You may know that in addition to my poetry I also do art, posted on my blog Claudia McGill and Her Art World. For the next several months I will be posting here a combined art/poetry project, Large Artist Sketchbook 2020.
I fill up sketchbooks with all kinds of art. Some contain images only and some of them I use the images as inspiration for poetry. In these books the image is on one page of the spread and the poetry on the other. This book is set up in this manner.
I’ll show you the image and then add the poem that goes with it. See what you think.
This One Day in Pink Winter
Pink winter
we’re in pink winter
rain snow sleet
mix they call it
but it’s one that never coalesces
into a something finished
Think: sloppy cold unbaked cake kind of day
the weather going nowhere but
it doesn’t matter to me
I’m a warm pink puffy coat
I’m cozy pink lined boots
I’m pink gloves and
a hat with pompom soaked and frozen and silly pink
It all just makes me laugh.
Pink winter.
2/21/20
Large Artist Sketchbook image 7
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I love this idea!!! I write poetry too.
I make the art in the sketchbook first, just random things, and then later write for it (this works better for me than illustrating a poem already written, don’t know why). I’ve got several volumes and always working on more. I enjoy all parts of the process.
Think I will try this idea. I have illustrated a couple of poems, but never the other way round.
Try it, I think you will enjoy it. I find it relaxing and that it opens up a lot of new ideas in directions I hadn’t anticipated.
Deffo. Thank you so much😍
Sloppy cold unbaked cake kind of day, that’s a great line 😀
Thank you!
lovely!
Thank you!
No, Claudia, I didn’t know you had a poetry blog as well. I like the idea. To be a mixed media artist and a poet (among your other creative talents like knitting et. al.) is reason to celebrate. Looking forward to more from your creative sketchbook.
Thank you. I have always liked writing but until the blog world came into being, well, there was nowhere for it to go. Now…
You’re welcome and I hear you. I only wrote reports for work for the most part up til retirement in 2018.
I have a friend with a big pink puffy coat just like that. It always makes me smile. (K)
Pink is a good winter color. It cheers things up, I agree.
It works splendidly, both together like this. Each week I’m amazed at the lively colours and shapes in this series.
Thank you. I am surprised at how well it hangs together. Now that I look at it after all this time after it is made. I don’t try to make things work together as I do images in these books kind of as how I feel or have time or whatever. Sometimes there can be quite a gap between pages as far as the dates. Sometimes I think this kind of thing goes to show you that you, meaning each person, has a sense of where they are and in the big picture things make sense when day to day they may not. I think a book like this shows that.
This is a great point. They do, don’t they, make sense?
Yes, and why? I can only think the universe is guiding me at times.