Could you pop next door once again?
Or…as Stew Crother might say in a lovely English accent,
“Will you nip in next door?”
Or, as folks might say from my Southern region in the USA,
“Y’all come on over now, ya hear?”
Anyway, Genevieve would love it if you could visit her today!
Merci!
Recently, I’ve realized a nasty habit: I complain a lot. You might be surprised at this. But if you heard the tape that runs in my head some days, or if you asked my husband…you’d hear an awful lot of grumbling. Laundry, dishes, dust, work, busyness, crazy drivers, not enough of this, too much of that, etc. The list goes on and on. A couple of weeks ago I was freshly awakened to this wearisome tape. Funny, how you also realize… that you’ve realized this about yourself before! Yeesh!
My thoughts went something like this: Ugh! There it is again! Complain, complain, complain! I’m sick of hearing myself complain! And now I’m even complaining that I’m a complainer! How will I be rid of this? It seems like it’s part of who I am… But surely not. Perhaps it’s not woven into the fabric of my being…perhaps it’s like a blankie I keep carrying around with me, the way a too old child carries around his/her blankie from infanthood. Well, if that’s the case…I can throw away the grumble blankie!! And so I did!
It felt great! To visually and purposefully dump that nasty, sucked-on-forever blanket I’d been nursing. But I felt I really ought to put something in its place…get rid of something yucky and replace it with something positive. And this image came to mind. I’ll trade my grumble blankie for a drawing pen! Drawing enables me to refocus the grumbling to embracing the life that I have. Yes. and Yes.
I went to sleep that night content with this little drawing and with the thought of that grumble blankie in the trash can. But the next morning, I swear that blankie must’ve crawled out of the trash can and inched its way up to my room as I slept. Oi! Darned if I didn’t start off…”ugh..it’s too early!…i didn’t get much sleep…how can anybody be expected to function on 5 hours of sleep????? grumble, grumble, grumble.”
And so, I’m finding I have to throw that darn blankie away every morning. Truth be told, I have to do it several times a day! Good Grief. But at least it drives me to pick up my pen and draw…draw the life that I am really truly thankful for…
…even if I grumble about it. 
Lesson #2: DRAW FROM THE FEAST!
So you drew up a chair…maybe several times this week. Yay! Hooray!! And I hope you were able to do some drawing or sketching, swooshing a bit of color around on the page. I think several of you drew chairs…that’s totally awesome!! Perhaps at some point you began to wonder, “OK. What now?” “What do I draw? What do I want to put in this little book of my life?”
You may not realize it, but every time you sit down (or find yourself already sitting); every time you stop the whirl of activity and just notice what’s going on around you…THERE’S A FEAST right there in front of you, in you, all around you. It’s at your disposal to drink in, to draw from (HA! love that), to record in images and words in your sketchbook.
*No matter how normal or mundane the items surrounding you may seem, they are fantastic fodder for drawings. Look around you, look down at your feet, look up to the sky/ceiling…SO MUCH TO DRAW right within arms reach. Then open a cabinet or two, draw the jumble of stuff in your closet, or garage, or under a bed.
*Step outside…draw the birds, flowers, weeds at your door. These three bushes “live” at the top of my neighborhood. I created different versions of them here and here, oh and here and here too!. So many beautiful things to capture in your sketchbook! To jot down in lines or colors. To create in cut or torn papers. To say to yourself and any you might allow to view your sketches: “I see the little beauties in my day and I’m not letting them go unnoticed!” But beyond what we can see in the world around us, there’s so so much more of the Feast from which to draw:
*Draw from your Inner Well. Your emotions at any given moment are perfect to try and get down in a sketchbook. Am I content right now? Am I agitated about something? Am I fearful, worried, or angry? Am I pleased as punch? Why? Draw and paint these things. You might actually draw the thing that makes you feel a certain way, OR you can create an abstract sketch of what that emotion feels like. You might even enjoy creating a character who is “you”, who can be drawn to represent these things. This is how Genevieve came about for me.
*Draw from your Thoughts. Are you thinking about the to-do list for your day? Draw the list and the items on it. Is there a poem you’ve come across that you love? Maybe a poem you yourself wrote? Write it in your sketchbook and make little pictures or swaths of color that go with that poem. Is there a quote you’re particularly fond of? Write it out, illustrate it. When I was a young girl I kept a book of favorite poems and quotes along with small cut out pictures from magazines that I thought illustrated the quotes. I still have these and love to see what I was “drawn to” then. Working out your thoughts and emotions in a sketchbook is a terrific way of dealing with them, and even making sense of them.
*Draw from your Dreams. Both the dreams you have while sleeping AND the dreams you have for the future make wonderful subjects for your book. The above drawing is based on a recurring dream I had as a little girl. You can read about it here.
*Draw from your Past. In you resides a vast amount of experiences! Events from your childhood, career milestones, parenting, travels, or ANYTHING that makes up your history…these are rich soil for drawings and paintings in your sketchbook. You can even devote a whole book to one particular subject. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and spent every summer on the stage of the outdoor drama, Horn in the West. Read more about that here if you’d like.
*Draw from your Opinions. Fill in the blank…I love ______. I do not like______. I hate______. Be it political or food, places or events, your opinion about something is worth getting down. Choose lines, colors and papers that are in keeping with your feelings about those things. You can probably guess that’s me on the left with my oldest daughter as we’re kissing our ukuleles! We love playing ukuleles!
The smorgasbord of your life, no matter how simple or boring you think it might be, is truly rich and wonderful! It’s all there when you draw up a chair. All you need is to take the time to survey the feast in front of you and in you. You need a sketchbook and pen. Perhaps some color too. You might not see the vast array of richness yet. Drawing will help uncover it for you. Start with what you can see. Draw it. Capture it in lines and color. If you’re stumped for how to go about making marks on a page, try Bert Dodson’s book Keys to Drawing. It will cover practically everything you need in the technique department. But really…you can just draw! No need for getting bogged down with how-tos. Just draw.
And the more you draw…more of the Feast will appear. Simply by drawing and drawing…you will uncover more and more things to draw and paint in your book. Drawings beget drawings, I say.
A Blessing: May you have eyes to see the Feast that is your life. May your eyes be freshly reawakened to the Beauty that surrounds you in your everyday world. May you be able to see and accept the vast experiences and emotions in your life as part of this Feast. May your Dreams and well-guarded past be allowed to play in the world of line and color.
***Access all Mini Lessons for Drawing Your Life at the top of the home page on my blog! (OR just click the highlighted words in blue!)
Big doings in the Edwards household these days…
All three kids wearing smiles as wide as their faces…
I’d have to say…I am too!
**A Note about the Mini Lessons starting this Friday!! I’m a little overwhelmed by everyone’s enthusiasm…and so I’m afraid maybe you might be thinking this will be like an interactive online class. Sadly, no, these little lessons on Drawing Your Life will merely be a blog post. Albeit filled with drawings/paintings/etc. (by me:) and encouragements by me, there will be no YouTube videos to watch or interactive lesson to tune into at a specific time. I’m just posting on Fridays something that will, I hope, aid you in your endeavor to chronicle your life in images. There will be minimal instruction on specific drawing techniques. I hope this isn’t disappointing to anyone. I just wanted to be clear. I re-read my previous post, If I taught You to Draw, and yep, sure ‘nough, it spells it out pretty well.
Gosh, it sounds like I’m really dampening the prospects of these Mini-Lessons. I just have to tell you I .AM. SO. EXCITED. ABOUT. THISSS!!!!
Yep. You guessed it! To draw and draw (and paint) my little life!
Genevieve knew it. I’ve even known it in some measure all along…it shows up in my Artist Statement, in this post and this one. But somehow I’ve needed a re-ordering, a sorting, if you will, to realize once again, the path I’m on. One commenting friend suggested it might be “creativity” as THE ONE THING. Though this is certainly valid, it has been too broad for me and I’ve been wanting/needing some focus among all my creative loves. When my friend, Teresa, asked the question and I answered her so definitively, she said, “Well, then THAT’S your job and all the others are your hobbies.” I loved that. There have been SO MANY times when I’ve tried making the others my “job” and I’m left saddened that “drawing” is put on a back burner. Though I love and enjoy-to-pieces the other creative endeavors…I’m content to think of them as hobbies. Drawing is central. This explains why I draw my knitting, draw my crocheting, draw my ukulele and illustrate the poems. This explains so much.
But there’s another element to my “job description” that I haven’t mentioned yet. It was as much a part of the answer to Teresa’s question as “drawing my life”. Here’s my entire response to her:
I want to draw my life and to encourage others to do so as well. I want to empower others (as I myself practice this daily) to see the Beauty that is right under their feet and all around them in their everyday, ordinary lives…if they will but look for it and draw, paint, or collage it to remember and celebrate their life.
This explains a lot…why I teach art to kids from Kindergarten through 8th grade, why I’ve taught a Visual Journaling class a couple of times in the past, why I’ve given several sketchbooks away to friends in hopes that they would draw their lives and find joy there, and why I titled my first Zine, Thoughts on Drawing & Life.
Perhaps I need a little of Genevieve’s determination some days to focus the creative ADD and the flotsam and jetsam of living. Perhaps I just needed to name it…(again?). I have several ways I want to expand my drawing horizons…they include you. I’ll continue in Baby Steps to see some of these dreams come into reality. I’ll share them as they evolve.
In the meantime…draw your life! Read Ish! by Peter Reynolds. Read The Creative License and Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory. Go through the terrific exercises in the books One Drawing a Day by Veronica Lawlor and Artist’s Journal Workshop by Cathy Johnson. I love EDM (Everyday Matters) both on Yahoo and on Facebook for the camaraderie and sharing of our drawings and paintings. Join us, if you aren’t yet a member. Carry a little book around with you and sketch or doodle the little things you see…interesting, beautiful, quirky, fun, and even the sad, dreadful, and horrible. Your life…your beautiful life.
P.S. Teresa used the word “job” interchangeably with “calling”. That’s how I’m thinking of it…a calling on my life.
P.S.2. The Free Dictionary definition of Linchpin:
linch·pin or lynch·pin (l
nch
pn
)
| Noun | 1. |  linchpin- a central cohesive source of support and stability |
This may come as a surprise to many of you who visit my blog regularly:
I struggle greatly with what might be termed Creative ADD, to put it lightheartedly.
On second thought, many of you may actually have diagnosed me with that malady on numerous occasions as I flit back and forth from drawing to knitting, painting to crochet, ukulele playing to sewing, and even a bit of poetry. So, whether this surprises you or not, I LOVE LOVE LOVE having so many creative outlets…yet I STRUGGLE STRUGGLE STRUGGLE to find a path, a focus, a sense of direction and purpose in my artistic endeavors. I also crave a focus/”career”/”job” (whathaveyou) that encompasses my WHOLE LIFE and is not sectioned off to certain small segments of my life.
I’ve been blessed with a friend whom I’ve known since I was a little girl and who is also a creative with many interests, a mom, a hard-working gal, and whose insight and experience I both admire and feel drawn to learn from. She is a mosaics artist who is equally at home with clay and other arts & crafts. She is the former owner/operator/teacher of Everyday Art Gallery in Reidsville, NC. We were able to carve out of our busy lives some time to catch up with each other and for me to ply her with the questions that badger me.
Of the many things I came away with that day, one of her questions to me has been most illuminating. Here’s a paraphrase of how she put it:
Imagine your creative life like your closet…you know, how you sort through your closet from time to time, weeding out and sorting through all the accumulated stuff. You have your staples, the mainstays, the clothes you wear all the time, feel good all the time, say “you” all the time. Then you have the clothes that you bring out once in a while…maybe the outfit or two when you’re feeling flamboyant, or when you want to be super comfy. There are the exercise clothes, the Sunday clothes, the party clothes. Then there are things you haven’t worn in years and years that really should be given away. It always does a person good to go through ones’ closet. So…what is the ONE THING creatively that you couldn’t do without. What is the mainstay, the staple? What creative endeavors are seasonal? Which ones do you think-”well, I want to keep it, but I’m ok with not wearing it today or even this week/month. I can get to that later.” And are there any that can be given away that are just weighing you down?
I had an immediate answer to this. It surprised me that I did, although once said, I felt as if I had spoken it before on numerous occasions. Had I forgotten? Has the water muddied by just the sheer overwhelm of creative ADD? Was this further clarity and affirmation that what I actually find myself doing most often is really THE THING I want to do, want to be my focus/job/career? Yes and YES!!
It has been incredibly liberating to name it. To actually name and pen the ONE THING that jazzes me most, that makes me giddy, that I’m actually already at work doing in so many ways, but which has opportunities for so many more things I’d love to explore.
So…can you guess?? Teresa, you can’t answer this, since you already know . But for any of you who would like to guess at how I answered my friend on Tuesday…is it knitting? crocheting? drawing? painting? poetry? sewing? ukulele playing? other? Which endeavor do you think I named as the linchpin to all the others? The overarching theme? The centering purpose?
Leave your thought in the comments and in a day or two, I’ll tell you. I doubt it will be much of a surprise…but oh, how delightful it has been to be re-surprised by it!! Just naming it and hanging it front and center in my closet has brought a renewed sense of focus and desire and purpose.
Thank you Teresa!
A new print for my Etsy Shop! This one is titled, Wonder in the Weeds. You can read the posting that went along with it HERE. The watercolor painting was created eight months ago and since then I’ve been humbled to hear of how this little image has encouraged many of you. Life certainly has a way of feeling like the weeds are crowding out the beauty. But a little bit of searching, sometimes on our hands and knees, can reveal wonders untold even in the midst of the overgrown weeds.
The date of this little sketch of Genevieve in my writing journal is April 3rd of last year…Creatively speaking, I was feeling way overwhelmed with the overgrown weeds at the time. Life seemed to be choking out a lot of the ideas I was dying to get out, so many of them Genevieve related. I began to take some baby steps even then, which resulted in the opening of my Etsy Shop.
Each little baby step I take is like a little seed gently planted out in the world. These seeds take root and begin growing immediately, even if it is only in my heart, giving me cheer. But it is my hope that it will bring cheer to others as well. I’m learning a lot about this practice of taking Baby Steps…it really is good medicine! Thank you all so much for joining me and receiving these little steps as I go along.
Thought for the Day: Baby Steps Make Glad Heart
**P.S. If you’d like to be notified via Facebook of all things related to Genevieve and My Etsy Shoppe, then CLICK HERE and “like” this page. I have so many more “seeds” to be planted in the Shoppe…more cards and prints of Genevieve, Original Artwork by me, Happy Day Birthday Boxes, more knit & crochet patterns and so much more!
