A snail, a bus, a bug

And doing lettering

I woke up one morning early this week thinking about how contrast and confusion relate intimately with each other. Contrasting colors or shapes are an essential part of any artwork and sometimes that can lead to a momentary confusion of which thing I'm emphasizing via the contrasts.

Then I thought about how many things in life are contrasting opposites and yet both can be desirable - which also causes momentary confusion about which one will become the focus. For example like many humans I often have these conflicting desires: I want the English muffins, the eggs, the bacon, the hashbrowns, the pancakes *and* I want to avoid the discomforts of having eating too much.

What to do?

I decided on having just the English muffin while I did my morning sketchbook. I thought about the necessity of going slow when contemplating the contrasting desires. And I thought of the round and round and round aspects of making such choices. (The eggs and bacon! The English muffin with jelly! No. The eggs and bacon. Wait, the pancakes! Hold on, maybe the muffin. Um…)

Another morning I thought some more about contrasts and the confusing tensions between them and I thought “Being human is like driving a small tour bus with both a barking performing seal and a shy rabbit as passengers.” That thought led to this drawing.

On another morning I found a quote by the author Charles French which seems to fit with my thoughts about contrasts and confusion. Writing and drawing - creativity of any sort - is how humans try to make sense of things. So I wrote the quote and drew a doodlebug in my sketchbook during another morning's sensible fruit breakfast.

Still another morning I thought more about that quote and combined it with my own thought that creativity is simply intelligence having fun. That led me to thinking that our creativity can in fact just be for fun - not primarily for publication, or promotion or profits - and that when we're having fun is often when our creativity is most meaningful. So I did this sketchbook page below by writing the words first then painting the colors on and after the color dried drawing over the colors with ink.

Speaking of enjoying your own existence: there's a wonderful video by my friend

Lorraine Evanoff

that makes me glad to be alive - you can see it in the link below. It contains my and

J. L. Sullens

new mantra, because it can apply to so many things: "HARVEST NOW!" - if you see the video you'll understand 😉💚💚💚👇

A Mother Like No Other

Some of you have asked me about how I do the lettering in my sketchbooks: I use any one of my fountain pens and strive for neatness and legibility - but simultaneously I value the “made by hand" loosely written appearance - so I deal with these conflicting desires by simply not worrying too much about it. Is it legible? Then that's good enough. I do practice writing on a piece of scrap paper before doing the writing in my sketchbook but that's just to get my mojo going - not about “perfect letters”.

The book “How to Draw and Write in Fountain Pen" by Ayano Usamura has an excellent section about different ways to do basic lettering - not fancy calligraphy - that work well whether a fountain pen is used or not. But I am a shamelessly unapologetic fan of fountain pens. So, if you have even a tiny smidge of interest in fountain pens and in drawing and writing, I highly recommend this book. Here's a link to it on Bookshop.org and perhaps your local library has it or can get it via interlibrary loan.

I hope you'll fully enjoy your own existence and creativity this weekend!

Hugs from me 💚💚💚💚💚💚

P.S. Welcome to all subscribers and thank you so much for your ongoing support! I appreciate you! If you're a newly paid subscriber please feel free to download any or all of the 15 ebooks that I've written and illustrated which you can download and access anytime you wish from this index page. Thank you all for being here!! 💚💚