Looking For Inspiration and Slowly Rejoining My World
I started to keep a regular Sketchbook Journal and Blog in 2003. I was partially retired and thinking about how many of my part time creative activities I could enjoy full time. Until the pandemic I had annual "progress reports" on my blog and a separate entry for my plans for the next year. I loved drawing and watercolor painting in sketchbooks that I made in order to have a specific size and watercolor paper in the books. I spent many days with artist friends sketching NYC with the Central Park Meet-up Group and Urban Sketchers when they were developed - and always made a separate sketchbook for summer vacations and our annual Fall visits to Europe.
Shortly after the pandemic began I was invited to give a lecture on Covid-19 to STEM women students at the Douglass Residential College of Rutgers University, my alma mater. Reviewing the science made me realize that I also missed my career in Internal Medicine and Hematology, and I began to write about Covid-19, drawing one or more avatars as illustrations. I followed the pandemic carefully and posted at least two sketchbook entries a week until several months ago. I tried to cover the important science advances during each week and watched every full day of FDA and CDC Vaccine Meetings in order to detail the progress being made. I was able to add links from my blog to Facebook Groups - NYC Urban Sketchers, and EveryDay Matters (my first online art group that was started by Danny Gregory). I wrote 195 illustrated blog entries. with links to the Facebook groups mentioned above, and finally decided that it was time to return to direct observation drawings/paintings and urban sketching. But I'd love to have a few projects that I can do at home until I'm ready to rejoin my friends in the art groups, including live figure drawing.
My husband and I are fully vaccinated and boosted including the new bivalent covid vaccine. Masks in New York City have been dropped from public transportation and are not required in theaters, museums etc. But there is still a significant risk of infection for people over 65. Our age group has the highest mortality rate in the US, and I will carefully re-engage with my local world - one step at a time. I am surrounded by wonderful museums and should be able to wear N95 masks - searching out quiet sections of the museums.