Big billowing clouds
Climb upward with heavy dark
Thunder, lightening.
Art Prescription: This time of year we can expect thunder-storms in the evening. It’s hot and humid, and all that moisture gets sucked back up into the atmosphere and has to go somewhere! Bottled energy. My garden is thankful for the downpour. I’m working on pen and ink drawings that I hope will be turned into stamps. If you ever study the lines of a flower you will certainly be seduced!
Spicebush Swallowtail
Black, orange, and blue beauty
Looks for sweet nectar.
Art Prescription: Out into the 100 degree heat I go after work to catch the bus to my car. Tired and grumpy, and hot, I wait for the next ride. Just then I spot a fluttering jewel out of the corner of my eye. No bus in sight, so I follow and wait patiently as she lands on the ground. Besides nectar from plants butterflies are often seen in the mud or around mud-puddles. They get certain minerals out of the soil. She posed perfectly for me and reset my attitude. A moment to marvel at the iridescent wings of a butterfly is just plain magic!
Las Vegas style hat
Red feathery flamboyant
Hummingbirds fancy!
Art Prescription: Bee Balm is an exotic flower. Deep tones of red stand tall on sturdy green stalks. True to their name, the bees love them, and so do hummingbirds. While I water my garden I often get a fly by, fluorescent hummer zipping in and out of my water stream. Their long pointy beaks fit nicely into the Bee Balm vessels. Our lives are so filled with motion and activity. The garden always reminds me to stand still a moment and just watch!
I love the composition of this sketch…it’s like lovers saying “I need to tell you something.”
Girly walk and talk
Unselfconscious friends stride
Say what’s on their mind.
Art Prescription: No matter how close you are with your significant other, a friend who you can walk and talk with is precious. This afternoon I took a break from my home remodel project to go for a nice afternoon walk with a good friend. We took a sandy path through a bit of woods to get over to the North Carolina Botanical Garden. I wanted to see the current art exhibit that features the teachers of the Botanical Illustration Program. Colored pencil, pastels, watercolor, and graphite, nice! a chance to have a meandering conversation, priceless! Black-eyed Susans at the garden, cheerful yellow dots of color.
Clean slate, start over
Neoteric, ambitious
A canvas of hope.
Art Prescription: Doing some home-work…painting, new floor, new bathroom design. WE are do-it-yourselfers. We obviously both enjoy hard work and the reward that comes from it. Our bonus room is getting a new coat of paint on the ceiling and walls, and a new bamboo floor. This room is my home office.
I went to swim after a day of painting to undo soreness, and I thought about how many people wish they could start their life over with a clean slate. Now that you know what you know, what would you do different? Fresh paint, fresh perspective…
Bout to bust open
Show off big yellow petals
Wide rich green veined leaves.
Art Prescription: So, the squirrels planted a couple of sunflower seeds last fall in my deck pots. Now with regular water and sun, these “volunteers” are growing tall and about to bust a bloom.
Sitting quietly and sketching with pen and ink is so Zen. No matter what’s on your mind, you can escape for the moment and study your specimen. Stay in the moment…stay in the moment…life is all about moment to moment. When we spend too much time worrying about the past or the future we are literally losing the moments we are living. I’ve tried meditating, but sitting still is a problem for me. A moving meditation like walking or drawing, or swimming, works magic. Namaste.
Swallows swirl and float
Soar, twitter musically
Catch a ray of light.
Art Prescription: After my first day back at my nursing job, I went out to water my garden and breathe in nature. I spent some time working on some pen and ink sketches…so rewarding studying something up close, and getting to knows its curves. I noticed a small flock of birds quite active over the tall pine trees. I sat down to watch them. Swallows! I sat for a while watching them swoop and dive and float chasing their evening meal. They are insectivores. It was like watching an aerial ballet! So relaxing and their calls to each other sweet, clicking I haven’t heard before. As they occasionally flapped their wings to stay afloat, their pale colored bellies would catch the evening sun… take my breath.
Brush and roll fresh paint
A room takes on new color
Changes atmosphere.
Art Prescription: My final day off before returning to my RN job I decided to do some painting…not what you might expect. I decided to paint the walls of my guest bathroom! Picked out a beautiful new shower curtain with purples and greys. Painted the room with a blue-green to compliment the purple. It’s nice to have a change in the feeling of a room. Color is an amazing element. With the swipe of a paint brush, you can change the entire mood of your environment. A little manual labor and viola! new room!
Drip, drop, drip, drop, pour!
Concentric rings ripple out
Rain rivers down street.
Art Prescription: Big drifting sheets of rain pour from the grey sky. Perfect! Everything needs a good drenching. I like to walk in the rain…so peaceful…musky earth smells rise up to mingle with fresh air. Frogs are in “hog” or perhaps it should be “frog,” heaven, croaking by the streams. As an artist, the designs made by rain-drops intrigue me. There is an abstract quality to the repeating circles that ripple out and converge. Reminds me that each action creates a new action, a simple rain drop displaces water making tiny round waves hundreds of times larger than the drop. Each moment of life a ripple…
Five pots of color
Lots of clean white apparel
Twist and turn, design!
Art Prescription: Out watering my garden when I noticed my neighbor doing something on their back deck. Making ice-cream? Cooking? Planting? Seemed they were wearing some kind of gloves…watered a little closer. “Come on over they beckoned.” Ah…Tie-Dye! They had the full system in place, the pre-soak, red, yellow, purple, blue, and green containers of color and lots of rubber bands. Mind if I crash your tie-dye party? Ran home to get a plain white skirt that was destined for the Goodwill, and viola!!! New skirt. What fun! Ain’t it wonderful to have neighbors that welcome you to their back-yard events…Oh, you are having burgers!! Just kidding!!!!
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