Sketch a day - Day 63/365

Its been a day of thinking about the Otherhood play and trying to push ideas forward. Without pushing too hard. Because that never helps.

Thinking about a play - it's form, themes and content - usually emerges slowly over drafts for me. But with Otherhood we are working in a way that's less familiar. Some parts of the process and thinking need to be front loaded, while other areas are going to be held back, explored and discovered with actors and the sound team in a week of RnD in June. This makes me feel massive excitement. It also occasionally creates waves of vomit inducing fear. I can't complain, that's what happens when you get given the opportunity to explore process.

But finding ways to ring fence fear, especially as I’ve got some very hard deadlines, is important.

It might sound counter intuitive but having short moments to switch off and focus onto some drawing really helps me work out what I am thinking about the play when I come back to it.

So, that's what I did today. A deep dive into the play and then I went for a walk and watched and drew the sheep in a field near where I live. A 180 degree shift, immersing myself in the play and then into simply doing/making marks. I find it really helps me work out what to do next with the play. I think what happens is that as I focus on drawing, ideas get a chance to settle and sift without my stress getting in the way and tripping me up. This may not be true but it feels true and that's good enough for me.

I lucked out today as the farmer arrived mid drawing session and he started to herd the sheep with his dog. Magic to see a dog work a herd and get them all into a pen.

I think the sketch of the dog I did, is a bit like ‘find wally’ too. She's up there in the picture above, but she might take a moment to find.

And that's the news.