Micah Walter

Sketch #1, Kendra Sleeping

My first “Artist’s Date” was a short one. Sort of a “meet for a cup of coffee” type thing as I have decided to put it. I ran over to the local art supply store and decided to shop around for something new to do. I had been thinking that a little distraction from photography or even a parallel type thing might do me some good. So, I shopped around for a bit and settled in on the idea of doing some sketching. I thoroughly believe that a photographer, or any artist for that matter should practice sketching all of the time. This is something I haven’t done in quite some time. As a photojournalist we sometimes forget about the art side of things and focus on the journalism. This is okay, and sometimes more important, but alas, we are still truly artists and need to take trips back to the art world on occasion.

I walked around the art supply store for a little while and found a few items I thought I would need. A small kit of assorted sketching pencils, a few erasers, a pencil sharpener, and finally a couple of notebooks. I got a small pad of sketching paper, and a Moleskine sketchbook. The Moleskine books are really nice and I have a smaller one, which I sometimes write notes in. All in all I spent about thirty bucks on my first Artist’s date. It was a quick one, but I think will lead to a second date without a doubt. Just got to wait the appropriate amount of time before calling up my artist, so as not to scare her away!

Someone suggested I begin reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I ran out to Border’s following a brief encounter with a small squirel to buy the book and have read about halfway through the first chapter.

The book tells me to do two things right off the bat: write three pages of anything I like each morning, and go on a date with my own inner artist once a week.

I am not supposed to share my morning pages with anyone (at least not for a long time) but I thought I would chronicle the dates in this new section called Artist’s Date.

We shall see how it goes.

The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron