwhelming. I can remember most of my interactions with her, because they always coaxed me in to feeling so good. For hours after we finished a quick five minute chat I'd be calm with the expectation that everything was going to be grand. When I think about her now I am impressed at her wonderful kindness. This week I've been marveling at what a unique thing it is to be able, at the end of your life, and for years afterward, to be remembered as that one beautiful word, kind.

I left last weekend's memorial service for Naomi with a keen sense that I need to try harder. I need to be kinder. I am working on it - which is all we really have to do in this life. As a health coach I am so lucky to be able to coach people to be kind to themselves too - because that teaches me a ton too.

Listening to.. right. this. minute: "Chasing Pavements" by Adele

She Sure is {Botanical}

Last night I painted this Okra.

Than I put it in a stew (the vegetable, not the painting). I know. I know. I am so legit domestic.

She Sure is {almost drawing stuff}

Job-job has required near full attention as of late. As a result you've seen less sketchiness here than previously anticipated this year. Luckily, I really like job-job. Also, I really liked these fish at the zoo this weekend. That is all.

She Sure is {Notetaking}

On Friday we had a loooooooooong meeting at job-job. I took notes:

These are actually all applicable to my fulltime job. Lately I write stuff to my former self:
.......

Dear Past Amber,

SEE? It was worth the wait! 

- signed future Amber

She Sure is {Urban Gardening}

A few months ago my mom visited NYC for 24 hours. When she left, there were fond memories of manicures and Middle Eastern food and three miniature elephants, left behind as a calling card of sorts. I laughed and wondered what on earth I'd ever do with this tiny cast of characters. On my way out the door this morning they caught my eye as they marched across my copy of Michael Chrichton's Travels. I realized we had all been called to this higher purpose. Like some 1920 hot femme-conservationist I transplanted them in my satchel for a jaunty trip to my Terrarium class at Smith Street's By Brooklyn. They are taking to their new environment like champs.

She Sure is {Sketchy} - A Return

A few months ago I had a creative crisis that resulted in the symbolic breaking of a 4b pencil over my knee. I declared myself the un-artist. It was done in an eff-this-crap kind of way.
Here's the thing -- the low down is this:
IT IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD UNTIL IT SUCKS

Two months ago it sucked. I was so OVER it. I stopped blogging, I stopped drawing. I still had to go to my totally artistic job-job. While there, in one of the more creative adventures of my life, (an irony not lost on my Pratt friends) I built a video game with an amazing team of people. Other than that I declared myself NONARTIST.

My dad (a fineartist) was rather supportive. However, he also managed to piss me off by laughing at me.
--"Sorry, kid - It's too late. You're an artist. It's OK to take a break"

"NO! I am not taking a BREAK! I am DONE! I say who... I say when..."
(When I am truly lost I retreat in to quoting Pretty Woman). 

Anyway. They were right. I was wrong. I'll blog more about this later. I'm actually a driven and dedicated artist who had a total meltdown. It might help my readers to know that that stuff happens even when you're not painting starry nights or sculpting vaginas -- and on that warm and fuzzy note...

Yesterday I went to the zoo. I innocently thought I'd maybe take a pen. Then I thought I might want to take some written notes or write a letter. I'd need some paper. Last Spring Ashley Robison organized my studio to absolute dream perfection, making paper oh-so-accessible. Fine. I thought I'd tip-toe in to that scary space I haven't been in since May. She'd mounted some hanging clipboards for me up against a wall. I reached in to the room. This way I didn't have to fully cross the threshold. I ripped a pre-papered clipboard down and scampered towards the Bronx with it.

It started innocently enough. There was this polar bear. He was a show off.


I sketched him without thinking about it.

Later, on the monorail, there were some deer.

So  this just happened:

Totally understandable. 

We happened upon this expansive bramble of peacocks.


I watched them for a long time. So long, I absently doodled them on the edge of my clipboard.
Nothing wrong there. Sometimes non-artists doodle! Whatever.

We packed up at the end of a looong day of Bronxing. I stepped on the 2 train.

Then we hit 129th street. I thought, maybe I should just look at those sketches...

By the time we hit Carroll Street, things had gotten out of hand. Apparently I'm an artist, and I'm back. Expect more blogging.

(Credit for All Photos Goes to April Alvarez, my kid sister who is more than actively shutterbugging her vacation in NYC).