Eat ... mostly plants

Fruit and vegetables



More fruit and vegetables



Fruit and tea

During the month of January, a couple sketchers I follow on Instagram posted daily assignments from A Pattern A Day, an online (Creative Bug) class they were taking. They used a prompt to create repeat patterns across their pages. I'm not sure how many guidelines they were given.
(Their hashtag was #cbpatternaday, I think.)

I had a set of Prismacolors and a softcover, sewn Canson sketchbook (with smooth, cream paper) I wanted to try together, so riffed off what they were posting.

I begin using a stylus to create a colored pencil resist about halfway through. I'd never done it before, so that effect was fun. You may not be able to see it here, but I think it was used in the veins on the slices of citrus fruit, in the upper right picture.

December Dance

Every so often, I remember Sophie Ryder's trio of Dancing Hares, go for a visit, pause for a moment, gaze at their silhouettes against the sky.
It's not primarily about the drawing; it's the permission to go, wait, see.

Both foreground and background are ever new: a symphony of shifting light, scudding clouds, changing weather, circling seasons, splashing children, sniffing dogs, fishing men, and hungry birds.

Isaiah 45:18.

Cap City Diner

Several weeks ago, we celebrated a few family milestones with lunch at Cap City Diner. It's always fun to read snippets of meal conversations later, memories preserved in time capsules of ink.

Through a glass, darkly

Window, Sharon Mennonite Church

Last month, an elderly relative, full of years, passed on to his eternal reward. He was buried on a day of blue skies, beneath the same sun that had so faithfully given an increase, a return, on the many miles he had spent tilling, plowing, planting, harvesting---
....life to the seeds he had let fall to the ground.

* * * * * * *
 

May their memory be eternal.

This month, a nearby community lost two police officers, who were doing their job, showing up to protect the weak.

The gospel reading for the following day was Matthew 25:31-46. “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the last of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” (Traditional observation of the second Sunday before Great Lent, the Sunday of the Last Judgment.)

Further reading: What does the chant ‘Memory Eternal” mean....?

Around the table, around the sun

Seasonings

During the season of Great Lent,
so much depends upon the brown sprinkle of pepper,
the white glaze of salt.

Review, refresh

I first viewed Danny Gregory’s video, The Art of Breakfast, a few years ago. It was instrumental in motivating me to take up the practice of keeping an illustrated journal.  Every so often, I review it— to refresh my memory, pare the discipline back to its essentials: the page, the line, the wash, this moment, this place.

P.S. I have to laugh, remembering the first time I saw PG Tips scroll through the list of materials at the end; I thought it referred to the pen nibs, rather than the tea.