The days stack up

And they are beautiful.

I like to draw, this is probably not news to anyone who reads this newsletter, but what is new(ish) is my urge to draw my life. I’ve always loved autobio comic artists like Lucy Knisley and Kate Beaton but comics like that seemed out of reach for me.

They seemed SO HARD to do. (Spoiler: they still feel hard). But in 2024 I took a comics class with Jane Porter and it helped me realize that comics maybe weren’t quite as scary as I thought they were and I started my foray into comics light - visual journaling.

A year in visual journals

It’s been about a year since I started my visual journals and since then I’ve filled about five sketchbooks with words and pictures. Not comics per se (or at least not all the time) but using the language of comics alongside prose. And I’ve learned a lot.

Messy words and drawing.

Mostly, that it is FUN to draw your life. It makes a life feel more special when it’s drawn out in front of you. The days stack up as they say and when they do, the days are pretty beautiful, even when they are not.

Like this not-so-great moment that would have been lost if I hadn’t drawn it.

What gets lost in words, stands out more easily in pictures and flipping back through my journals makes me smile.

Sunburns are much more amusing when they are drawn.

Lately, I’ve also been inspired by the Lucie Brion, a french illustrator who uses her Hobonichi Weeks to draw one moment in each day. I had a Weeks that I abandoned earlier this year so I repurposed it a month ago to do my own version of Lucie’s journaling.

The last four weeks, slightly redacted.

I’ve been enjoying my journals a lot lately and wanted to share some bits of them. And also, encourage you to do it too. It doesn’t have to be anything big, it can be as simple as writing down one interesting thing that happened each day. Over time, those days stack up. And when they do, if you want, you can take them and do something with them.

This month, I decided to take that stack of days and turn it into something a little more visual. I took some of the best moments of last month and made a spread in my sketchbook to remember them.

It was fun. Maybe I will do it again next month. Stacking twelve of these up over the course of the year would be fun too. Will I do it? Who knows. All I know is that I will be scribbling in my journals every night before bed trying to capture all the little bits of this little life I have.

See you next week,