A simple ink sketch of a bird at rest. Sometimes the quiet moments—watching, pausing, waiting—are the deepest teachers. This drawing is part of my exploration of what I call the Quiet Practices—small ways of living from the inside out.
If you’d like to see more of my reflections, I share them here: https://forming20.com/
Sometimes wisdom comes in a joke,
and sometimes laughter carries truth.
Brian spoke like a sage,
Mike answered like a friend,
and together they held the room.
We draw to remember.
Not only the lines of faces,
but the presence of goodness,
the gift of voices that echo
long after the chairs are empty.
This is no landscape you could ever stand in.
No observational drawing, no safe horizon line.
This chalk experiment is a dream unfolding in color: a golden field lit from within, a scarlet seam of fire at its edge, and a storm-heavy sky pressing down with ancient weight.
It feels like a place between worlds—where the conscious and unconscious meet, where memory and imagination blur. Some might see a battlefield, others a meadow after rain, and still others a veil between life and death. That is the beauty: the painting does not tell you what it is; it invites you to confess what you see.
Psychologists say we project ourselves onto images like these. So—what do you notice first? The light? The darkness? The burning red?
Perhaps that is not about the drawing at all, but about you.
One week on from Beltane Fire Festival 2025 and it stills feel surreal that’s it for another year, you know? It’ll be nice to get back to some semblance of normality/whatever… For now? Have a gar on me :-P :-)
My painting professor drew this diagram on the board and suggested that it is a diagram for a painting. "Begin with large areas, covering the canvas with general colors and shapes. Refine the shapes and begin adding details. Refine the details and work with smaller brushes. When you are adding marks that your viewers would not notice, be done." There is more, but that is enough to ponder for now.
This quick sketch of an impressionist painting is a reminder to me of how we cannot see anything until we are taught to see it. I was enjoying the painting because of the way Tarbell captured light, when a man and his wife joined me. The man said to his wife: "This is a wonderful painting, but I wonder whose lap the baby is on.". I was shocked because I was not able to see the baby till he mentioned that there was one. I noticed that it was indeed difficult to tell whose lap it was on. It was a transformative and humbling experience.
Part of a personal project I'm working on right now, to experiment with new art styles and practice lettering skills by drawing animals. The color palette and symmetrical motifs in this one were inspired by the boats on Lake Xochimilco in Mexico, which is the last remaining place wild axolotls live.
Part of a personal project I'm working on right now, to experiment with unfamiliar art styles and practice lettering skills by drawing animals. This is my first foray into cubism-inspired artwork (definitely don't claim to be an expert on actual cubism)--it was way more fun than I expected! I think I'll be trying some more...
I was going for a surreal and moody feeling—dystopian, sort of not. Per usual, my inspirations are pretty noticeable. I am starting to get more comfortable being stylized. I am trying to put emotion in my landscapes. I used Rebelle 6
