642 things to draw

Some days are less creative than others. I recently bought this book with the idea that simply drawing is good for the soul. It's turned Into an awesome family sketchbook... Sketches take 5 minutes to do and are so calming...

Even if I'm drawing a rolling pin, cereal or knitting needles... It does something good inside me to sit  and draw... Especially on a day that seems less creative than I'd like.

Z's drawing here was under the caption "feelings" - so he decided to draw what he thinks are "dog feelings" by facial expressions.

Mimi's page said "Olympics" - so she drew Dorothy Hammill, figure skating in an arena... Now we just have to get Daddy on board...

Catalogue love

You know how much I love using my junk mail catalogues for collages... There are times, though, when a catalogue is just too beautiful to cut into (usually it's Anthropologie...) ... Times when I wish I could
just sit inside the photography. I admit, it's not the clothes in the catalogue I salivate over, it's the overall tone, the experience, the sense. Sure, I love spending my money at said store, but I have to say- I don't think the catalogue itself has ever introduced me to an item I later bought... But the mood? Yes... I love the mood. This last one was too much for me to cut up. I just wanted to sit inside it. So I did. I began journaling on top of the images ... Words on top of the lovely... And I've drawn on some of the other
pictures... This one happens to be a drawing reproduction of a vintage fabric pattern from one of my yoyos.
(happy)

Drawing time

Now that The design director is in school all day every day, we don't get art time like we used to. Just now she found a shading tool from my drawing supplies and asked what it was. (yay!) i took a few minutes to show her how fun a plain old pencil can be. (I drew my thumb as I leaned over her and we worked on the shading together.) we got to talk about observing light and dark, shadows, shading...
I love moments like this. She's busy now... Looking at everything a little closer and trying to draw and shade it all.

Artwork for AJ

There will be more of this - more development of these thoughts for sure... and please pardon me as I grieve a little publicly. This blog is how I express myself and seems the most appropriate place to put my heart right now.

Today, cleaning up, packing up AJ's things into boxes to be put into the attic, I found this picture that Mimi made for him last week. She loved making him drawings and then taping them to the rotating mobile on his swing so they would move around as he swung.

The two (not great, but expressive nonetheless) drawings were quick sketches that I made in church two different Sundays. The one in pen of myself holding a broken earth was drawn with AJ sleeping peacefully on my lap.

The second one was drawn right after I took that pic of Jay holding AJ in church. These were my promises to him - I made many more... and will have to let them unfold naturally, but it seemed appropriate to share them. Maybe it's not, I'm not sure. But I know that I love that baby and the dark heart in the image of me walking him to the mountain (a symbol to me for the hardships of life that need to be climbed as we reach for God) is very much a reality this week. Though I didn't know that AJ would be taken from me less than 48 hours after I drew this, I had a sense in my soul that I couldn't ever hold him close enough, long enough or make him safe enough on my own.