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Doodle #130, Takin’ Your Life for a Stroll

| Whitt’s End Art

It is a simple law of physics which states, “a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless something acts on it to stop it.” My wife and I love to go for strolls. At times we walk through our local neighborhood. If it is cold outside we will walk at our local mall. One of our favorite places to walk is out in Amish Country around some of the local landmarks and villages which is the inspiration for today’s doodle, “Strolling among the Shops.”

Life is also a stroll once set in motion will not stop until in reaches the end. There is also no slowing down life, no matter how hard we try. Billions of dollars each year are spent trying to regain a youthful look or lifestyle. My question is why? Since we have no control over time why not regal in fact we are aging?  We could the wisdom and knowledge we have gained over the years to help those who are younger to try and understand how to live their lives more fully. This is what Solomon did for his son and others in the Book of Proverbs.

Wisdom after all is best used when it is shared. So take your life on a stroll and use your past experiences to write a blog, volunteer in your local community or do what I do and create some art and add a few words to each drawing.

Doodle #118, Round and Round and Round

| Whitt’s End Art

If you haven’t guessed by now the drawing prompt for today is the word, “round.” My drawing is entitled, “The Round Flower Pot.” I could have gone in a bunch of different directions with this one, some balls, wedding rings, glasses but instead I chose a kind of awkward flower pot. Why the flower pot? Well the reason is simple really. As a child I had big ambitions for myself. I wanted to be a rock star, a teacher, a business owner to name only a few. All of these ambitions had one thing in common, a lot intent but little follow through.

This is where the flower pot comes in. You see ambitions in life are like flowers once planted they need a lot of care or else they will not thrive. No, with proper care and feeding even plants like the ones in a garden will wither and die. This is what happened to a lot of my ambitions. I did not care and feed them as I was growing older. Then like the flowers they fizzled and died.

So my quick advice for today is this. If you seek to do something, pray about it, seek God’s help to stay it, and do it till you feel like you want to give up but don’t. What you want to do is push forward so your ambitions will be like a well cared for flower. it will blossom and be beautiful.

Doodle #115, Nothing is Ever Ugly

| Whitt’s End Art

The drawing prompt for today was to draw something ugly but which you still really love. The result is my drawing “The Orange Thing.” I do not know where this object came from nor do I know if it was created by one of my children because the inscribed initials do no belong to one of them. However this object is still dear to my heart because it is a reminder to me that nothing is really ugly if you seek to look for the beauty first.

We are quick to label something or someone ugly just because they do not fit into a preconceived set of unwritten standards. In high school my friends and I were labeled as “ugly” and “inferior” simply because we did not meet the so called “in kids” set of standards for appearance, dress and behavior.  I thought things would change when I became an adult but they didn’t. I discovered that out in the world there are still all kinds of labels and if you don’t fit those labels then you are almost shunned by the so called “in crowd.”

I decided early in life,even before I accepted Jesus into my heart, to always look at a person’s heart instead of what I see. I was not going to be an imitator of past treatments. While some may see that as a weakness I however see it as a sign of strength. Proverbs 31:9 states to,” Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” Judging righteously means to look at the heart and not the appearance because it is in the heart where the true person lies. 

How Do You Draw Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

| Whitt’s End Art

I still think when it comes to art I am a little ADD. I like to tinker with so many different mediums there are times I feel like I am as the proverbial saying goes, “A jack of all mediums a master of none.” I in my own opinion need to pick one or two mediums and practice with them until I get proficient in their use, but I just can’t seem to be able to differentiate as to the ones I like the best. Here is the list of the mediums I use.

Drawing pencils, which I use everyday. Drawing pencils for me offer the most simplistic way to render a picture.  I use mostly Faber pencils from HB to F. My favorite pencil to use is the standard #2 HB writing pencil. Where I work you can literally find them on the floor so they are real cheap.

Pens, I also use a lot. I like the flow of ink across the paper, especially a blue ballpoint pen. When to pens I also go cheap. I feel you don’t need to pay a fortune to get a good looking drawing.

Colored and Watercolor pencils, These are the newest additions to my stable of mediums. My colored pencil of choice is the Prismacolor colored pencil. I love the way the colors flow across the page and the ease of use. I prefer the harder colored pencils to the softer ones. The harder ones hold the point longer and need less sharpening. As for watercolor pencils right now I am using a set I get at the local craft store on sale.

Hard Chalk Pastels, use to be my favorite way to render a picture. These days I have gravitated away from chalk pastels though I still use them for highlights in some of my pictures. The problem for me with chalk pastels is not the colors. I love the color palette they pro, uce. Their only drawback is the messiness they produce with all the rubbing and the blowing off of the powder. They of course their is the fixative you have to use each time.

Acrylic and Watercolor Paints, I lumped these two together because they both can be used straight out of the tubes or diluted with water. While my use of watercolors had been limited to some of the paints which come in the pads, I have also used some colors right out of the tube. Watercolors still mystify me, especially washes, so right now I limit their use. Acrylics I love, and use them a lot in my pictures. Right now the only drawback for me is getting those fine little details in my painting so will sometimes use markers or colored pencils to fill in the details.

So you can see I dabble in a lot of mediums, there are still some I have lying around the house like crayons and oil pastels which I have yet to dabble. I still feel a little ADD but I guess being an artist is experimenting and trying a number of different ways to create an image. I have even started to use a little digital editing in my pictures.

Doodle #98 Getting the Bird to Pose

| Whitt’s End Art

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My doodle “Getting the Bird to Pose,” was inspired by the word prompt, hummingbird. I have only seen hummingbirds a few times in my lifetime. Each year my wife puts out one of those hummingbird feeders in order to try and draw the birds out. So far she has had limited success.  Hummingbirds are interesting little creatures They flit and flutter around with seeming tirelessness from flower to flower sucking out the nectar.

How hard it must be to get one of these little birds to pose for a picture. Which reminds me of those early days as a parent when you try to get the perfect picture of your children. Nothing ever seems to go right. One child is looking one way, another will not smile and still another is crying. Still my wife perseveres in order to get that one magical moment when all the children look perfect for the photographer. It seldom worked but each year we went through the same ritual.  Just one of the joys of parenting I miss, not.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to have pictures of my kids and grandchildren readily available for others to see. I however like the unplanned spontaneous moments when the children are being children. The best family moments to capture on your camera, smart phone, or whatever are those that come when you’re not planning for them, when your family is being a family at play. Remember just like you’ll never get a bird to pose for picture you’ll never get the true essence of family life unless you are prepared and ready to capture the spontaneous.