Day 2 of my Digital New Year..

Day 1 (Year2)

Yesterday was the first day of my New Year! Two years I ago I started my activity series - I taped a piece of paper onto my tablet along with a sheet of carbon and used my wacom pen to surf, email etc. The marks tracking this activity transferred to the paper below the carbon and each day I replaced with a fresh sheet. I then laminated and stitched all the sheets together (with 24 stitches of course!). If I didn't use the computer the sheet was left blank - scary to see how few pages were blank! Below is Year 1 (activity) in progress which is currently in my exhibition at Derby Museum

Year 1 (in progress)

The second year I used acetate instead of paper - part of this is in my Deda show pinned to the wall in 'packs' of seven but now it's finished I'm going to give some thought to alternative presentations - maybe stacked on a light box?

11 weeks of Year 2 (activity)

For this year (Year 3) I'm not using carbon - but instead I'm taping paper to the tablet and using a wacom ink pen so the marks are made immediately (see below). I've also used a larger sheet of paper - in the past I have had paper to the side of me - where I write, doodle, make notes and this year I shall do this on the actual 'activity' paper. I don't think I'll be able to draw with the wacom ink pen as it doesn't seem to have the sensitivity of the standard one, so when I'm doing my digital drawings I shall swap pens. It is going to be interesting to see what happens to the ink pen marks when they are combined with the strokes of an inkless nib.

Day 2 (Year 3) in progress

When I first started Year 1 I was constantly lifting the edge of the carbon to see what marks were being made - it's really funny how I hardly look at the paper now. One of the reasons I was quite happy to use a pen/ paper this year was that I knew I could trust myself not to consciously create marks They say do things 28 times and it becomes a habit - as I've now done it for 730 days I suppose it's hardly surprising!