Continuing my sketchbook New Years warm up series, here I am contemplating circles.

I use them a lot in my work. They are symbolic of so many things, as are rings and crescents and spheres, which are made of them.  Do they make you think of nests, gears, atoms, cycles, centering, oneness, unity, planets, the universe, spots, wheels, orbits, cycles, cookies, plates, cheerios, rings, bagels, lids, holes, wholeness, entirety?  And you know I love dots too, which are the smallest of circles, which have their own range of things they could represent: time, sand, condensation, precipitation, plankton, nanoseconds, infinitesimals, distance, etc.

How many different ways can you express the idea of circle? Here are some I did this week. All but one of these is done in collage, and all but one of the collages is done with mono prints I made. But your materials don’t really matter for this exploration. Use whatever you have, regardless of how simple it is. You’d be surprised how far you can go on a focused theme like this, if you just get started. The possibilities are endless.

The purpose of a sketchbook is to use it. Fill it up with trials. Give some circles a go!