Ink and Pens

Sketch a day - Day 43/365

Today was all about getting a document over the line for the first production meeting for the Otherhood play.

There's so much going on at the moment with company setting up (for Old Bird the new theatre company I have set up with Deborah Pakkar-Hull) and the planning for the show. By the end of the day I felt fried. And tempted not to draw a thing.

And I didn't even know what to draw.

I didn't do anything today other than work and do some dog training.

Tucker and I are working on two tricks at the moment. One is where I put out lots of his toys (not too high value otherwise it's too exciting for him and he has to take them away and chew them) and then he has to wait for the command to pick them up and run to place them in a little basket.

You will be surprised to know that this trick is called ‘tidy’.

He gets very excited but also very frustrated when he throws the toy near the basket but not in the basket. Because this means he doesn't get a treat. He literally (as in the old fashioned idea of literally, as in Tucker completely is doing what I am about to describe. Not the new version of literally, which functions as a kind of intensifier/ exclamation mark. About a thing that didn't happen. This [along with the word precisely] creates a situation I find genuinely fascinating. How do words that used to mean something, come to mean their exact opposite? I mean, it's language in motion and we can’t hold that tide back (or want to try) but, if I could time travel, assuming that I get multiple time travel tickets [because this would not be my number one time travel goal] I would go back and try and discover the key moments in these word’s evolution).

Back to Tucker.

The sound he makes when he almost gets the toy in the basket but doesn't and then still wants a treat is literally like a human teenager groaning when they are asked to tidy their bedroom. It's hilarious.

At present we are building up the distance Tucker can carry toys to the tidy basket. Sometimes he can't hold it together and just sits down and chews the toy instead of tidying it. But he's getting better all the time.

The other trick is quite new and is called Boom. Eventually it will mean when I say boom he will jump into my arms and I will catch him. I hope to incorporate this into our garden assault course this summer.

I should say that tricks are not something I ever envisaged doing with a dog. But he needs lots of stuff to occupy his brain and he sees trick training as his job. Or one of them. This is what happens when you have a working spaniel. He just loves a job. All day long its ‘giz a job’.

So far, with the Boom trick, he has worked out that he needs to jump on my lap to get a treat.

Anyway, I couldn't draw any of that as I was doing the tricks and Jane wasn't there to take a photos. So no joy.

I was stumped. No ideas. No inspiration. So then i.loolwd at the pens & ink in my hands and decided to draw them.

Is there anything gained from pressing on with the task of drawing when the insperation to draw isn't there?

I think there is. Not because I think the drawing is successful, but because there is something great about tuning the stress of a day out to think about the shape of a line or the girth of a shadow. And I felt good to be showing up for something I care about, even though I couldn't show up with a lot.

And also I love ink and pens. I could look at them endlessly.

Many tangents tonight as I am tired and when my brain is slush all ability to filter or edit dissolves.

And that's the news.