con·cat·e·nate – a New Year Project

Two days ago (i.e. 2 days before the start of a New Year, and seemingly a good time to start a new “thing”), I was reading Myrna Wacknov’s blog about her project called Drawn To The Mirror in which she sketched herself every day for 365 days.  The sketches were done on a page-per-day calendar  with quilt pattern images as a background.  It got me thinking.  Yesterday I was walking past the local stationery shop and there, on sale, was a simple, lined, page-per-day desk calendar that screamed “buy me”, so I did.  I have decided to give this sketch-a-day for 365 days a go.  I have two cats and they will be the only subjects involved during this time.  I have always been impressed by Roz Stendahl who sketched her beloved dog Dottie for 5 years in a series called “Daily Dots”  and she has also inspired me to try this for 1 year with 2 cats.  Sammy (a girl) is now about 17 years old and she is a reliable model because she doesn’t stray and sleeps most of the day.  Bella is 10 years old, still full of beans and not easy to locate during the day so the sketches will be of whichever is available.  My main points of focus will be:   1) keep it very simple    2)  try different media as desired    3)  keep it to less than 10 minutes and preferably less than 5 minutes   4)  a sketch a day    5)  enjoy the process
It will either be a Daily Wonder that I will love, or over and done in 7 days – A One Week Wonder!
Many years ago when I learned to use Excel, I also learned a new word: Concatenate.  It’s a formula in Excel that is extremely useful and I have used it many times and it has since been a favourite word.  I like the sound of it as well as it’s purpose.  It seemed appropriate for this project because this will be about uniting in a series, and also because each sketch will be a cat.
and so,  con.cat.e.nate is the name of this project -   [kon-kat-n-eyt] to link together; unite in a series or chain.
Here goes …..