A mash-up kind of morning

I've been having a really amazing mash-up kind of morning.  First of all, my sketchbook, open to the first page, has been projecting its emptiness at me since yesterday when the first theme for the Sketchbook Challenge went up and I got nothing in the way of ideas.  As I read my email and then opened Google Reader this morning, several great things happened:  the BBC news feed had an interesting article about diarists and as I was reading, I thought about how bloggers are really becoming the diarists of this age--little versions of Pepys, all of us.  At the end of the article was a marvelous quote by Virginia Woolf about what she wanted her diary to be and it really fitted what I want my sketchbook to be, so that first page is no longer empty. At least I now have an inspiration and a sort of framework.

The second thing that entered into this mash-up was a quote by Gardner Cox (American painter, 1906-1988):''

"I do a bale of sketches, one eye, a piece of hair.  A pound of observation, then an ounce of painting."

For me, who is often paralyzed by perfectionism that prevents me from doing anything because I fear it won't be perfect, this was a very important group of words.  I need to remember just to sketch.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  It's an observation, visual note-taking, not a final product.  Words are often inspirational to me and they will definitely be a part of this sketchbook.  And now,  feeling comforted and inspired, here we go.