Four quick self-portraits, also show-casing my quarantine haircut. I did them yesterday as a part of Leith of School of Art’s Wake up and Draw challenge. The instructions were to do Van Gogh style drawings using the short very lively lines he is renowned for. The main image was 15 minutes on A3, the other three 5 mins each on A4. The images are in ascending order, so the first one should be at the bottom and the last one as the featured image.
This sketch is of my favourite junk art yard in Porthleven (where I currently live)- called Wreckers Studio. Not often you get to see a mermaid riding a horse...
I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root.
And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty.
This is compulsory education, after all.
So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past.
“Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge.
The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence.
Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen—
my scribble’s soft insurgency.
The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn.
Columns and corners chant structure.
Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter—
their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward.
I begin to draw.
Not their tardiness, but their motion.
A shoulder. A blur of sneakers.
A tilted head chasing freedom.
Feet flickering like seconds.
Each mark a pulse.
Each smudge a breath.
My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing—
trembling gently through the mundane.
This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed.
It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation.
It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock.
I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you).
Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic.
Not for polish—
but for presence.
This is how I remember I’m still alive.
Still growing.
Still watching.
Still choosing to see.
Because sometimes mental health looks like
a piece of scrap paper,
a moving pen,
and the simple, sacred act of
marking time with wonder.
My Sketch Book drawings = 15€ :) 36 x 27.5cm - shape seems to change coz photos have been cropped https://facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1222732179673725&type=3 https://artdavidmeehan.blogspot.com/p/c.html +351 969 534 520 artdavidmeehan@gmail.com
Take it how you want. You either give everything to social media, or it takes everything from you. In the end, you are left naked and hollow. I wanted to make this a simple composition at its core. The image is more about the message.
Times Square took forever to put together, I think the perspective is off just a bit. Overall, I think I did well with shading and depth. I am also improving on drawing/painting the human form. I wish I could trust in shapes and form and go a bit more abstract, but I think that will come with experience.
Wasn't sure what to draw. Anxiety can be a real creative block sometimes. I looked up the date and noticed it was Mojito Day. Mojitos have a pleasant vibe. Please, go easy on me. I am a digital artist but really wanna draw traditionally for these Monday doodles. Much respect everyone.
Patron Saint of Lost Keys and Small Things.
Reminded me of this poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
