The Lenten Triodion Has Begun

From the OrthodoxWiki:

The three weeks that commence on the fourth Sunday prior to Great Lent constitute the weeks of preparation.

This past weekend, the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee was observed. The church has begun her annual march toward Great Lent. I will shift posting over to my original blog, The Numbered Day (formerly titled first Numbering Our Days, then Life in the Slow Lane).

Patterns

Overhead at Ancient Faith Women's Conference, a couple of months ago. The words stuck with me.

Christmas comes once more

Most of my recent sketching has been in five minutes grabbed here and there.


Culver's often has a few fun seasonal decorations.
We spent time in a waiting room with three themed Christmas trees, each with a colorful topper: a snowman, a star, a crown.

Christmas mantel

I think I've sketched part of this mantel each of the past four or five Advent seasons. This time, I layered pastel pencil over parts of the drawing.

Master Penman

Today I got to meet Jake Weidmann (artist and Master Penman) and see his work at the Ohio Pen Show. His craftsmanship is amazing. Watch this (Youtube) video for glimpses of it.

I love his rendition of C. S. Lewis & the Untamed Lion.
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Creators of the Apple Pencil and the ProCreate app consulted with Weidmann during their development, and made modifications based on his input. You may have seen his drawings in an Apple store, during a promotion.

Further viewing: Goulet Guest: Brian Goulet, of Goulet Pens, interviews Weidmann at the DC Pen Show, 2017.

What the eldils had told [Ransom] about the possibility of such discovery he had received, while they were with him, almost without wonder. In their eyes, the normal Tellurian modes of being—engendering and birth and death and decay—which are to us the framework of thought, were no less wonderful than the countless other patterns of being which were continually present to their unsleeping minds. To those high creatures whose activity builds what we call Nature, nothing is “natural.” From their station, the essential arbitrariness (so to call it) of every actual creation is ceaselessly visible; for them there are no basic assumptions: all springs with the willful beauty of a jest or a tune from that miraculous moment of self-limitation, wherein the Infinite, rejecting a myriad possibilities, throws out of Himself the positive and elected invention.

—C.S. Lewis, writing in That Hideous Strength, 1945

Homeward bound

Virginia rest stop, morning view on road home

Our trip was quick, and I didn't sketch as much of the architecture and landscape as I expected, since we were usually moving. The beautiful brick structures of the Virginia rest stops, geometric and symmetrical, made a striking impression. After we toured Monticello, I could see the influence, and wondered how much of the style is found throughout Virginia, and how much of it was due to Thomas Jefferson's designs of his home and the University of Virginia buildings
The last drawing was done in the early misty morning, from the window of a hotel in northwestern Virginia. A pale periwinkle bank of clouds roughly paralleled the profile of the mountain range.
I was surprised by the wide variety of people, geography, and patterns of settlement in the state. The government of such a diverse land and population must face sobering challenges.
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I used colored pencil over a few areas of the watercolor in these drawings.