I’m getting excited about our summer growing season already. We’re looking for seeds, planning new raised beds for vegetable crops, and designing a meditation garden. It will be in a secluded area and will have room for meditation and yoga. Definitely something that will be used by both of us in the months to come.
On the other side of the cabin I have a herb garden. I was out there trimming back the sage a few days ago. I may have gotten carried away, but the plants came back nicely with lots of new growth last year and I expect they will do the same this spring. The last few days I’ve been looking at raindrops, unable to spend time in the garden as I’d love to. We had early-spring weather for a week. Now it’s gone.
Today’s sketch was of meditation. This is not me… I sketched from a photo of a woman meditating. My goal is to learn to draw more realistically… I have a lot to learn. This took about thirty minutes, maybe a little more. Well, this is a small part of the complete drawing. I cropped it.
My significant other (Baba Bob) looked at this and said it was a perfect image for a female character in my WIP novel, Oja. He’s now reading that novel and offering ideas. He is my idea man…. he comes up with some great ones. I keep encouraging him to write novels of his own but it hasn’t happened yet.
A few days ago I did another meditation sketch. This was of my Quan Yin figurine, with a fictional background. She’s a Chinese goddess of mercy and vegetarianism…
The top drawing was done with a hard 5H art pencil, and the bottom one with a soft 6B pencil. Can you tell the difference? They are both colorized in Paint Shop Pro (brown and green.) Before they were just white and gray pencil sketches.
I’m trying to do a sketch every day so my skill will improve. Art is a lot like writing – the more you do the better you become. Some people think it is all just talent – something you either have or don’t have. But it isn’t like that at all. Most people quit learning to draw when they were about 10 to 12 and our USA schools don’t encourage art much after that. Only a few students will enter high school art classes, and those will probably be the ones that showed more aptitude as younger children. The others got discouraged and gave up!
If you’re one of those artists who gave up drawing before you got good at it, you might like to try again. I’m learning with the help of a classic art book, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence
Hello Linda,
Well, you are an interesting person! I’m visiting you from squidoo. I’m delighted to see your drawings and to hear you speak about picking up where you left off with old projects and passions. Perfect way of keeping our minds and spirits young – picking up things we think of as incomplete or unfinished business.
I’m adding in links to your squidoo page. I sent two plus I have two more I’d like to add. I stopped because I suddenly felt like I was sending too many. Since visiting your page, I understand from your gardening share that you will prune back what’s necessary and leave the others room to flourish. I trust your judgment to curb my enthusiasm if I am sending too many at once 😀
hi Linda… i am one of the person in this world who reckon not good in drawing lol, but reading yours and the belief that you have, make me thinking to start over. Well, thanks for sharing… i am now struggling to remember what was my last drawing…
hi, meditation is a simple act though it requires dedication. In allowing and helping one to navigate life, it can be as important as a physical exercise. Thanks for posting this helpful article.
Thanks for the comment, flyrejser. I believe I’m getting a great benefit from the yoga and meditation I’ve been doing. It helps me start the day with a sense of balance – not just physical, but mental and emotional as well. It makes me feel like everything is going well and that I can achieve whatever needs to be done.