Tag: pencils

Night Garden

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While rifling through heaps of paper, looking for a long-lost set of notes (which I never did find in the end), I rediscovered my Artagain pad of Strathmore drawing paper in coal black. I had been looking for it for months and was excited to find it.

I had to try my new pencils on the pad right away, and had in mind to create another little garden — the kind I never seem to tire of drawing these days — but something glowing, alive, and luminous. I gathered the pencils that ‘glowed’ the most, assembled some of my favourite greens, and took to the drawing board. My favourite way to work entails no pre-penciling, but letting the stalks and blooms grow onto the page as they come, one after another, with a sense of commingling colour in fun ways. This sometimes results in forms that look more like fried eggs than flowers (bottom right), but that is ok. Just looking at this garden fills me with a sense of tenderness.

I hope you enjoy this night-time scene and its small, moon-lit world.

Toucan fiber folk

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I hope you are having a restful Sunday.

This week sees a new knitting friend to add to last week’s: a toucan who is enjoying some knitting and sunlight in a purple lopapeysa sweater.

I have always loved toucans and their stunning colours — they are the opposite of camouflage, brazenly themselves. At least that’s how I think of it.

And Spring is a good time for artists (I am speaking for myself). The return of the sun makes colours extra vivid, bringing out their worlds of feeling. The surfaces and textures of stitches, fabric, and fiber become more brilliant, too. Working outdoors or with windows ajar, I feel connected to the slow sprouting of life around me. A quiet sweetness of being becomes possible.

Wishing you peace and sunny days this week. 🙂

Happy Lunar New Year

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Lunar New Year is upon us! This is the year of the Ox — a symbol in the lunar calendar associated with strength, diligence, hard work, and reliability (no plow skills needed). Oxen energies are expressed each time we plan a course of action; apply consistent effort, whatever our pace; and evince a little bit of “stubbornness” (let us say, perseverance) in adhering to a vision or idea. This is, in other words, the year for planting our feet on long-harbored dreams and making them come into fruition — the year that expended elbow grease will be likely to pay off (one hopes!). As per the lunar zodiac, this year also appears to favour restoration, replenishment, and recovery in their various senses, but will also be a time to carry the responsibilities that accompany the rewards. I like to treat the zodiac not as a firm set of predictions, but as an open-ended starting point for orienting action and energy (I read the I Ching in a similar way).

So. In that spirit, I wish you Oxen energies as you continue, this year, to bring into being the things in your heart!

Ok. Art-wise, my heart has been a flowery place. I recently did a simple still life drawing. More imagined flowers, in pencils, drawn in January. I see them as clowny and happy and pretty.

I treated myself to a new set of pencils in January, and I enjoy them: the scratchy texture isn’t 100% coverage on the page, but penciled space holds movement and line in a way that makes me feel like I show up in the picture. And in comparison to the fluidity and flow of paint, pencils require a little bit of elbow grease — a little push, from the inside out, to make things happen. I recently finished another picture that involved penciling the surface of an 11 x 14″ page — and I did feel like a little ox, bearing the colours across the paper, slowly over several days, until the whole thing was covered. Pencils, simply, are good for my soul.

Ok. Wishing you the creative mirth of flowers, and auspicious beginnings! 🐂 🌸