Noticing

It seems to me that one of the chief benefits of drawing is to allow us to really notice what’s right in front of us. I’ve been walking the sidewalks of our neighborhood, almost daily, for the past 17 years and I discover new things all the time. There are certainly days when I’m hunkered … Continue reading Noticing

Rooted

“I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted, they travel about as far as we do.” - John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist. Though I may be hard pressed to say that every tree I see and draw is completely content (as of course, we embue … Continue reading Rooted

Poems

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” -Khalil Gibran I am finding this to be true. Each and every tree...no matter how trimmed, blighted, hacked off, or allowed to grow free...speaks in verse or rhyme a tale of life and love, beauty and grace. Evening sky behind treeline... The limbs are like … Continue reading Poems

Drawings Beget Drawings

Perhaps it’s a law of Physics...but it is a reality I’ve noticed time and time again, that when you set your pen to paper and make a drawing, three others are begging to be drawn! You draw the tree and in doing so you notice daffodils are blooming a full month early! And one must, … Continue reading Drawings Beget Drawings

The Space Between

There is a delicious space between one’s head and the page. Sometimes I am not so aware of it as I begin to draw. But several drawings of late have me pondering this place where connections are made, lines speak like words, life informs lines, and vice versa. Certainly no one would see this expansive … Continue reading The Space Between

Trees & Me

It really shouldn’t surprise me. Drawing has always been so much more than simply lines on a page. I forget this phenomenon of conversation between hands and heart, of lines bold and thin drawing out what I need to see or acknowledge. Of course I thought, when I set about to draw a tree a … Continue reading Trees & Me

Focus

It is a truth, which I’ve experienced numerous times, that when help is needed, help is offered. This happens in a variety of ways, on so many levels in both my personal life and my creative life, which I see more and more are intricately entwined and cannot be separated from one another. For months … Continue reading Focus

New Year Eyes

”There are eyes in pencils and pens.” This quote by John Piper, found in a book I’m re-reading for the umpteenth time, echoes down a long hallway of years of drawing and writing. I know this to be true...how I see so much better when I’m wearing my pens. A bic pen for writing daily … Continue reading New Year Eyes

Attention

In the middle of November I started to draw what was happening in my head. Well, it wasn’t only in my head. Some of the ideas that flutter around in my head come through my hands, or at least get started to see if they want to be fully birthed. Not all of the ideas … Continue reading Attention

Notice & Observe

Here we are...again...at the starting gate of a New Year! All the hopes and fears of all the years (or at least those of 2018) seem to gather together in a clump as we look ahead, hoping the New Year brings less difficulty than the one before, and fearing that it might not. The temptation … Continue reading Notice & Observe