Drawing the Chaos

DrawnChaos

Early this morning I felt the need to draw the chaos that is my desk. A true picture of the shape of my life right now: mounds of papers from school (both mine and my kids), yarn, end-of-year tax gathering, yarn, knitting patterns and projects, yarn, books I’m “reading”, oh and did I mention yarn?

For whatever reason, I just needed to draw it. This is me, my life right now. It wasn’t bugging me too badly at all. There was actually some sense of delight in the flurry of  stuff! But what happened immediately upon drawing the chaos, I cannot explain to you.

I began tidying up! Who knew? Who knew that in drawing the mess, a bit of motivation would appear to straighten it up! Could it be that if we are in need of motivation for anything, that all we have to do is simply DRAW IT? And we just might find ourselves doing the very thing we thought, “I have no time for that!”

Crazy, this drawing life. It continues to amaze me.

P.S. In case you’re wondering…I drew this with fine liner pens early in the morning, then added a splash of watercolor this afternoon when I had a few moments. For  me, art is not always available in two-hour long chunks. I gotta take it when I can, a few minutes here, a few there! When you draw in the early morning, you have the satisfaction of “well, at least I got one drawing in today” for the rest of the day. But you might find that in the early morning bleariness, you accidentally drew with your sketchbook upside down, as I discovered later today. 😉

0 thoughts on “Drawing the Chaos

  1. Liz Adams says:

    This is so funny,since I’m the opposite: very orderly with materials, projects, etc., because it drives me mad otherwise. But my late husband was, um, very freestyle,and the only way I could tolerate the chaos he created in the house was to draw it! once I saw it as raw material for art, things went better, and some of my better line drawings came from it. It worked both ways, though, since he learned to check before taking a piece of fruit from a bowl, or putting on his shoes, to make sure they weren’t my current models!

  2. jrwilsondesign says:

    I used to have a button pin with the image of a cartoon cat on it holding a paintbrush and paint everywhere. The artist was Sandra Boynton who drew all those cute animals. On it were the words “I’m not messy, I’m creative!” A friend gave it to me, but I did not take offense. If we get wonderful results out of our “mess”, so be it. But it is satisfying to “reset” the mess occasionally. Interesting that drawing it instigated the “reset” for you!–JaneW

    • jenpedwards says:

      I love this idea of “resetting” the stage…cool thought! And I think I’d like to have a button like that! Thanks for visiting and commenting!

    • jenpedwards says:

      It might work that way, dad! Someone I know who does embroidery says that it took her pain away post surgery on her leg…at least WHILE she was creating. Afterwards, the pain seemed to return. Art is a powerful thing.

  3. Rebecca J Stahr says:

    Maybe if I draw the constant battle with clutter in my house I will come to not let it stress me. This is a great sketch! I love the comment about the upside down sketch book. That is SO something I would do. Thanks for sharing.

  4. Suzanne Cabrera says:

    Did you find that the drawing also helped you feel a bit more organized in the process. I don’t know why, but storing these types of moments in my sketchbook has the same kind of feeling as placing it in a folder in a filing cabinet.

    • jenpedwards says:

      Yes! Yes! Thanks for articulating that! I just drew my sweet daughter who is sick with a virus today:( and it felt like I could get a grip on this and handle it. Not quite like filing it, but gives me a way of managing it.

  5. Mari says:

    Thats funny, because sometimes if Im kind of stuck in my fab mess… meaning cant find the inspiration or modivation to tidy up, I take a picture and then when I see how mad it really looks I cant stand it and it gets all cleaned up. Its hard to keep it all together right now with my work space frozen shut and I have to use all other table surfaces in the house, my poor husband is doing well but I know its driving him batty : ) Great sketch of your wonderful mess!!!

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