mindfulness

A Creative Sketchbook, Dec 2025

| Sheree
My creative sketchbook
My creative sketchbook rules

I’m not sure how my creative sketchbook differs from my visual journal. Intention maybe.

Perhaps, I think , I’m attempting to develop my art practice within a designated space. A study maybe.

I haven’t really been in the thick of my art making practice since the preparation for my Baltic exhibition back in 2022-3.

This was quickly followed with the writings and (re)drafts of Darkling, my poetry/hybrid collection published in October 2024.

After this 2025 has been a period of extended rest and refusal.

But something has been niggling me. The desire to create with paint again. the desire to play without expectations and outcomes/ products.

I’ve just scratched the itch through scrolling through Pinterest. Adding another abstract or landscape painting to a board that I’ll probably not look at again.

But it satisfied this niggling feeling. Until it didn’t.

It was going back into the classroom. Completing a few days of supply that pushed me over the edge.

The time I gave away for money. The time I’d lost pursuing my own pursuits. And realising that I wasn’t pursuing all the pursuits I wanted to pursue in the time I had/have.

So out came a creative sketchbook, inspired by the 30 days sketchbook challenge created by Cheryl Taves over at Insight Creative.

This is as much as I’m willing to share for now about the challenge, my creative sketchbook, processes and insights.

One of my rules is that it’s just for my eyes only. I want to see how this rule changes my practice. I want to create without fear but with curiosity. I want to give myself all the freedom without worrying about what others will think or say or comment on.

It’s not like I’m hanging on other people’s responses and reactions but I have gotten into a habit of just sharing anything and everything on my blog and I’m curious to see what happens when I keep things to myself.

Just for my eyes, heart, and soul only.

So far I’m enjoying the process of the challenge and I’m reflecting and paying attention to what makes my heart sing, what’s my creative vocabulary, what pushes my energies.

Do doubt whatever I explore within my creative sketchbook will be showing up in everything that I create. In everything who I {BE}. For sure.

Morning Routine 2025

| Sheree

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to protect my mornings. I’ve tried to not schedule morning meetings so I could give myself the time and space to ease into my day. I’ve found that when I give myself this time and space in the morning to be/do what makes me feel more like myself, then the rest of the day runs better. It’s about prioritising my needs and wants before I face the world and give myself to it and other people.

So the past few days have seen me try to embed much more ritual and intention into the start of my day. I would do certain things that I know were good for me but some days I would forget and rush off into the day and then realise later on what I had forgotten to do. A simple act of getting water into my system first thing could be overlooked if I wasn’t being mindful in my mornings.

So on reflection, I realised that I was still protecting my mornings, but I wasn’t being/doing the things that I needed and wanted to do with consistency. And there’s the rub. Consistency. Consistency over complexity. Keeping things simple and doing things over and over again has the potential to bring about change, clarity and joy. Consistency doesn’t have to be monotonous and regimental as I feel I’ve been looking at it over the years. Consistency can be cozy, and constructive and pleasurable, for sure. Well this is what I’m thinking now as I try to become more consistent with my morning routines and rituals. And of course it’s a practice, like everything is. And some mornings I might fail at the practice but really it’s not a fail even if I forget something from the routine. What the point is, is the mindful intention of practicing a morning routine and remembering why I am doing it. To prioritise myself.

So what does my morning routine look like? And sharing it here is just another way for me to remember it, remind myself, to embed it. To make it became second nature with time.

  1. On waking, give thanks for waking.
  2. Water out/ water in
  3. Back to bed to mediate
  4. Read in bed
  5. Move body
  6. Coffee and journal
  7. Get ready
  8. Start day outside – walk
  9. Come back to gratitude at the end of the day and share 3 things I’m grateful for
  10. Repeat

What do I have to do to make this happen? To make this a habit? Do it and keep doing it. It isn’t a chore or anything difficult. It’s giving me a chance to make sure my mornings are SLOW. There’s room for self-reflection, self conversation, self-love. Do it and keep doing it. And if I miss a step, go back and do it when I remember. As soon as I remember. And not to beat myself up about missing a step but offer myself some compassion and grace. I’m not trying to be perfect or a morning goddess. But I am trying to be me, more me. More whole me.

I’m thinking of creating a fungi zine …

| Sheree

dark morels

clustering

against roots

of ash trees

moist

in gathering dark

night air leaning

into a textured silence

well-earned through

a receding wall of trees

I have a little series of poems inspired by fungi: mushrooms, toadstools and the like.

I’ve always enjoyed looking at pictures of fungi. I’d draw them from books and colour then in with coloured pencils. I started a collection of them, when a child. In real life, I’m not too sure, I like fungi up close. I think something the way they feel puts me off. And that they are alive!

Also the idea of spores frighten me. Obviously, the fear comes from a lack of understanding and knowledge about them.

What I do know is that they are vital to life. And that whole underground system they have going on of passing nutrients and messages between plants and ecosystems and other organisms is truly remarkable. And has to be respected.

Anyway, I was thinking of pulling these fungi poems together into a mushroom zine. I do love my zines. What do you think?

Of course I have to find the time to create it. But now I’ve stated it here, it lends some kind of accountability to completing the task.

Anyway, above is a brief extract from one of the poems. I think I have about 5 or 6 of them. So I’ll keep working on them and start thinking of some cool design to go with them.

Of course being here now, saying all this, is me thinking out loud. Making some kind of commitment to a dream and making steps to seeing it through.

I’l share some more of the poem in the next post.

Another Day Another Spread

| Sheree
Visual Journaling Spread

It’s the afternoon. And I’ve just finished another visual journaling spread. I might have been up at 7.30 and came to the page but again, remembering yesterday, I’m here to slow down. I’m here to savour these moments of light and joy.

I might have even shifted rooms in the process, moved from the bed to the couch. Exposure to more light and more bird sounds. Seagulls squawking and trees budding casting shadows on the living room floor.

The energies are quickening. There’s a fizzing of excitement in my stomach, my core. Who know’s what the day will bring?

The day has already gifted me time and space and colour and light and an immense feeling of peacefulness. Mindfulness. Kindness. Thank you.

7 Reasons Why …

| Sheree

“ I dwell in possibility…”. – Emily Dickinson

7 reasons why me and alcohol are simply not a match any longer: –

1. In case of emergencies and who knows when there might be another one, I don’t want to be incapacitated because of having a drink.

2. Drinking alcohol no longer brings me joy.

3. Lately, I’ve been using alcohol to gain courage and gumption therefore showing up and not being genuine.

4. Alcohol is a gateway to other destructive behaviours and actions.

5. I’m no longer tasting it, really tasting it.

6. It’s been getting earlier and earlier in the day when I start drinking alcohol.

7. I’m drinking for all the wrong reasons.

January Reading

| Sheree

I didn’t set out into 2020 with a reading goal. I didn’t set any numbers but I did say I wanted to read more. Vague I know. And not the ‘proper’ way to set goals that you want to succeed at but at the time it was enough for me. And it’s been working.

January saw me curled up with actual books and the iPad sporting the kindle a lot more times than I felt I did at the back end of 2019. Could I say the whole of 2019? I’m not sure. Maybe my memory fails me here.

But the reading habit, the muscle memory of turning off all distractions and getting lost in a good book, fiction, non-fiction even poetry, seems weak in relation to the last couple of years to be honest.

Hopefully, with January now behind us, I can say that the drought is over as I hurtled through a number of books this month. I’m pretty proud of my numbers but also about how expanded I feel in terms of ideas and language and joy. The joy of reading has paid a long overdue visit and I want it to continue. So look forward to a monthly round up of books read each month. You might even find a book you’re interested in reading along the way.

I’ll list the books read and then give a review or details about just one of the books, as if I did it for all of them read this month, we’ll be here all day and come on, it’s the weekend.

Completed January books include:

1. Eat and Run- My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness – Scott Jurek ( started in December and completed at the beginning of January)

2. Turned Out Nice Again– One Living with the Weather– Richard Mabey

3. Heavenfield – LJ Ross

4. Angel – LJ Ross

5. High Force – LJ Ross

6. Cragside – LJ Ross

7. Dark Skies – LJ Ross

8. Seven Bridges – LJ Ross

Ongoing January reading include;

1. The Last Wolf – Jim Crumley

2. Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

3. Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore – Patrick Barkham

4. Blogging Basics For Authors – Nina Amir

Book review in the next post. Thanks.

Art Journal Play

| Sheree

When things get overwhelming, I take to colour. I think this is the reason I love Autumn so much. The myriad of colours; crimson, pumpkin, golden and umber. See what I did there? I elevated my vocabulary as sometimes I can be lazy and just use the obvious.

Anyhow. Back to the colour fields. Playing with colour fills my pot. Shifts my energy. And makes me happy. A simple task but well worth the effort.

Lately, I’ve started new journals. Square journals. Altered books. Notebooks. Any blank page I can fill with colour I will. I share some of the results here to inspire you to play. To let go and just lose yourself in the process. Forget the result. Forget perfection. And surrender to the joy of play.