A Couple Of Sketches In A New Vein

'Thank you' are the words that keep coming from my mind and heart today: thank you to my dear friends who visit this blog and do me the honor of reading it, and thank you for your encouragement and love. You have made this a very special moment in my life.

I mentioned that I've been doing a lot of thinking and rethinking about how it's possible to look at things and how to illustrate feeling. I looked at the artwork I'd done so far, and it just didn't capture the movement, joy and magic that I find special in life. So... thanks mainly to a fantastic book, called "The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, I have come to understand that the flow and movement in a piece of art can be effectively conveyed when the lines aren't too precise and detail is not the prime objective.

In fact, detail can in some cases even remove the magic that we're accustomed to putting in ourselves. Our eye-brain connection does a lot, that we may not be consciously aware of, which apparently gives us pleasure as we fill in details we don't necessarily see with our eyes. If that opportunity is taken away by providing excessive detail in a painting it can eliminate some of the charm we experience and make the scene appear more static.

Anyway, I'm not explaining it very well, but my previous awareness of what I thought was important in art has been turned upside down by that great book (which my loving Mum-in-law gave me for Christmas!). I've never been so excited with a prezzie since I was a kid.

Here are a couple of sketches I did in the last couple of days - totally different from anything I've ever done before and a whole great deal more fun too! The one above is a view of the Jura mountains. And below is a sketch based on a photo of Virgina Woolf I found in a biology book. I had heard of Virginia Woolf's excellent writing (though I haven't read any, having had a less than stellar introduction to early 20th century writers in high school), but I had no idea how pretty she was.


These are the latest in the beginning of a new adventure. I have some ideas what I might like to do with the art, but it seems best for now to take each day as it comes and see what evolves.