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.”

 

A Long Time Coming: Christmas Day 2023

  

 So now here I am writing on Christmas Day afternoon.  A little spot fell into my time frame between events where I suddenly thought of all the photos I've been dropping into the "blog file" as time as gone. My goodness but it's been a LONG time since I pulled up my blog.  You surely have thought I'd given it up.  But no...I just needed a break for awhile. The big decision now is just what is important to share.  

I'll start from now and work backwards a bit...here is my family (missing 5 people) but that is pretty darn amazing to get THAT many in one place!  Held here at Oakwood on Dec 9.  Some of my blog followers already saw this picture.  But I just had to share it again. 

My last blog post was spring and summer so I pretty much slipped over autumn.  I'll just drop two little sketches here about autumn...a little sketch walking in the prairie here at Oakwood and then under the lovely Sycamore Tree next to our apartment. It was a nice autumn...not as bright as some in the past but still pretty.  We left the cabin a bit early this year--September 8--although others followed and used the cabin up to the closing in early October. 

  

And a small sketch done in late October at my step daughter's home in Poynette, WI.  One of the last days of autumn...80 degrees and this was overlooking their pretty pond.  We were enjoy watching Oliver, our great grandson (almost two) play in the leaves.  

Oliver will have a baby sister in May.  Our 4th great grandchild!

I had an 84th birthday in early November...the 4 Old Fashions were not all for me!  "Likely story" says friend, Deb.  

A farewell card for a church member

on hospice who loved labyrinths...it's a finger labyrinth.  Folks signed their names.

Below are examples of some of the 

Zentangles™ from the Project Pack #22 

offered just before Christmas.  

I'm hoping to teach another class here at Oakwood in January.  

My mini journals really suffered this year.  Most of these pages I complete take about a month or two...but this page took a whole year to complete. I guess I sort of took breaks from a lot of things this year. I have promised to do better on the next one.  

Julie and I had fun playing with a different kind of wonky house in watercolor and ink.  It was awhile ago...I may have posted this before?

I'll let our other two great grandchildren sign off for me.

Viggo 4 and Violet 5 (she just lost her first tooth two days ago).

They now live in Michigan so a little closer than CA!  

I wish you all a New Year filled with hope and courage.  Filled with rest and walks in forest, time for old friends, good books and creativity.  Here's to 2024. 

 

 

 

April Thoughts

 Graduation

By Ginny Stiles

To graduate is to arrange in a series or according to a scale.

“The stones were graduated in height from the lowest near the entrance to the tallest opposite.”

The longer I live the more I think of time as a spiral and not a straight line.  Every ending opens a door to a new beginning.  In this way we “graduate” all the time, minute by minute and year by year, experience by experience.

The spiral starts out tight and small and “graduates” outward as time spins on.  At least my spiral does.  I could see that some folks might see it the opposite, getting smaller and tighter as they age.  Dark hole style.

But my spiral is headed for the stars.  As the serendipity of life is arranged through both my choices and my chances…through luck and planning, through the best and worse…the spaces get wider and you see farther.  There are more “thin” places in the spiral where you can see beyond your spiral…just every so often.

We gather a little star dust along the way and when the spiral gets wide enough…and you get to the end…it will feel like home.

A little birthday card painting for my grandson Patrick's 17th birthday. 

Watercolor and Gouache

The Wonky House project was part of a Sketchbook online challenge series this spring.  (Ink, watercolor, white pen, white gouache)

Ginny teaching Zentangle last week  out a Prairie Ridge on the East Side of Madison.

My sister and I had 5 days to enjoy each other's company here in Madison and now she's off to new adventures in California.

 

The Easter Season

The end of March draws near.  It's truly been a month that I have almost lost in terms of time.  I've done many things...we've been busy and not a month where I noticed many spare moments although I am sure there were.  

Spring fever hit me hard in mid-March.  A few 40-50 degree days slipped in, the time on the clocks moved forward, the vernal equinox that celebrates the season slipped in, and the local Farmer's Market sent their start date in April... but outside things looked VERY wintery in Madison for most of the month!  Last Saturday we had 12" of snow! We NEED spring and it's almost painful.  Under the snow, Julie's snowdrops and crocus are poking up.  Or they were when we could see them!  And I have seen my first robin!  

On the 18th of March the Urban Sketch group went down to sketch in the capitol dome here in Madison.  Oh my it was a blustery wintery day! It was fine inside the dome but getting there was a very cold walk.

I've been obsessed with Zentangle® during these inside days...teaching an advanced class we call the "Zentangle Club".  They have been doing a great job... First project we worked on a "Zendala". These two  on top were the way it looked to start and then my finished sample.  The 3 on the bottom were my "variations on the finished piece".  

The students really worked hard on theirs and they turned out quite well I thought. Even though we all the did the same tangle they all turned out differently but then that's the fun.  

So now we are working on "part II" to finish up in late April.  We are working on a "Wonky Village".  The second one is my sample in ink and colored pencil that I am working along with them.  The top one is as far as I got in the first day of instruction.  Neither are completed yet so you'll have to wait to later in April to see how they all turn out!  

Lastly I've been working along with the Project Pack #20 online in Zentangle and Day 6 turned out well.  This is done on a gray Zendala tile using ink and while charcoal.  

Heading right up to Easter now and the choir at church is practicing like crazy as we sing Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter!! Family will be here for Easter Brunch and we all have our finger's crossed that the sunshine and spring like weather will arrive in time!  

Blessings for this Easter Season.

February: A Time to Dream

“Teach the children… Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.”
— Mary Oliver

Here is is the 6th of February and I've not posted for a long time. The holidays have come and gone with all their family and friends and joyful celebrations.  The New Year has begun in all it's complexity and bewilderment...all it's wars, earthquakes and gun violence. We have to fight to keep the balance.  I've started a Tai Chi class.  Lots of gentle movements, breathing, and contemplation.  My Zentangle® brings me healing.  I share that with others.  I led a lovely class last week.  

This month, for a time, I've lost myself in thinking about the outdoor world lying still and silent now under deep snow here in Wisconsin. I walk gingerly over ice and snow and think of the world..mostly silent and sleeping in the woods.  There is great beauty in the frosted branches and the long long icicles.   

The owls are about...I see sparrows on the branches of my Sycamore Tree.  But mostly we are lost still to the signs that spring is ahead.  Yet we still we plan for Ash Wednesday and dream of Easter on April 9.  It's only two months.  So the "green space" Mary Olivers writes of above will come again.  We have set the up north cabin calendar in motion among the family members.

It's a good month to dream of the 9 acres woods here at University Woods.  The robins will be back next month.  They always come. I so enjoyed putting together a little nature library sign for the book corner by the entrance to the woods.  

I loved thinking of each bit the woods I cherish here..the trillium, the Sycamore tree, the oaks, the Lady Slipper and the Bluebells, the hickory and the robins.  And then lastly the turkey feather.  We have an absurdly funky flock of them that think they own the 9 acres.  We have to get permission from them to walk there (well at certain times of year).  There were so many things there wasn't room for...the owls...beautiful.  All the song birds...many many wild flowers.  The list is endless.  We dream of spring now.  

 

We are Here to Keep Watch, Not to Keep

 The astonishment is all in the being here. It is the turtle in the pond, the thought in the mind, the falling star, the stranger on Main Street… To all of this, loss, which seems only to take away, adds its own kind of necessary contribution. No matter what goes missing, the object you need or the person you love, the lessons are always the same. Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days. Our crossing is a brief one, best spent bearing witness to all that we see: honoring what we find noble, tending what we know needs our care, recognizing that we are inseparably connected to all of it, including what is not yet upon us, including what is already gone. We are here to keep watch, not to keep. 

Kathryn Schulz (from her book Lost & Found)

I am not sure why the above struck me as appropriate for today's blog except that it "vibrated" with me somewhat as a tuning fork makes a hum with you wrap your fingers around it...vibrating your whole hand for a short time.   

Our first long summer stay at the cabin is wrapping up now...Four weeks...28 days.  Not so long in the scheme of things. We are here to keep watch, not to keep.  The cabin reminds me of things we are blessed with and so much also of what "cannot keep".  Our physical and mental selves savor the familiar lake and the Northwood smells and sounds differently now.  A real quiet descends upon us.  Deep quiet.  Wind, waves, pines, eagles, loons, wild storms, campfires, a canoe ride, wild flowers, etc etc. Things my husband has known and loved for well over 50 years.  Me, over 30.  

This time we spent time assessing things that we won't use again here and dismantling some to make room for the kids who we hope will want to keep the cabin someday and make it their own.  We still hope for some years here...but not the same way they "used to be". "Transience  to cherish...fragility to defend".  My art studio is being dismantled now (a small desk and shelf left by the window facing the lake.  We need the storage for other things and I don't need to duplicate a studio here anymore.  Greg's train tables came down.  He has his one train layout now in Madison.  He needs a work table and some storage instead.  

It is interesting that in the two summers starting with the pandemic summer in which we did not come here at all for the first time so much has changed.  Now it is as if everything has moved slightly so that we are looking at things from a different point of view.  It would have happened anyway, of course, but it's just that it's more than obvious now.  The change continues as the pandemic goes on.

We'll be back on August 9 or 10 for another shorter stay with more family headed up with us for awhile.  Then there will be more berries, more acorns, more pine cones, and the sumac will begin to turn just slightly as the ferns get dusty and turn yellow on the tips. We've seen it so many times.  

Spreading dogbane?  I've never noticed it before. What a lovely find and with a silken moth nest tucked in one leaf too!

The Boathouse is an older landmark in nearby Minocqua...a somewhat dusty and aging lakeside restaurant it turns out.  A bit of a disappointment on a sunny Thursday morning last week.  I was immediately taken in by the signage, however, which I found so interesting AND a real challenge as well.  Who knew there was a beer called "Bell's Oberon"?  Or "Landshark Lager"?  I was inspired after reading about a delightful artist named Doris Rifkin who loves to incorporate signs into her paintings.  If you google her you'll find dozens of wonderful paintings full of print. 

I hope I didn't already post this sketch.  I may have.  It's my bags full of art supplies coming up to the cabin which are now filling up again for the return trip.  Done in water-soluble tinted graphite.  

The cabin nestled into the forest from the road side.

(Lake on the other side.). Our car is covered in a gray car cover off the left side behind the trees.  A blue bag of recycle waiting for us to take to the recycle.  There's a group of large trees just to the left of the door.  One of those fell this spring in a wind storm.  Toward the cabin!!!!

BUT just missed major damage by falling where those trash cans are sitting and then getting hung up in the upper branches!  HOW lucky was that.  

  

Summer Thoughts

You're braver than you believe, 

stronger than you seem, 

and smarter than you think.

 (AA Milne)

The cabin, as the summer moves along, simmers into the routines that becomes a kind of mesmerizing center of our world.  The climate, the smells, the sounds are so different from our other life.  A life of wood smoke, piney smells, marshmallows and tiny flowers.  A life of quiet or wild storms, lapping lakeside water at the pier.  Reading on the summer porch, drawing in the studio, examining a weevil, watching caterpillars eat.  The gorgeous berry colors, the pesky mosquitoes, baking cookies in the old oven, streaming church on the computer, wearing flannel shirts and jeans, seeing so many stars.  SO quiet here. 

Sitting on the pier and looking down into the water.  Smiling over the plethora of rocks...where have they been for all those years?  Rolling around in this lake or along the shores...boulders now broken into stones.  Old, old, old.  Thinking about that new telescope now showing us photos of our universe beyond our dreaming...surely where those rocks came from originally?  My grandsons skip them across the dark waves.  Sending them back to roll in again some day.  

Family comes and goes.  Good times.  Memories.  

 

July Cabin Sketches

 Ability comes from the doing.  

And in the meantime drawing is solely for our own pleasure.

You will slowly feel its warming effect on your spirit and I guarantee it will bring happiness and connect you to this wonderful world of ours. 

Faith in this creative process, and faith in your ability to achieve it, 

can change your life.

Carol Peebles

Officially Summer

It was a lovely weather day on Saturday for the Urban Sketchers to gather at Wingra Boats on Lake Wingra.  Very festive...lots of families celebrating with balloons, people out padding on various rental boats available, sitting out on the patio or putting their boats in at the public launch.  

    I was drawn to a small building just at the edge of the walking path which was labeled "Hobbit House" and wondered how it is used.  No clues were given and it might just be a storage place.  But I had to include it.  Along side it were stored many of those new paddle boats that people stand on while they paddle about on calm days.  The darling "fish" sign was really quite large by the way...several feet long and wide.  Brightly painted.  Many kayaks to rent, of course, and a duck paddle boat I'll have to sketch another day.

It was our 32nd anniversary this week and so after the sketch time we went out to eat strawberry waffles.  Yum.    

 

Sometimes it just nice to sketch a "moment in time".  A quiet little half an hour after supper one evening just off the sun room here at our apartment complex.  It has been VERY warm with dramatically hot day time temperatures close to 100 degrees.  So being outside for awhile in the evening in a shady spot seemed just right.  The signs on the pots tell which of the residents maintain their "pot garden" and the pole is called a "peace pole".  They are also resident created.  (Mine is in another garden.). 

This week we'll take a short trip to Poynette to visit family and see our great grandson, Ollie, who is sprouting up like a summer plant!  He's 7 months old already!  Then on the weekend more family gatherings to celebrate the beginning of summer and a birthday party too.  

We are headed off the cabin next week over the 4th and through the month of July.  So I will no doubt be posting some cabin thoughts and sketches from up there.  

Lovely June Days in Madison

Today was a sketching opportunity day.  It was, first off, a lovely June day in the low 80s with tons of sunshine.  No storms heading our way.  (We've had a lot of scary ones in Madison lately).  

So that was good.  But also it was our 32nd anniversary!  Our wedding day that long-ago June was lovely too.  Lucky us.  This morning University Woods had "Donuts for Dads" which was just a fun little Happy Father's Day weekend deal...good time for visiting and catching up with folks.  Then I took a short walk in the woods afterwards and sat under the lush green trees for an hour and just listened to the birds!  

Then after lunch we attended a darling little Model A car show in the Heritage Circle and I couldn't resist this one.  

A nice weekend will follow with Urban sketching at Wingra Boats in the morning, pancake lunch for our anniversary meal (at our age you get to do whatever you want) and then am hoping that there is time for a Face Time visit with my sister later in the afternoon.

About a week until we leave for the cabin again.  Lots to fit into that including lots of family get togethers.  Hope your weekend is good wherever you are!  

June in Wisconsin

View of Mush Gush Island toward the north end of Lake Tippecanoe

wc in sketchbook

The 9 days at the cabin over Memorial Day were not the best weather for sure.  LOTS of rain, pretty cold, and lots of mosquitoes and ticks. But we've been going there in May for a billion springs so this was not new news.  But one always "hopes" for a miracle.  Still we had a good week and the drive up and back went just fine (although it cost a fortune in gas just to drive 4 hours!).  This sketch on Memorial Day from Betty's shore line shows how our little island are diminished more each summer by high water.  There were gray gray skies that day and gray gray water.  Later in the week we got high winds and huge whitecaps on the lake.  Kinda scary in a woods.  Let's hope things look more summery when we go back up the end of June!  

 

Acrylic on canvas: 16 x 20

Hydrangas, Mixed Bouquet, White Lilacs

I did bring back some paintings I had stored at the cabin over the years...all painted in Florida over the 12 years we lived there.  I have never hung them together before.  I was amazed that I picked cobalt blue for the background on all 3 which is nice as it makes them look more like a grouping!  I thought they make a cheery summery setting in our dining room here in Madison.  Right in front of flowers from Julies' lovely garden!

Ink and Watercolor sketch in 9 x 12 notebook

from photo of Venice

This sketch and watercolor was done this afternoon during an online streamed class with Brenda Murray at Studio 56.  She supplied the photo that she took in Venice.  And she talked about 35 of us through it over the space of about an hour and a half.  A very nice afternoon.  

March and April in Wisconsin

What's up in March and early April?  I can't believe I haven't posted in an age or two.  Sorry about that.  Let's catch up:

Greg had an open house for his train layout in February.  I made "boarding passes" for friends here at Oakwood so that no one would have to wait to get in to see his trains.  So much fun and a good turn out.

Here's a series of pages from my small sketchbook.  This ink and watercolor black and white sketch from a recent April concert here on stage at the Oakwood Art Center.  

This sketch is from a March walk in the Oakwood conservancy.  We had a crazy warm day sneak in on March 21 and we went coatless (for one day).  Then reality came back.  

This sketch was a March concert at Oakwood but I had fun just sketching some objects on stage instead of all the people.

This is part of Project Pact 17 with Zentangle.  I really got a little carried away with it at the end and just wanted to have it look "unique" and so I painted the center gold, trimmed here and there, added some white on black and it's called "kaleidoscope".  

It's back to my bigger sketchbook and a trip to Garver Mill here in Madison on the East Side which has been renovated into a venue for shops and entertainment.  The Urban Sketchers all went together last Saturday for the afternoon.  Much fun.

All is well here in Madison. Spring is taking a LONG time coming this year but we had nice sunshine on Palm Sunday (about 50) and so we can now see the daffodils and crocus peeping up.  Really, it magical how fast they arrive from nothing one day and 3-4" the next.  We'll have two more days warm and then a drop of 20 degrees again for Easter.  Such a shame.  Maybe they are wrong?  Well, we'll survive.

Once it does come it'll be euphoric for us.  The robins are nesting and the goose is sitting on eggs by the pond.  It can't be too much longer.