When I paint interior scenes, it becomes really meditative. I find I can focus and sit still for hours, which is usually very difficult for me. The act of pressing pause on my busy life so that I can immerse myself in the abstract details of a pressed-glass window seems to quiet the world for a little while.
But I need to have a few things in place: moody music, hot tea, a quiet house, and, most importantly, my workbook open next to me with some Koki pens so that I can write down all the ideas that run through my head. The alphabet soup of my brain doesn’t stop churning just because I’m sitting down to paint. If anything, giving my hands something repetitive and absorbing to do seems to bring random thoughts to the surface.
So my workbook isn’t just a place where my leftover paint goes. It’s also a receptacle for to-do lists, catchy lyrics, fleeting observations, and any thoughts that float by. Sometimes it’s a sentence from an audiobook I don’t want to forget; sometimes it’s a colour combination I want to come back to, or a reminder to take the cats for their annual check-up. It’s messy, but it makes room in my brain so that I can focus on important things.
I like that the pages hold two things at once: deliberate ideas and explorations about my art-making, and the uninvited thoughts that arrive while I’m painting. Looking back through an old workbook feels a bit like looking through my own head. The pages capture not only what I was painting but also where my mind wandered while I was there.
In a way, my workbooks tie in with my larger, more serious artworks. I’m painting rooms that hold people’s lives, while my workbooks mirror my own mental interior.
