Time use has been on my mind lately. Literally everything is made of time: meals, gardens, conversations, art, poems, music - everything in our lives. Whatever is done with time today plants a seed of what may be done in the future… and what's planted can affect mental health. Someone or something benefits from the attention I give so it can be helpful to be aware of what my time and attention contains. As I recover from my ankle injury I've had to acknowledge a temporarily more limited physical capacity so before beginning something I try to guesstimate how much stamina I have compared to the time the activity requires. Sometimes I guess well. Sometimes not.
Hence the topic of time was on my mind as I drew the sketchbook page below during breakfast. This, btw, is the point of my morning sketchbook habit - to be mindful, to take 10 minutes or so, to breathe, to think and just play with my art supplies and various notions.
During another morning's breakfast I read A. E. Houseman’s poem about cherry trees - and Houseman’s description of time use. Because I've decided to memorize it I copied the poem, by hand, into my sketchbook and then illustrated it with a cherry tree drawing. As I drew and painted I mentally rehearsed the poem. I used my fountain pens, gouache paints and a water brush to do the writing, drawing and painting.
In the afternoons I've worked more carefully, as stamina permits, on new paintings for exhibits via the Caplan Art Designs Gallery later this year. By working regularly in short bursts of time I finished a painting this week and titled it “Early Bird".
My afternoon painting too was inspired by my general thoughts about time. More details about “Early Bird" and the inspiration is in my blog here and from this link you can see more of my recent artworks.
I enjoy listening to music, nodding my head in time with the beats, while I work on my bigger paintings in the afternoons. So another morning I woke up thinking of music and the bird that cleans up the songbird group’s music practice room. Some bird's gotta do it. With that thought I did this drawing in my sketchbook using my fountain pen.
Thank you for the gift of your time to read my work today. I hope the rest of your time this week can also be gathered and planted as you wish!
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Thank you all again!! 💚💚💚💚💚💚
💖 🥰 Love for the bird that cleans up…💖
The unSUNG hero🤗
I love the bird cleaning up the mess from music practice! All of the sour notes and other mistakes cleaned up as if they'd never happened, never to be mentioned again!