that, even after blowing off my journalling for weeks or months at a stretch, I am always free to return here and pick it up again

rediscovering old pleasures



After a while of not being in much of a mood to art, and remembering how Barbara has told me that arting will make me feel better spiritually, I decided to finally test-drive a box of charcoal pencils I got back when, grabbed a dollar-store scratch pad, and let loose for a while. Couldn't help noticing:

• how smooth charcoal is to draw with [it's been many years since I used it]
• how in-the-moment and peaceful I felt while I was focused on drawing
• the little upsurge of pleasure I felt when I was done

Not saying that this here is great art, or even worth showing to anyone, actually. But the process of doing felt good, and beneficial. Gotta remember to make more time for making sutff just for me as opposed to for showing to anyone else. Practice makes peaceful.

feeling restored

I slept pretty well last night, but by this afternoon I was so exhausted I could not keep my eyes open, and went to bed for three more hours.

The thing is, when I woke up after this mega-nap, I felt well rested and awake, refreshed and almost alert. And then I realized that this is the first time this year I can remember feeling that way. I am savouring it while I can!

household paper products, such as paper towels, facial tissues, TP, etc.... when I think about how often I use them in a day, and for so many different things... they are handy as all get out

being so delighted by the surprise appearance of a song in my car's player that I burst into an unbidden and irresistible grin

This is one of the most powerful art lessons I ever received: the importance of realizing what colour you actually see as opposed to the colour you “know it is”....

[taken from Painting in Acrylics: The Indispensable Guide by Lorena Kloosterboer]

Today I gave up on reading a novel [something I am more willing to allow myself to do nowadays than when I was younger].

It's very short, more technically a novella — about 120 pages — and I got about halfway through it before deciding I'd had enough. The author is, as it happens, a very well known showbiz personality, whose work on screen I have always enjoyed immensely. And, when seeing him on talk shows, I always found his “real life self” to be warm and engaging, although in a quiet way. I guess I was expecting to find his writing to be similarly warm and engaging, and ended up disappointed in that regard.

All along, I was thinking about why this story wasn't connecting with me, and finally I think I figured it out. This guy's writing, at least in this book, is so cold and aloof and disconnected, I got an undercurrent from it that “I don't really care about any of these characters or what happens to them, none of it interests me, so I have no idea why any of it might interest you.” 

This is the first time I can recall being consciously aware of this: part of what I respond to in any creator's work is the love with which they made it. It can be a story, or a painting, or a musical composition, or a blanket — anything, really. But, on some level, I get a sense that the artist was emotionally engaged with their work. “I like this, it means something to me, and if I'm lucky it will mean something to you, too.” I never realized before that I somehow pick up on this unspoken sense of the creator's love, and that this enhances my own appreciation and enjoyment of what they have made.

This may all well be nothing more than my imagination — but, for me, it's a real thing to be taken into consideration. And it reminds me to care about my own work.

Originally I wasn't gonna share this painting here:



Allow me to explain why I changed my mind.

I usually share my pencil doodles on my social media, often to let people see that I don't always have a finished idea in mind, or work to make something good for people to see. It's in the spirit of “this is what it looks like when I hack around”. But my paintings? Usually I only show those when I feel like I've come up with something that people might enjoy looking at.

This wasn't one of those. This was more of a gouache doodle [and an excuse to test-drive the new Pébéo gouache set I recently got]. I posted it as such, primarily to let people see that I often have no idea what I'm doing.

( Here's what was going through my mind while I did this. )

In my experience, paintings that move away from traditional realism aren't often met with much approval. But — to my surprise — I got a few vocal likes on this one, mostly saying that they really liked the colours. One lady said that if she had this, she would frame it and hang it up! So I got her address and gave it to her.

My point is that I have no idea what people are going to like, or not like. I'm tempted to give up trying to guess.

AC that works — both in the house and in the car

The British store finally had cheese and onion crisps in stock, so I got some! Yay!