Step 8. Bronx cheer from Brooklyn

Another sketch from the Tropical Pavilion at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I was charmed by this plant, Pavonia Multiflora from Brazil.

I sketched it quickly in the garden and then colored it in a simple style when I got home.

When I researched the plant, I smiled at a description that the flower looks like it's sticking out its tongue. The author of The Artist Way, Julia Cameron, prepares the reader to expect some criticism from others as you work through the book. That happened to me this week, and this flower came in handy. I wouldn't stick out my tongue in response to negative remarks, but the flower on my page will.

Step 5. Work in progress

I guess it's true. 

Sometimes a tough nut has a beautiful soft heart inside. The trick to finding the heart is figuring out how to crack the shell just right. Or, just rely on luck I suppose.

This drawing is the beginning of what I hope to be a one-page study on a variety of nuts. 

Now that I started, though, I want to try going big - Georgia O'Keefe style - with the walnut. There is so much beautiful detail going on with the hard shell and the intricate inside. I want to get all of it on paper, to get to know it as intimately as possible and show off all the sweet stuff. I need more space to do that. 

I need to learn to paint, too, since colored pencil would be tediously slow on a big piece.  

But, first things first. I'll finish what I started with the nut study. 

Step 4.

I started with a small pear late at night.

 

I only had time to draw the pear, but I left space on the page because I wanted, eventually, a still life. 

By the time I got back to this page in my notebook, a few weeks had gone by and the pear had been eaten.

I added a walnut as the next item in the still life, but it didn't work out. The two things are in an awkward relationship sitting on the page like this. They need to be either closer together or further apart to relieve the tension between them, sort of like with some people I know.

The drawing wasn't working out and I wanted to quit. But, maybe sticking around would be worth it, I told myself. If anything, I could certainly use composition practice.

I like how the Brazil nut on the left turned out, but the still life is still looking awkward.

I thought adding a hazelnut away from the group might break up the tension, but it didn't work. The lone nut looks like a lone nut, off on its own. 

It was time to walk away, but I didn't know how to end it, to break off from this group without leaving them hanging in the air. I added a little something on the page for them to sit on, and then I cracked the nuts open and ate them.

Today's song.

Step 3. Wake up.

I sipped the sunrise in my coffee cup this morning, the colors creamy and brown in my baby-blue mug. It’s a habit I drink in day after day, consistent as the dawn on the east side of town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Long before sunrise, late last night, I finished the notebook page I was working on.

I love this song in the morning. I like it late at night, too.

Step 2. Putting a pinecone on paper.

It feels weird when the temps reach the 70s in December. Even familiar places close to home seem different when the weather is odd.

Along the path to the pinetum in Fort Tryon Park.

I took a walk in the weird weather. At first the walk felt like an obligation - that it would be wrong to stay inside on a warm winter day so I had better get outside.

But as soon as I hit the park, the walk changed from an obligation to a gift. I was charmed anew by a neighborhood park where I've been countless times. 

I spotted a few things I wanted to draw in my notebook.

Pinecones are tough for me to draw. Part of the problem is that I can't see the pinecone. It's not the first time I've had this blindness when holding something in my hand, and I know the solution: stare at it.

I work best when I can work methodically. Some people see the whole before the parts, but I see the parts before the whole. 

I inched my way down the page, bit by bit, and only after drawing the pinecone could I finally see it. 

Staring at what's right in front of me and putting it on paper turned a familiar thing into something new. I like how that happens.

Step 1. Take two steps forward, one step back. Repeat.

It's never too late to start over. Thank goodness. That's what I'm doing here, starting over.

 

I originally started this blog (twice if we're counting) as an online nature journal. That's cool. I'm still into it.

I'm reading The Artist Way by Julia Cameron (for the third time, if we're counting). Each time I've read the book in the past, I got stuck in a different place. 

Since I'm stuck with my progress on this blog as well, I figure I'd stick the two stuck pieces together and see what happens. I would love to have you join me along the way.

As I blog today, "two steps foward" reminds me of this song.