This week my thoughts have turned towards noticing and paying attention.

I started a different kind of travel journal at the beginning of the month using photos from a trip to Amsterdam last year. My self-imposed creative challenge and restriction is to somehow use every single picture that I took during my trip. And no, I don’t plan to draw all 1000 photos in their entirety. However, I do need to take something from each and use it somewhere in my travel journal.

Some of my pictures are wonderful, but others really aren’t.

A view of construction and some buildings across the way from Amsterdam’s Centraal Station.

What’s very quickly emerged from this challenge is the sense of fun and adventure that I hadn’t expected. I study every picture to see what element I can take from it to work within my creative parameters. Each less than wonderful photo becomes really interesting. What bit of detail can I find in it and use to add to my story? It’s become a game. Everything I notice in one photo then makes it easier to spot in the next. I begin to notice more and more.

I chose to draw the cupola from the above street photo.

As I was drawing this domed building, I realized it was where the cupola I drew earlier resides.

What also happens with spending some time and paying attention, is that I end up liking whatever I’m drawing more and more. The object, not necessarily my picture. It becomes more interesting as I look at it and try to replicate some aspect of it in my sketchbook. In art, most things become more beautiful the longer you spend with it.

If you are interested in reading more on the subject of noticing, I have two books to recommend. One is On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz where she takes walks with eleven different experts. She shows how differently we all see the same areas based on our experience and interests. The other book is The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday by Rob Walker. This book is full of ideas to re-examine the regular and ordinary to find new and interesting things.

What have you noticed recently? What have you put your attention towards?

I love looking at things and spotting patterns and the various bit of beauty and oddness in unusual places. A friend who knows I have this interest suggested I read On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz. What a treat it is!

The author takes 11 walks through neighborhoods, mostly in Manhattan, with 11 different guides who are all experts in their areas. Seeing and hearing what they notice on their walks is so interesting. There are worm tracks through stone, trash cans at the eye level of toddlers, lettering with unfortunate spacing, animal wild life and their tracks in the city, people’s behavior in crowds and while walking, non-verbal communication, scents and sounds and so much more. It is a delight to read and re-read.

Thinking about noticing, I took my dog for a walk today. I left my phone behind so that I too could go out looking. My dog was a great companion in demonstrating how interesting the walk was to her with things I just couldn’t really appreciate. Having so many olfactory nerves or sensors would really change one’s life. I wonder how a perfumer senses the world. Much of my walk was along the lines of, “Hurry up, let’s go!” shifting quickly to, “Ooh! Wait! Let me check this tree out” to “Let me try this grass. Not that grass, this grass.” Munch, munch munch. Then “Hurry up, let’s move on!” and “Oooh! People!!”

It was nice to take some time out and just notice and look. I might take some of what I saw and put it in a drawing, but I also may just file my observations away to add to my next noticing session. Have you noticed anything new around you recently?