I’m a huge Austin Kleon fan and just beforeThe Pause, I started following him on Instagram and signed up for his weekly newsletters. I also ordered all three of his books: Steal Like an Artist, Keep Going and Show Your Work. He rocks my world! Maybe not as much as Barack Obama, but pretty close.

As I had planned and booked a trip to The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany for April, I was very interested in developing a daily practice of journaling and sketching. To up the ante, I had taken a sketching class with Ardith Goodwin in January. My goal was to be able to sit in a cafe and quickly capture what was going on around me.

Sometime in February, Austin (I can call him by his first name…we’re buds that way even if he doesn’t know I even exist), started doing daily blind contours of himself. Blind contours also rock my world, way below Barack (also on a first name basis) and Austin, but rocking is rocking. I loved that Austin said that he enjoyed seeing his face rearrange itself each day. Yep. Game on!

What began as a journal to create a daily practice soon became The Plague Journal, but the mostly-daily practice endured. This is the longest EVER I have journaled. I think I can now say, “I have a mostly-daily practice and I’m going to keep going with it.”