If I was a Sketchbook...
Dear Friend and Fellow Maker,
If I was a Sketchbook and you met me on the street one day and asked what I’ve been up to since I last posted, here’s what I might “say”…
*I had a smashing time in October drawing daily Bic Pen drawings1 and lots of other drawings too! To see all of these, just flip back a few pages right here! 😂
*I’ve been working part-time in a school where I was once the Art Teacher and having a lovely time just being support to the Spanish Teacher and helping out various other ways! It’s good to be there with folks I knew from years ago and to not have lesson plans to prepare, but just enjoy the students and positive atmosphere there!
*I see so many things I want to draw! There’s just not enough time in the day for them all! Even so, I am content though with how my sketchbook is full now and I’ve begun another, alongside the sketches and drawings in other sketchbooks as well!
* I’ve been to Debordieu Colony in SC, visiting with a dear friend and have fallen in love once again with a most magnificent live oak in her back yard that reaches over her home with all its swaying mossy grace. We spent two days at Brookgreen Gardens which is surely now my most favorite place to visit on earth! Oh how I long to be a tree in that marvelous garden! I kept thinking how much I adore these old trees festooned with Spanish moss, so magical and unearthly they are in their silvery tresses! 2
*I became completely enamored with making what I call Sticklings, out of small bits of limbs and branches, then knitting their hats and robes. They are an original design by Liz Reed who created Wee Driftwood Folk and she says that she will write up a pattern soon. I just dove in and made up my own version, not nearly so lovely as her driftwood pieces, but super cute nonetheless. There are four of them now and oh my the conversations they have! Right now, they are rehearsing for a Nativity play in which only three of them will be the Wise Men and they cannot for the life of them decide which three it will be as they all want their spot of limelight. Perhaps this year there will be Four Wise Men. 😂
*I brought home ALL of my mom’s yarns. This is a very long story and a subject which I shall shorten here, but perhaps one day will share with you the long version. My dear mom has Alzheimer’s and is living in a Memory Care Community. For several years now she has not been able to knit or crochet as she once used to do so brilliantly. My dad is ever so slowly paring down what is in their home of 30+ years. This is hard stuff, and I haven’t had the emotional ability to touch it until recently. And so I now have all of mom’s lovely Rowans and Noros and so so much else, all neatly sorted into eight bins! 😳 This took quite a while to accomplish and now the eight bins need a place of storage that allows me to access the yarns whenever I feel I can bring myself to knit or weave with them.
*I finally was able to sell the piano in my studio, giving me more room and allowing my drawing table to come out from the crammed corner! Woo! Hoo! This now feels much more airy and open and I find myself at my drawing table happily swooshing watercolor around or drawing illustrations or ahem…winding yarn! I love the table’s multi-purpose!
*I have made an intention to peer into the darkness outside as it visits us so much earlier now. This is actually in an effort to appreciate the darker days more than I have for most of my life. I love the light!! I love long sun-filled days! I don’t mind cold or snow…in fact I LOVE it! But the darkness is hard for me. So I am making little drawings or paintings or collages to try to describe the loveliness I see in the dark skies or how the streetlamps light up the night, or how golden leaves seem to twinkle like stars as I walk in the near-dark afternoon.
There would be many more pages in my Sketchbook that I could show you and in so doing, tell you about my life since I last posted. It is rich and full, and I haven’t even mentioned the drawings for my book which are underway and I’m loving that as well! Perhaps another post will be all about that! But my sketchbook alas is calling me to draw the lovely pink light that is rimming the horizon right now as the light fades into evening. 3
May you find beauty in your everyday, and perhaps draw it in a little book to celebrate and remember it!
Your friend,
Jennifer
This was for Inktober, which I so enjoy participating in, but this year I decided not to post my drawings anywhere online. Well, of course, I have done so now on my website (haha!) but it was delicious to draw in the moment without the need or pressure to post them! 😃
Do you not simply adore the word “festooned”??!! It is a favorite of mine, in answer to Sarah’s question in her most recent Gusset. Festooned is right up there with a couple of my favorite French words: Pamplemousse (grapefruit) and champignon (mushroom)!!
Did you know that this pink rim just before the sun sets, is called the Belt of Venus? Pretty cool to think of this pink belt or ribbon wrapped around the earth! Oooh…that’s a drawing I need to make! 🌎💞
Thank you for these lovely drawings. My daughter used to make twig bows & arrows that were festooned with wool and they were colourful and fabulous. I agree that festoon is a beautiful word - we should all festoon our houses with colourful garlands this holiday.
Jennifer, I so enjoyed your post today. Am sorry to hear about your mom, but do understand your feelings. My mom is 101 and still lives on her on in a condo next door to me. Intellectually I know her day will come and I’ll have to deal with it. On another note love your little people and introducing the artist to me. Am looking forward to reading her blog. Best to you and your family. Chris