Returning Home

Hello Blog Friends! I do miss posting here as I am spending more time over on Substack. You may also be signed up there as well, and I’m grateful for that. Really and truly…your email-box doesn’t know whether you receive a post from me via Substack or via my blog. On the receiving end of things … Continue reading Returning Home

A Life-Giving Force

I walk into a garden and I immediately sense a shift. Perhaps it is simply the aromas of thyme underfoot, jasmine on a trellis, roses in bloom, and rich loamy soil. Maybe it is the visual profusion of greens punctuated by blooming color. Whatever it is, I cannot help but feel a pulse of life … Continue reading A Life-Giving Force

Devotion

Courtyard Garden. Ink & Watercolor. Sketchbook. When you look up synonyms for the word Devotion, you read words like affection, ardor, zeal, attachment, fondness, love and passion. There is always something or someone on the receiving end of these words. It isn't possible to just be devoted. One is devoted TO something. One has fondness … Continue reading Devotion

A Drawing Opportunity

Though every day, every moment, is a drawing opportunity, I have been offered a huge opportunity to go draw at a beautiful garden in Asheville, NC. This weekend I am headed to Devotion, the name of Mignon Durham's beautiful garden and home which she has built, planted and curated for the past nine years. To … Continue reading A Drawing Opportunity

Drawing Adventures

I wake up each day and wonder what drawing adventures I will have. Some days I have in mind what I'd like to draw, and I purpose to take my sketchbook, chair and ink outside. For this adventure I needed to go no further than our yard, having seen the rhododendron blooming behind our back … Continue reading Drawing Adventures

Gardens, Gardens, Gardens!

I have been going to sketch in a garden at least once a week for a few weeks now. What a joy and wonder it is to see the earth come alive in all its spring splendor in a garden! I'm not sure there is anything else quite so grand as to sit and soak … Continue reading Gardens, Gardens, Gardens!

Fresh Wind in the Garden

The season of Lent is not traditionally thought of as a "happy" time. It is meant to be a time of contemplation, of pulling back from areas of dependency to create longing and space for reflection. I decided to pull back from so much Instagram activity but to draw every day in my sketchbook through … Continue reading Fresh Wind in the Garden

Turning

As the seasons turn, so do my drawing habits. What was in winter an every other day thing, is now a daily compulsion perhaps akin to all the growing things bursting through the ground these days. Spring has always been a time when I long to be in my sketchbooks more, to be outside painting … Continue reading Turning

Morning Magic

A hushed reverie fills my imagination and studio twice a day. Early morning and late afternoon are becoming favorite times to sit here in my sunroom studio and look out the picture windows at the magical light show over the neighborhood. The mornings are filled with Christmas piano playing softly on Pandora. I feed on … Continue reading Morning Magic

The Experiment – Stove top? or Crockpot?

"I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you." Annie Dillard, from Weasels in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk. It is interesting to me, every time I realize the need for … Continue reading The Experiment – Stove top? or Crockpot?