The reason for sketch journals

 Sketching or "journaling" has been for me a way to continue creating and remarking on my life's journey visually AND with notation now for a number of years.  So much so that my shelves now have collected a dozen or more of these visual/editorials on this journey I am completing... labeled by year.  

As they collect on the shelves...I enjoy now and then taking them down and re-living moments that captured my fancy as life went along.  It's amazing how vivid these memories are once you spent time drawing them.  Nothing at all like a photo.  The effort to "pay attention" as Mary Oliver as instructed, means that you capture the essence of an experience.  And that is all the difference.  Capturing mood and details that mean something to you personally.  Photographs are very non-committal.  A sketch, in contrast, gives over to your personal experience.

But as life rolls on I sometimes see that these journals will still be here when I am gone on alone to the next chapters of surprise. I'll leave these objects behind and I wonder about them.  I was reading Danny Gregory's thoughts on this same subject today...he decided he should leave a note...

“Dear whoever has to clean out my studio,

These sketchbooks have no value, but while I was alive, they brought me much richness. They taught me to learn something new every day, to take risks, to see the world, to understand myself better, and to play.

But all these pages are just the byproducts of that experience, and like me, they will one day be ashes.

Perhaps some of the pages will inspire you to make some art of your own, but if not, don’t give it a second thought.”

I think this is a lovely idea and I plan to replicate the note for the inside cover of my notebooks.  

Here are a few recent pages added to my sketchbook.. My daughter and I stayed in Little Elm, TX while we attended my granddaughter's wedding near Dallas.  View from 4th floor of the hotel.  

It was a lovely wedding...and so much fun to be with family sharing this happy event.  

I even did a little sketch on the flight from Madison to Dallas...this young man had an interesting tattoo on the back of his left arm!  

Then a few sketches in our 9 acre mini-forest here in Madison...the last of the early spring flowers as now we move into June and July...the leafy green paths are full of berries and mid-summer flowers and the prairie is beginning to grow on the edge of the forest.

The early berries of summer appear.  And I surrounded it with a frame of my home-made washi tape.  

Some sketches are indoor ones...a concert in the lovely chapel here at Oakwood University Woods.  

Perhaps some of the pages will inspire you to make some art of your own, but if not, don’t give it a second thought.”

 

Madison Wisconsin has it's party Dress On

 

Madison has its "party dress on".  So the saying goes in May and June.  All the trees are blooming and although the daffodils are almost gone, the tulip and peony are gearing up.  Lilac are wafting elegant perfume and birds are busy nesting. Happy bird songs float in the window.  

In the lovely 9 acre forest adjacent to Oakwood...the wild flowers are a sight to behold, a baby owlet is sitting on a branch, the baby goslings have jumped to their mom and a pair of sand hills cranes are nesting!

And frogs are crocking up a storm each evening.   

It's a wonderful diversion from what we read each morning in the NYTimes.   

This was painted in daughter Julie's garden on Mother's Day afternoon.

Our thoughts and plans drift toward grandson Mike's high school graduation this Friday evening and my upcoming flight to Dallas for granddaughter Abby's wedding May 30th.  Grandson Dylan was hooded with his masters last weekend.  And this coming weekend we'll celebrate grandson Ben's 27th birthday.  When you have 12 grandchildren there is something every week!!!  

And two more weddings this fall!

Also our thoughts begin to drift toward summer plans.  The kids will open the cabin on Memorial Day weekend.  And will begin using it in June.  We won't go up until July 1. But our thoughts drift that way now and then wondering if the loons are back.  

I am finished with my Physical Therapy for the new knee and am trying to collect lots of "steps" on my daily counter on my iPhone.  One day last week I got to over 4,000 steps!  

On the other hand our hearts ache for all the many many people suffering through endless wars, starvation, and uncertainty.  And we worry for our own country going through a morality crisis on top of so much uncertainty and anguish as well.  

I wish for you all a good spring and early summer. 

Keep in touch.

Ginny

On the Cusp of Spring in Wisconsin

 

A walk on the cusp of spring brings a slight sense of euphoria…The birds were so ecstatic that you couldn’t help but catch their happiness.  Late afternoon…my first visit out to the woods since my knee replacement 7 weeks ago.  That made me a little dizzy with happiness too.  The unusual 70+ temps had melted half the pond where a lone duck was swimming (surely with VERY cold feet!). But all the snow was gone.  My Merlin Bird ID app began recording bird songs while I sketched…doesn’t everyone have that?  If not, you must download it!  Nine bird songs popped up in the first 15 minutes!  But it was the Red winged Blackbirds that took over the show. 
 I looked for green but it’s too early for green yet EXCEPT for the lovely moss on the old boulders gathered at the north end of the pond.  I was drawn to that green and the long shadows in the late afternoon sun.  These old boulders look like they had gathered for a meeting to whisper ancient stories. I listened hard but the birds drowned them out.  For the now mats of thick leaves warm and protect the lovely spring flowers to come in a month or two  as the wild rains and bitter winds continue to howl their last under a blood moon.