Between Reading and Writing comes Drawing

    Between Reading and Writing comes Drawing. In recent years I have struggled to find  time to do what I love. Moving off the big farm and having a baby 4 years ago  just disturbed the genital balance of my life…. Well my creative life that is. My art work took a back seat to all the changes that were taking place in our lives.

   Tom and I spent about two years in the transition from the big house and yard to the little house and yard. While we moved Christopher was two.. The terrible twos and potty training what a mess. We attempted to buy a “finished” old home and the sale fell through the last day of our lease on the farm. We were homeless and everything we owned headed to storage. Toms mom just happened to have a one bedroom furnished apartment that she rented and did not need at the time. Tom, Christopher and I spent almost 5 months living there while looking for a home. In the end we took on a 1920 old store that had over the years been turned into a home for a couple of families but was never really updated and then abandoned for a couple of more years. Crazy, right! We worked nonstop for two years to make the house livable. It was one of the most emotional experiences of my adult life…to be homeless and working and with good credit. How does that happen? It was the most out of control I have ever felt. It was as if we had no say in what was happening to us and we were a boat adrift. It has been almost three years now  the house and I am finally starting to feel at peace enough to start drawing and painting.

    I used to draw pictures to regain my piece of mind, if things were to tough in the outside world I withdrew from the world and created pictures. If I was trying hard to recover from some loss, I took time out to put pencil to paper. If I was in love I poured my heart on to paper. While in college I worked very hard on my draftsmen skills and spent hours and hours exploring pen, paper, ink and canvas. Yet, when Christopher was born I just kind of stopped. I guess this always happens with a new life in the house but the rebound from his birth to me wanting to create has been a very long 4 and half years.

    Much to my relief I still have the skills to draw… just a little rusty but after a few scribbles I think I will be fine. The whole process is different now. I need peace and quite and time, lots of time to unwind my mind enough to sit quietly and put an idea down on paper. As a teen I only needed something to draw on, the energy was pushing its way out. This is why my mother finally gave up on trying to remove all the doodles that I embedded into a faded pairs of Levis. I could not stop myself, drawing was a constant habit. As if my hand was always in motion without any sign of me thinking about what or where the ideas came from.

   Now with adult problems, a toddler and work, I find myself constantly distracted from that free-flowing source of inspiration. Writing the blog helps, reading books saved me from a total melt down over the last few years but Thiers something more satisfying in the release that art and drawing does for me.

   First off, I never have a plan when I draw…. I use it as a form of meditation … free association really. Start with an image and let that image bring me to the next one and then the next, filling the space with images. Thiers is no way to remove a mistake in this form of drawing. Every line is part of the whole and incorporated into the drawing as I move on to the next line. It is these random doodles that grease the wheels of my mind and allow me to actually plan a piece of art work,something I have not done in years. I am sure to find the time to draw this fall when Christopher heads off to school.

 So with our month of  rain keeping me inside, I finally got out my favorite colored pen and sat down. I love blue and white together, so I started with that and wondered where should I begin? Then a leaf appeared and it needed some friends,well if you have leaves you should also have nuts, then a flower joined in and she wanted to have a friend so another one filled in the space that remained.  

  This is just a doodle and  creative 35 minutes of my life. It is in some of my doodles that I have found ideas for other projects.It is where I find my meditation Zone. I felt so much better when I finished for the day. Funny the drawing is in a state of “needing some more work” but a doodle is just a doodle… it needs nothing more does it? This is my way of warming up and restoring my skills… It is nice to know that not everything is lost over time.