I would love to be someone who consistently meditates, but currently that’s not me or my available time. It could be me someday, but in the meantime I’ve found that making marks is my meditation. Its simple, its relaxing, it doesn’t require much thought other than, ‘what color should I use now?’, or ‘what mark feels good next?’
Life seems to get more and more layered and complex the older I get and the more my life changes, so its nice to have a simple thing to escape into. I put on a show and settle in to just work on something simple for a bit and I always feel better afterward. There’s something about making progress on things that don’t have any impact on anyone or anything else. Just doing something because you enjoy it and it brings you joy.
I do this meditative practice either in my sketchbook, or in what I call my ‘responsive journals’. These are journals that I build that have color, or shapes/lines on the pages that I can respond to by filling them in with marks. These are great because they’re portable and don’t require many supplies. These saved me during the newborn months when I got interrupted more often than not and wasn’t always creating in the same place.