creativity

Doodle #129, The Open Doorways

| Whitt’s End Art

In the course of a year long drawing challenge there are times when your mind and your pen get a little blank. This is one of those times. The challenge was to draw a couple of perfectly aligned doorways in your home. My home is not that perfectly aligned so I used another person’s home. I hope you understand. The piece is entitled simply, “Doorways.” I could also give you some speech on how life is like these doorways. Sometimes it feel perfectly aligned but there are times when one door is closed and you can’t for the life of you understand what is going on ahead.

I am thankful many times some of those doors are closed because I do not want to see what is ahead of me. When I was a child my doorways seemed perfectly aligned. Go to school, come home, do homework, go out and play, eat dinner, go to bed, next day rinse and repeat. As an adult the doorways are seldom aligned and I find myself many times praying I could have but a glimpse to what lies ahead behind closed doorway number 2. Still we must push on another day, another drawing. I leave these words of wisdom from Ecclesiastes 3:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

 

Doodle #125, Yellow, The Color of All Things Bright

| Whitt’s End Art

Today is yellow day. No it is not a National Holiday is it on the list for the May 5th drawing prompt. I could have went in a lot of directions with this prompt like a piece of lemon meringue pie, a banana, a yellow flower, a sunset among many other yellow items.. In fact I actually drew a lemon but switched to the more, “Whimsical Girl with Kitten,” for today’s drawing instead.

Yellow has always been one of my favorite colors to paint or color with because it exudes warmth, brightness and happiness. Yellow has also been associated, in our society, with cowardliness. Hence the phrase, “You’re yeller because you won’t fight me.” I added a little Southern in there due to my heritage. Whatever way you choose to look at the color yellow remember this there are a lot of colors which would not exist without this primary color.

Life is kind of like the primary color yellow. It is filled with a lot of happiness and warmth and maybe a little cowardice but when you add other colors to it, life can be so much more. As a young man I had a lot of friends come and go in my life most of whom I didn’t stay in contact. Still those friends who I left behind are important to me because they mixed into my life and added something to my primary color which helped me be who I am today. So the next time you are with your friends thank them for mixing into your life and helping you paint a beautiful portrait. Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Doodle #124, The Bell Tolls One, Two, Three

| Whitt’s End Art

Today’s drawing is a doodle of a small town. The centerpiece of the doodle and the town is the bell. In years past towns used bells for all manner of things such as signaling there was a fire, a special event was starting and much more. In some old churches bells were used to signal each hour or the start of church. In the ancients telephones had bells which signified somebody was calling. The list of the uses for bells is a long one however the one bell which used to bring me the most excitement was the ice cream truck bell.

In the summertime a couple times a week my friends and I would anxiously wait to hear the peel of the ice cream truck. The louder it got the closer we knew we were to our favorite treats. The ice cream truck loomed large in our minds as the favorite part of summer. Well maybe hanging out and ice cream.

Now many, many, many years later I still like ice cream but now I have to get it from a store or ice cream shop. The thrill of the bells has faded into just a memory. The future does hold for me one more important bell, the proverbial bell which will call me home to my place in Heaven. The Bible says Jesus went back to prepare a place for me and one day I will reside there.

Doodle #122, Three Coins in a Piggy Bank

| Whitt’s End Art

Don’t know why the image didn’t load but here is the picture.

Life is all about saving. It’s about putting a few coins away for the proverbial raining day. The problem is to many of us don’t. When I was younger I worked at several jobs which paid me a decent salary for the times. Some of the money I banked but most of it I spent of foolish things. As I look back on those days sure I had a good time but if I would have put some money away maybe today I would be set and ready for retirement. Alas I am not.

The Bible has many verses warning about the love of money and hoarding away stuff but tucked away in Proverbs is this verse in Proverbs 13:11, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” What Solomon is saying is this. The quicker you get your money the less you’re going to understand the value of saving but when you take a portion of your money, put it in an IRA or savings account the more the money will increase over time. I’ve spent a lot of money on a lot of things over the years but have little to show for all my wastefulness. If you’re reading this take the time to out some money away. You’ll be thankful for it later.

Doodle #121, Let Your Flashlight Be Your Guide

| Whitt’s End Art

When we were kids we couldn’t wait until it got dark outside. The reason, we couldn’t wait to play flashlight tag. Our versions of flashlight tag went something like this. The person who was it got the flashlight. His or her job was to find the people who were hiding and illuminate them with the light. The first person found was it in the next round. The only problem with wandering in the dark is you tend to run into things. No matter the dangers, flashlight tag still ranks up there as one of my favorite things to do in the summer.

The analogy of the flashlight is a simple one, light illumines our way, while darkness hides what we do. God is often referred as light in the Bible. The reason for followers of Jesus is simple. If we follow God then his Word, “Is a light to my path,” which means He illuminates the path I need to follow. God is also, “lamp unto my feet.” Just like in flashlight tag the one with the light can see where they are going in the darkness, while the rest are left to stumble.

God’s light provides for me a clear path where I can see the obstacles that come along as I walk and help me to navigate around them. I hope you like my drawing inspired by the word flashlight, entitled, “The Light Brings Color.”

 

Doodle #120, The Rock Amidst the Water

| Whitt’s End Art


The drawing prompt for today is the word, rock. My drawing is a yet untitled rock formation with some weeds growing amongst them. The Neshaminy Creek was right down the side street from the house where I lived when I was a child. The creek was a fascinating place. You could go fishing, hang out on the rocks at rapids when the tide was down, search for bugs among other things. Right in the center of the creek by what we called the new bridge, for obvious reasons, was this humongous rock sticking out of the water.

During low tide you could wade out to the rock, climb on top of it wand look up down the creek in both directions. The rock seemed like a place of refuge in the midst of the water. My friends, particularly my friend Jeanie, had a lot of lot of good times at that rock and along the banks of the creek. Those days seemed so peaceful.

Today’s prompt also remind me of some words of Jesus in Matthew 16:18, ” on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” While some feel this verse is about Peter being the foundation for God’s church, while others feel Jesus is talking about the solid rock of the Word. God’s Word is like the rock in the middle of the Neshaminy Creek, floods and storms came and that rock was still there. As far as I know the rock is still there though I haven’t been down to look in over twenty years. As Christian’s we need to remember to stand on the rock of God’s Word through the storms and in the good peaceful days.

Doodle #119, Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

| Whitt’s End Art

The word of the day is, “hair.” The title of my doodle for today is, “Girl With the Pulled Up Hair.” Back in the day there was this little musical called “Hair.” The musical from the 1960’s was a rock musical born out of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the time. While most of the musical was controversial back in the day the title song by the Cowalls is still one of my favorites:

“give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer
Here, baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair”

A lot of people like from the 60’s and 70’s had long hair. It was sign of the times. The only problem is mine would always frizz and get curly but still I would let it grow to my momma’s dismay. Years later, now sporting a grey buzz cut I think back in fondness to all the hair I used to have. I realized years ago as my hair started to turn grey and I developed the middle aged look that you cannot hold onto the past. It is not something to be grasped in you hand . Our outward appearances change. Even our hearts desires change.  Still I sit back and wonder what happened to all the friends I used to know.  All I have left to say is something I heard somewhere, “Hold onto you memories tightly but hold onto your friend even tighter.”

Doodle #116, A Basket Full of Memories

| Whitt’s End Art

The drawing prompt for today was basket. When I saw the prompt the first thing to pop in my head was all the years I spent delivering newspapers which was the inspiration for my drawing, “Bike and Basket.” I delivered newspapers as a kid with my friend and then for 26 years as an adult. The drawing prompt for today also invoked memories of these baskets my mom used to have filled with photographs of past memories. I think we all have a basket we fill with memories of each day.

Some of us have actual baskets or boxes where we keep physical photographs which in a lot of cases are never seen once they are put away, except for special occasions.  In theses modern times our baskets have been replaced with SD cards or space on the Cloud of your choice. Thousands of memories are stored each day some or most of them still long forgotten. It seems no matter where we put our memories they are forgotten except on the day by a sheer happenstance a lost memory is retrieved. Then the time for reminiscing begins.

What is my point in all this. While I love the idea of photographs because they helps us to remember good times past with loved ones long gone or moved away. I also know we can’t be too caught up in taking every moment of every event in our lives lest we miss the most important thing, the time spent with those we love. So fill your baskets with memories, those trapped in our hearts for a lifetime first and those we keep as reminders when the ones trapped in our hearts start to fade into the past.

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.