Sketch a day - Day 211/365

My friend Deborah Rehmat has begun a slow moving art exploration/project, to be a thing that is accessible for all. If you are interested check #gatewaysinthemind #bradfordmagicalplaces.

I expect I will be joining in from time to time. Slowly and in a haphazard way. Because it's a lovely invitation.

I decided to focus my energy here this evening because I felt quite resistant to drawing anything full stop. And having something to think about to help me draw felt good.

I am finding sketching at the moment quite taxing. I am finding that my brain tells me constantly that I don't have time. And, in a way, I don't. But what a world of hollow and pith to think of the things we love as being so unimportant as to be a waste of time. Or not worthy of our/ones/my time.

I do live in that topsy turvy world. But that doesn't mean I want to.

Anyway, I found myself caught between theses kinds of thoughts.motionless inside a stutter. In a space between not wanting to sketch/feeling too tired on the one hand and not wanting not to, on the other.

A dithering.

Eventually, I remembered Deborah’s invitation.

An invitation to spend time thinking about a special place, that feels magical.

A place where something other than the everyday wells up in you.

She suggested zooming in on a photo of something in this place and imagining/thinking from there.

To see what might happen.

I tried to find a picture of one of my special places but couldn't. Probably looking too quickly. Probably rushing. Never mind. I decided to pick a photo of an oak tree I could find. Because I was thinking about an special oak. I found a picture of an oak I thought was beautiful. Not my very special oak but a special oak nonetheless. I decided to zoom in on the trunk of this oak tree. To really look. I love the bark and life that lives on an oak. The textures. The ruts and pillows of moss. There is something about the crevices and craggs of oak bark that invite a whole universe of mini life. And the range of colour. So many greens and silvers and browns.

For a while I got lost in the colours and the shadows and the the beauty of weaving lines.

And I just had this moment of letting lines appear and drawing and scribbling into them. Really scribbling. And throwing water at it all and then slipping the colours into each other.

And thinking about the trees and drawing the bark made the world feel less in my face and more like my home.

It was a lovely way to spend a little bit of time.

It wasn't wasted.

It isn't beautiful or even a sketch.

But it's what I have today.

That's the news.