Staying at home when everyone else is on holiday makes the everyday look a little bit different. The streets are empty, and so are the supermarkets, playgrounds and schoolyards – all deserted. All is peaceful … almost forsaken. Still I’m here, doing my daily sketches, recording what is. But I’m not only sketching, peaceful days…
Completely ordinary and unremarkable
— portrait of a washing line
Into the green
— a Sunday Psalm Albrecht Dürer, Great Piece of Turf /Das große Rasenstück (watercolor), 1503. It might not seem like a big deal. Just an unordered group of wild plants. But look again: the subject – grass & wildflowers – might look rather ordinary, but the rendering of this little piece of nature is not. Das große Rasenstück makes us see…
Florilegium
Or: How my love for walks, nature writing & sketching currently seems to merge in a joyful celebration of all things growing – Phacelia tanacetifolia; “purple tansy” or “fiddleneck” It seems I am about to sketch a florilegium for myself, for the simple joy of doing it – . The florilegium – a short history In…
truth be told
Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age. The only perk I can see is that, with luck, you’ll acquire a guest room. — David Sedaris (2018)
A Palladian Odyssey
or: Seeing and drawing in Veneto with Liz Steel & a group of wonderful sketchers – If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. –Joseph Campbell I…
Living a More Considered Life
“It is a bewildering thing in human life that the thing that causes the greatest fear is the source of the greatest wisdom.” C. G. JUNG
Be Ready
You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry…
on making bad art
If you have ever read a better book on making art than Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland … I would love to know! Art & Fear is my absolute favorite in the genre of creativity, I read it all the time, and it…
two weeks, two countries
– new instalments in my perpetual nature journals. Week 18: oak and narcissus in my Norwegian journal. … Week 19: a twig of passionflower for my Spanish sketchbook. …
