Note to self: next time, clean fingernail before drawing it - or pretend it is clean for the purposes of drawing...
March 2007 Archives
As I was finishing this sketch, my daughter said, "I just noticed something - two cafe drawings in a row." Different cafe, different time of day, different refreshment, but a moment to pause and look around, each time. (First store-bought iced coffee of the season, too. (Iced coffee at home knows no season...))
Out running errands for most of the morning. Midway through we stopped and I had a cup of tea and my daughter had a very large blueberry muffin.
More variation than I would expect in the size and color of these toasted seeds. If I close my eyes when I'm eating them, I can't correlate any particular difference in taste with a difference in size or color, though. Maybe if I eat a few more...
One flower from the bunch of Gerbera daisies bought last week has decided to bend down. The cut stem seems no different from the others, so I can't see why it droops, but it does. I thought of pulling it out of the vase, but have not gotten around to that yet. Anyway, I tell myself that it hasn't wilted completely. The color is still there - it still participates in the effect of the bouquet as a whole. I guess I can use it as an occasion for thinking about grace in moments of change or reversal?
One of those moments in between the moments that require attention. I was waiting to hear whether my younger son had broken or sprained his foot. (Sprained - no cast necessary.)
We just got a case of grapefruit mailed to us from family in Florida. Mmm, so fragrant. All lined up on the kitchen counter.
These willow twigs came with some other flowers years ago, and I keep cycling them through different arrangements in different places - sometimes alone, sometimes with fresh flowers, sometimes with other dried stems. I love the way they add texture and drama to a vase and I get a kick out of how well they have held up over time.
Child puts her foot up on the back of the sofa and then falls asleep in that peculiar angle.
We made paper flowers earlier this week, with bright green pipe-cleaner stems.
My landscape painting for the month of March is now posted over on the Curbly site.
Light fixture in the living room ceiling. We never turn it on. The switch is hidden behind a painting, because the painting needed to go on that wall, and I didn't like using the light anyway. I don't know why it has taken me two-and-a-half years to sketch this, when I sit in the living room almost every night and think, "What shall I draw?" Sometimes I don't see what's right in front of me...
While waiting for each of my three children to have a dentist appointment, I looked out the window and into the sky across the street.
Petal, pistils, and the very edge of the vase on the coffee table. Every time someone walks by, another threadlike bit of flower falls.
Playing with intense color for the liquid itself and line for the rest of the drawing.
A bowl of green apples on the table. Miles Davis playing in the other room: Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (Take 2).
Robin tracks in the late snow. I know the tracks belonged to a robin because I saw her a few moments later hopping from one branch to another. The snow will melt. The robin will stay.
Got these for their amazing color today.
Shoyu, or soy sauce, is another household staple. The red-capped cruet is something I remember from childhood. At one point I had a container like this labeled all in Japanese, but the glass broke and it was replaced with a regular bilingual bottle from the supermarket.
Always to be found in my kitchen. (Garlic as well.)
Blue sky today and warmer. I was walking past a neighbor's yard and noticed purple crocuses and other little flowers (wild tulips?) opening in the straw-colored lawn. Did not get out to my own backyard to see what's happening there...
Up late after a wonderful dinner catching up with friends. I'll be sleepy tomorrow, but it's worth it. And then we'll have that extra hour of light at the end of the day - also worth any amount of temporary disorientation.
Crumpled on the floor. Can I pretend it is a beautiful, cloud-like shape, drifting into my angle of vision? Maybe if it was all white. The red and blue print are distinctly un-cloudlike, and mark it as a husk of some purchase, now forgotten.
Eight hundred days later, and I am still looking at my hand.
The other day I was asked why I blog. This is why. And this. And this and this and this (among other days). I can make pictures like these for myself now, and when I began, I could not.
Without a daily rhythm and the daily practice I would not have learned what I have in eight hundred days. Eight hundred days from now I don't know what my life will be like, but I imagine I will still be drawing, and sharing mistakes and discoveries and small bits of my life here every day. Thank you. My way of seeing has changed. My community has grown. I'm profoundly grateful.
Someone - not me - scotch-taped a hula hello kitty keychain to the dining room mantelpiece.
Experimenting with a bamboo dip pen and ink. I like the unpredictable character of the line.
These start out rounded and brightly colored, and gradually get flatter and duller but better for kicking - or so I'm told.
Bought to celebrate March, and as incentive for (or distraction from) picking up the living room. Unseasonably cold with snow flurries tonight. Today was Exelauno Day, and for those of you who observe it, I hope it was a happy one. We took the theme a little farther than necessary, with one and a half trips to the airport at the crack of dawn. (Conversation halfway there. Front seat: Do you have your bag? Back seat: Uh, no...) Back home to get it, but made the flight in time, and older son is now in Florida for a few days with grandparents.
Went out to try to see the eclipse tonight. We drove around the city, talking and listening to the radio, and thinking about unobstructed eastern views. Homewood Cemetery was locked up, but across the street and up the hill, the Smithfield East End Cemetery was un-gated. Some conversation from the back seat about zombies and the full moon in a cemetery. The front seat pointed out that an eclipsed moon should not be counted as full... and we found a good spot on the winding drive. Heavy cloud cover meant that we only caught a brief glimpse, and it was cold enough that we decided to head home after ten or fifteen minutes. By the time we were able to see anything, the totality had passed, so our glimpse was mostly the edge of the reappearing bright moon. However, our older son arrived home for spring break tonight and was in the plane during the eclipse - so he saw it well. Very dark orange - almost not visible, he said.
A quiet evening at the end of the week. Today was mild, with great expanses of blue sky between the fluffy clouds. The ground is soggy with rain and melted snow, and rising from that were tiny white crocuses in someone's back garden.
My daughter is learning how to count coins. I found a quarter today, but it's in the pocket of my jacket, and the penny is right here.
