I was dying to get some sketching in this week. I’ve been working on a graphite portrait and have been enjoying the tight detail and concentration it requires…but I got to the point where I really just wanted to scribble down something loose and fun. So I drew my lunch. The cafe staff always look at me a little strangely when they see my pull my lunch apart like this, but when they saw me start to draw it too…that was the last straw 
Giggles all round!
I walked past my favourite tree yesterday afternoon and snapped off some pictures with my phone so that I could try my hand at a botanical sort of style journal entry…this is the result. I quite like the detail sketches…but i still can’t manage to make trees look like trees. So frustrating! I’d better work on that some more before I go to New Zealand…I suspect there will be a few over there that I will want to draw!
Life gets somewhat crazy sometimes. I get caught up in routine and drama and I lose sight of the need to manage my physical and mental energies, which doesn’t do anyone any good So I have a couple of standby strategies to bring me back to centre. One is walking, usually accompanied by any music that involves guitars and awesome harmonies.
The second thing I do for “therapy” is to play. I love visiting the playground near my house and just swinging away…through I always feel really bad when the little kids come to the park and look at me like I’m some kind of weirdo for using their swing…I usually vacate at that point
It seems to me that anything with a rhythmic component that acts almost like hypnosis to take my mind away from the swirling maelstrom of daily life is what does the trick. Walks, bikes, swings……aaaaahhhhhh. Simple pleasures. Each of which are even better if it’s raining (which it wasn’t in either of these cases ) (and yes, I know there’s a spelling mistake in that top entry 
)
What do you do to unwind?
I’m not sure what it is about this sketch that I like, but I have to admit that I am ridiculously pleased with it.
Perhaps it’s the colour combination, or the density of the pigment (I’m trying out some artist quality W&N pans), but it makes me smile. Deriving such pleasure from drawing something so mundane as a bike part is somewhat strange…convention says that art should be all deep and meaningful and blah blah blah.
I’m all for cutting the pretence from the creative process and delving into the seemingly uninteresting details of life to find peace and pleasure. It’s the small details that often get missed in my busy life, but it’s in those same details where the meaning of life hides if you take the time to notice.
Drawing gives me time and space to notice. And I am grateful.
More nostalgia…I must be getting old! Lots of little, seemingly insignificant, things are triggering memories lately. It’s fun to drift back into the memories from time to time.
As I mentioned in my previous post I have been getting a little nostalgic of late. I recently purchased an album of old seventies country music because I thought it might be fun to listen to some of the old songs I was “subjected to” as a child when we travelled long distances in a very cramped car.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the waves of emotion that flooded over me as I listened to the songs for the first time. Incredibly strong memories of people and places and experiences washed over me in a palpable wave. It made me smile and it brought tears to my eyes. Also, rather astonishingly, even though I haven’t heard these songs in more than 30 years, I could still remember all of the words … what does that say about repetition and indoctrination??
The song that features in today’s drawing brought back particularly find memories of a prepubescent crush on a (much) older guy…I’m sure he didn’t know I was alive, but I thought it was all kinds of wonderful that he could play this song on his guitar by the bonfire out on his parent’s farm. There’s somthin’ about lanky cowboys in tight jeans………….we’ll just leave it there shall we?
I have been getting more than a little nostalgic lately, particularly when it comes to music … the ABBA documentary on TV the other night didn’t help
I’ve also managed to get off my butt, scan my current sketchbook entries and upload them to Flickr…head on over and catchup … I haven’t been drawing a lot this year due to work commitments and I’m feeling my energy levels wane as a result…better do something about that fast!
After I’d been through the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition and made sure I got thoroughly lost exiting the gallery, I spent some time sitting in the sculpture garden enjoying the solitude.
There are some truly beautiful pieces in the garden. I was visited by a blue wren and his harem as I sat in the shade and sketched.
Oops! The Carillon has a bit of a lean to it One of the pitfalls of drawing with my sketchbook on my lap. Hope it doesn’t fall into the lake!
Summer holidays normally means relaxing and chilling under the air conditioner…not this year…my aircon has broken and we hare having a nasty week of extreme heat and high winds (AKA high fire danger weather). I took to painting to distract myself….
I did the drawing on location and then added watercolour when I got home. It felt a bit weird drawing in public!
I think I need to get some lessons for doing landscapes…I’m not liking how these are turning out at all :\
My name is Michelle ... art and creativity are both my saving grace and the best therapy ever! Take a look around and drop me a line if you feel like a chat.
