observations

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.

Cheerleading Myself

| Sheree
Visual Journal 22/05

Some days you come to the page and you just need a good talking to. A boost to the ego or little child within. Some days you’re holding out for a cheerleader.

I can be just that for myself in my visual journal. In that very moment of need and then later when circling back, rereading pages down the line, I get another boost as the sentiments call out to me again.

You’ve got this Sheree, I believe in you!

Storm Coming

| Sheree
Storm Coming by Paula Dunn

After Paula Dunn

based on the weather
handing over a landscape like a veil,

a limited palette
to keep things simple

but storm coming on, clouds layered,
winds textured

and dark low lying land brushmarked
and glazed for atmosphere

the yellows, oranges and browns brood
within depths of time and place

searching for a flick of white
to rest and breathe

Colour is Mine

| Sheree
Van Gogh, 1959 by Althea McNish

After Althea McNish

Sunflowers

big and bold

inspired by Van Gogh’s

brandished

across a

yellow and white

striped field

black lines

outline floppy leaves

and dozing closed heads

bright colour carried to

this grey isle

not a luxury but a necessity

for survival

for blooming

another time

uprooted

sunflowers

National Poetry Month 2022

| Sheree

It’s April!

Happy Poetry Month.

I know March was all about me diving deep into The Healing Properties of the Seas, 2022 Project.

But now it’s April, I’m going to focus on my poetry writing.

April has traditionally seen me taking up the the NaPoWriMo – 30-poems-in-30-days challenge. So why change something if it isn’t broken.

Of course you’ll still be able to get your seas fix on the blog for the rest of 2022. But now I must turn my hand to poetry.

These last few days of March saw me take a much anticipated trip to London. It’s been a time filled with walking and creativity, taking in exhibitions and musicals and nature.

I plan to start off the poem a day practice with a review of the images I’ve taken of the artworks I’ve visited since down in London. So ekphrasis poetry is the order of the month.

Ekphrasis is a device used in poetry or even a type of poetry which takes a piece of artwork as it’s starting point. It involves a detailed description of the work of visual art as inspiration and then who knows where the inspiration will take the writer. But the piece of art was the seed and that recognition is credited usually with the phrase ‘ After such and such.’

I start today and I hope you will join the journey.

The Healing Properties Of The Seas, 2022

| Sheree


The new creative project which has been knocking around for a while now is exploring my love of the sea. The Healing Properties of the Seas, 2022.

I’ve been living with this project for about five years now; whenever I’m near the sea, or any body of water, taking a moment to breathe it in and then capturing 10 seconds of it.

I’m not even sure where the idea came from or why 10 seconds. But I know I have thousands of these little films.

To go through them all and post them online seemed a daunting task. But I know how much joy being with the sea brings me and I’m always trying to find ways to share this joy.

So to make it happen, to make this project happen, I’ve taken 2022 as my year to share, The Healing Properties of the Seas, 2022.

The task is simple. Share 10 second videos I create in 2022 of bodies of water I see, visit, get close to, get into.

You’ll find some clips in blog posts but hopefully all of them in the portfolio. Enjoy.

Cullercoats Bay, 01 March, 2022, 14.49


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.

Dry January – Coming Late to the Party

| Sheree

If you receive our Studio Notes, then you would have read that the beginning of 2021 did not go as planned. Miss Ella got sick, real sick, having to go into hospital for a few weeks to recover from an infection. We didn’t know what was happening and it was worrying.

At the same time, our local hospital trusts brought in stricter restrictions in terms of visitors to hospital. They brought in the rule of one parent per child, 24/7. So swapping out of parents to give some respite and relief. No sharing the load.

It made sense that Miss Ella’s dad stayed in hospital with her as then I’d be available to run around, bringing in food and changes of clothes, as I drive while Miss Ella’s dad doesn’t.

Not being able to see her, cuddle her and tell her everything was going to be alright was so frustrating and painful. For a few weeks there I was self medicating with wine and binge eating crap just to numb the pain and worry. For a few blissful hours each night, I could switch off and forget everything. But the worry and fears were still there to face me the next day.

We’d decided that when Miss Ella was discharged from hospital she’d come stay with me to recover. I hadn’t been with her for so long and it also gave her dad a break after his hospital stay. I needed to be there for her, be switched on and watched her like her hawk. Therefore, alcohol was out of the question.

I’m so pleased that I’d made this decision because within 24 hours of being out of hospital, I had to rush Miss Ella back in with the same symptoms as before. This time, I was the parent to stay in hospital for a few days while they worked out what was wrong and treat Miss Ella again.

By the time we got home again out of hospital, I was 5 days into not drinking. And even though we’d been on another rollercoaster of a ride and alcohol was offered as a means of unwinding and forgetting the recent health scares, I abstained. Again I wanted to be alert and on standby just in case of another emergency with Miss Ella.

So that’s the long story. The short story is Dry January is happening and it wasn’t on my radar. And I’m not really following it as I’ve said, I’ve been drinking this month. But today, I’m 8 days dry.

Sobriety is something I tried last January and completed the month. This year, I’m planning on going beyond the month.

I think my drinking became an issue for me in terms of my behaviours and actions and go-to during 2020 lockdown, marriage breakdown, separation and new home period of my life. It became easy to reach for the wine bottle and forget my worries and concerns. But I just can’t accept the excuses any more. It’s not really worth it as our recent health scares and hospital stays have illustrated.

Throughout, 2022, I intend to share my journey with sobriety here as I realise writing about my struggles is part of the cure. I

have a choice and I chose me, authentic me.

Rest and Creativity

| Sheree

After a really busy November, I was looking forward to a quiet December. It has been a slower pace to last month, but there has still been deadlines and events that I’ve needed to prepare for and attend and reflect on.

So past mid-December already, and I just feel as if I can slow down again now. But I say this but I must have been resting in some kind of way because I went back to my art journaling practice yesterday.

My art journal practice is different to my visual journaling practice only in the fact that I use fewer words and these Black women always seem to show up in the midst of the page somehow.

Here we have another one, who showed up yesterday out of the darkness that was developing on the page. And isn’t she delightful. She’s got a twinkle in her eye and a wish in her heart.

To be in the studio yesterday, playing on the page, I even completing a handmade zine which will be on display in the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, was a joy and much needed. As it signalled to me that I’m back to listening within. That I’m back to creating for me and just for the hell of it. That I’m coming home.

Thank you, Sheree. Now continue to rest. And create.