Happy Year of the Horse

Happy lunar new year!  It's the year of the Wooden Horse.  From all I've read, Horse energy is brave and  bold.  The time for pondering and planning is oh so last year, (2013 was the year of the Snake).  This is  the year to act... close your eyes and take a leap, launch a business, travel the world, buy that pony you never got for Christmas!!  If it’s right, then there’s nothing to think about; just do it. It's a time for trusting our instincts. And if you have your doubts, remember what Oprah says, 'if you are on the right path, the universe rises up to meet you.  
I'm taking these suggestions to heart and, pardon the pun, am boldly getting back on my blog horse!  Today I resume my long neglected weekly post entitled Saturday Sketch. Who knows, maybe with all the bold horsey energy floating around,  I'll add a Sunday Scribble and a Friday Figure to my line up!
Recently, a couple of people asked me a couple of questions about my sketches...How long does it take to do a sketch, and, do I draw straightaway with my pens or use a pencil first?  Both questions can be answered with a word or two:  Just a few minutes or hours, and sometimes yes and sometimes no.  Let me explain.  I try to draw every single day.  Most times I pick up my pen without any preconceived image in mind; I let my hand do the thinking and within a few minutes I have sketch that seems to have 'magically' appeared and often leaves me asking myself, where the heck did that come from?  Other times, like with the drawing above, I had an image in mind and needed to do a little thinking.  I mean, how many people can really draw a horse???  I gathered some photo reference, hit upon a composition and used a pencil to block out the shapes.  After the basic shapes were in order I used my pen to draw the finished image and later popped the image into Photoshop to add the festive red background.  The above did not magically appear, it was much more intentional. For me one kind of sketch isn't better than the other; spontaneous or premeditated, both are good!  I truly believe the the sketchbook is a 'most necessary' tool for the creative process. My current sketchbook entries are more inventive, but I have scads that were used solely to document the world I observed around me.  IMO, both approaches are good for the hand and good for the brain.  The most important thing is to keep sketching!