Blue cats, cherry trees

And patterns of thought

I've been thinking about patterns. There's the patterns of daily life that we make for ourselves via our choices and habits. Then there's the patterns made by life; the weather, the geographic bioregion we live in, things that randomly happen (a tire blowout for example) and the choices and habits of other people that may affect us. Plus there's the pattern of interaction between those patterns… and the patterns of how we respond…

Over several morning breakfasts I worked on this sketchbook page.

I used various fountain pen inks to draw the patterns and both ink and gouache to draw the blue cat. I began by writing the text. Then I drew the character. Another morning I drew thre inky pattern lines…. Here’s a sequence of a few different morning sketchbook sessions so you can see a bit of my process.

And so it went, a little at a time each morning, until it looked like this.

Then I did a similar sketchbook page in a similar manner.

I happily repeat myself, using similar characters and pattern motifs, because I want to focus on relaxing and breathing while playing in my sketchbook and starting my day gently. I'm not trying to do anything perfect or profound. I'm enjoying pens and inks relishing “excuses” to use them.

Here's one source of some of my “excuses” - One Zentangle A Day by Beckah Krahula

I don't feel a need to reinvent anything, or do anything new, when I'm sketching I can just enjoy things. In today's hustle culture it feels rebellious to deliberately take time to go slow and enjoy something that isn't striving frantically for something else. (I like postal mail, too, but I digress.)

The cherry trees are in bloom where I live and there's a cherry tree lined walk in town that's particularly pleasant this tjme of year. I love the patterns the walk-of-trees makes and the patterns the cherry blossoms themselves make. Patterns within patterns…

As I do regularly at this time of year (there I go repeating myself again) I enjoy the cherry tree poem by A. E. Houseman (Link here) which I had handwritten and illustrated in one of my notebooks some years ago.

Here's a photo of my notebook the above Houseman poem is written in, my book is titled “Lists of enjoyable things”.

It's fun to list and then revisit pleasantness especially during difficult chaotic times. Seeing pleasantness helps me to find and remember the humor, the vibrance of life, that's almost always there whenever I remember to look.

I hope your day is enjoyable inspite of everything!