friday finds

First of all, you good, good people. Thank you. Thank you for your generosity and for your support. Your names on that team list brighten our day. This Friday finds me thinking of names a lot – thinking about the little one’s namesake, my aunt, who lost her battle with this disease a few years ago. Thinking about family in general, and how lucky we got with ours, and how we have so many supportive friends who feel like family as well.

…..

I found a few other things that brightened my week. A few weeks ago, E found this book and immediately put it on her Christmas wish list. I plan to pick up a copy of it at the book fair in November.

Design*Sponge has been highlighting artists’ personal sketchbooks lately, and it’s become one of my favorite features online, anywhere. Aaron Becker’s sketchbook was particularly interesting this week – I love the interviews and I love getting a glimpse into the way each artist mulls an idea around in their head, or just observes and records the things around them.

All pictures above by Aaron Becker, via Design*Sponge.

I shared a few of my own sketches earlier this summer. I always have a sketchbook in my purse, by my bed, scattered around here and there. On long car trips I like to look back at ideas and drawings – of the house, of holiday cards, of some beginning of an idea. I laughed when Aaron described getting older, and now finding his sketchbook occasionally peppered with to-do lists – because that is me! After I do it, I think about how old and busy I am now, allowing myself to put lists among the drawings – so different from my drawings of places around Europe when the only thing I had to keep track of was my passport and the train schedule – and my pen, I guess. Only once did I set my sketchbook down and walk away – but a very kind tourist tracked me down, running after me on the street. What a lucky day that was.