You know it is going to happen
because it always happens,
you just forget.
Every time I have a residency - about two weeks in - I cross over on the other side. I quit behaving like myself. (You probably have had the same experience on extended travel.)
All my blah blah about not being able to relate to these rolling hills. I love how nature just sits and waits until you are ready to accept a hug.
This morning, I found myself with sketchbook in hand, just standing - in the middle of the farm road - really listening to a Highland cow chew grass. It was so satisfying. It was so much more than the sound of pulling grass It had the breath of a beast.
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Looking at “line” in the the landscape, I have always felt that sketching - or painting for that matter - is like bowling. The first game, man, you deserve a boiling shirt with your name emblazoned on the back. And then, gutter ball, gutter ball, gutter ball.
My little sketches below are busy, busy, busy.
Years ago - at a Stuart Shils workshop - he said paint sound, not noise. I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it on my wall in my studio. It’s still there and I am still a chatterbox.
The simplicity of this sketch feels better. It was one of my first ones. See?..…BOWLING. I am going to put the kiddie markers back in the box. Maybe ditch the marker, it’s rather loud.
The pencil marks are definitely softer.
One of the joys of sketching outside is meeting people. You learn so much about the local flavor of folks. I marvel at how strangers reveal themselves - such honesty in heartfelt conversations. This lovely woman was out walking her “healing” horse. She talked about how her dad was going to buy her a pony but he died when she was nine, It didn’t happen. At forty, she finally got her horse and now has a farm down the road with several horses. Her girls are growing up on the back of a horse.
PS Those daisies have moved towards the sun today. I remain convinced they were sending me a message