There is something about daily writing/making that is medicinal. In The Artists�s Way, which I read many years ago (shortly after it was first published), I was struck by Julie Cameron's recommendation, no, mandate, for something she calls �daily pages.� This is basically 3 pages of writing on whatever happens to come to mind at the moment. Every day - day in, day out. While I think this is good advice, it is difficult, if not impossible for me to write 3 pages daily. I am a visual artist, primarily, and a writer much further down the list, so while thinking on this mandate and at times attempting it... I was struck by an idea of the daily picture or image. There�s the old saying about pictures being worth something around a thousand words each - that sounds like about three pages of writing to me. Ever since this idea flitted across my mind, I have been aiming for the daily picture with varying levels of success.

This process of Blogging has led me to realize that my blog can be a delicious combination of the two - daily words/and or pictures - and a living, breathing sketchbook of ideas and images. Cameron is a writer - naturally she will be biased toward writing - but picture making can be as releasing/demon exorcising/cathartic as scribbled pages of words. So here is my mandate (for me and everyone visually inclined rather that verbally inclined) - The Daily Image - doesn't matter how it is done - a little picture doodled on a Palm device - illustrator, photoshop, oil pastel, collage, cocktail napkin, digital snapshot, etc. Suspend judgement and just whip it out. Daily.

Need a good example of this sort of thing in action? Photomontage (via Brushstroke)