Inspiration

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 #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 #113, Livin’ the Fresh Life

| Whitt’s End Art

The word for today was fresh. My doodle for today is entitled, “The Freshness of the Great Outdoors.” When I was a kid my friends and I lived outdoors.  In the summertime from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed we played games out in the fresh air. Oh yeah, we did take breaks to eat and get something to drink but other than that we stayed outdoors. What did we do out in all that fresh air you might ask.

I don’t really know every last detail but we played games like tag, and war and took hikes down along the creek. We picked fresh blackberries and then ate them later with some cream and sugar. We went to the ponds and watched the minnows swim around. Me personally I would hand with my best friend Jeannie and just discuss the future. Well by now you get the picture. Outside in the fresh air of each and every fresh new day we did whatever our little hearts were led to do that day.

It seems today the fresh outdoors has be forgotten by many kids. They would rather hang indoors playing video games or texting on their phones. Friends it seems no longer visit each other in person they just Face Time. I think parents should encourage their children to get outside and do something with their friend, not only for the health benefits but also so they don’t unlearn what it really means to socialize in person.

Doodle #112, What’s In Your Bowl?

| Whitt’s End Art

The drawing prompt for today is the word, “bowl.” My doodle is lovingly entitled, “A Bowl Full of Flowers.” A lot of good things come in a bowl, soup, cereal, ice cream, flower and of course life. Yes, you heard me correctly. Most who read my blog know the old phrase, “my plate is too full,” meaning they are doing so much they can’t fit one more thing into their day. Well in years past my personal life as well as my church life felt so full at times that if I didn’t put it all into a bowl instead of on a plate many things would fall off and be forgotten.

Then a friend of mine gave me some good all purpose advice, “You don’t always have to say yes.” I was one of those people who loved and still love to do things for other people. My problem was I couldn’t say no because I felt I was letting the other person down. I would always say yes which meant I would burden myself down with commitments. This led to a full bowl of a life. I finally had to step back for a moment, take a deep breath, and say no to those requests I knew I could not throw into my bowl.

In the end my life became a little less full and a lot less stressed. So my advice to you today is do not over commit. Do what you can do and be satisfied. People will respect you more if explain why you can’t do something then if you commit to something and fail to get the job done. Matthew 5:37, “ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

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 #111, Fan the Flame in Your Heart

| Whitt’s End Art


In each of us burns a flame. At times the flame is a small spark but at other times when we draw close to God or find something we are passionate about the flame burns brightly. I have discovered however, as I grow older the flame seems to be growing a little dimmer. It is not because I feel any less close to God or that I don’t have the passion to do His work.  This website was created to put the drawing and illustrations I create out there for others to see but also to proclaim God and His word.

No, the problem with my flame growing dimmer has to do with my feelings of being a useful member of society. I once was able to do anything I put my mind to do, but I no longer seem to the have the oomph to do those tasks. I know it is a part of getting older but it still seems a little disheartening.  For all us baby boomers out there who are feeling the same way try to do as I’m doing take up a challenge you’re passionate about and get at it to the best of your ability.

I am also putting out the call to anyone who reads this blog, if you know of a ministry I can do from home please let me know.

Doodle #107, Do You See What I See?

| Whitt’s End Art

Cats are some of the most patient creatures in the world. They can sit for what seems like hours and stare out the window or in the case of my drawing out on the water at who knows what. This reminds me of a game we used to play when I was a kid. We called it Eye Spy. You may remember it. The line goes something like this, “eye spy with my little eye…” Then the rest of the people there had to guess the object or person in your line of sight. The winner got to pick something out we could guess.

In today’s modern world we play a varied form of this game it is called, “Eye Spy with My Little Smart Phone….” Each day thousand of videos filter onto the web of things which are better left out of public view or of incidents where a smart phone would be put to better use by dialing the police. An even better choice would be to help your fellow man instead of filming them at their worst. Philippians’s 2:4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Of course there is one upside to the modern game of “Eye Spy.” In many instances because of people filming themselves behaving badly the police have enough evidence to make an arrest and give the courts all they need to convict.  So my little piece of advice for today, take it or leave it, is be careful what you put out there because someone may say to you “Eye Spied what you posted in that site.” Till tomorrow enjoy my drawing, “Cats By the Ocean.”