16th February

The People All Around You


There are so many people in our lives that we don't notice until something out of the ordinary happens. The people you pass on the street, the person who lets you into a traffic queue, the person who looks up and smiles at you in a hospital corridor, people who are also going about their day to day lives and take a moment to make contact with you. Family and friends, old and new, make up the main fabric of our lives, and are an essential part of who we are, but the unexpected moments where a stranger touches our lives with kindness are a real celebration of what it means to be human too. I am so glad to be part of a bigger existence than my own small life, and will continue to participate in random acts of kindness and senseless creations of beauty!

15th February

Serenity

A serene face, gazing into the middle distance, with a sense of introspection. Just resting in the moment without any thoughts of action or decision. It's a quiet place I need to visit more often where there is relief from the tyrannies of day to day life, and my particular distractions of colour and sound. 

February 14th

Give me Coffee

I love a good cup of coffee, indeed there are times I just have to have a cup right now! It smells so good, promises such pleasure, and warms both hands and face. Delicious. I find myself going back to places where the coffee was good last time, and  I remembering which brands I prefer. When did this happen? The outrage and disappointment when the coffee is not up to scratch - I used to be so relaxed about things. So, until the next cup look out!

13th February

Savour the Moment

Life is a mixed bag of good times and not so great moments. Why is it the difficult times seem to have such a lasting impact? Those memories seem so much sharper and more real than the soft, sunny times where everything is easy. We need to spend some of those moments of comfort and beauty really focussing on the particular details, scents, sounds, and emotions, until we can recall each aspect in perfect focus. This will build a bank of wonderful moments to bring to mind when things are difficult, memories that reassure and remind us that all is not bad and better times are not so far away, just as close as we can hold them in our minds.

12th February

Barefoot through the Grass


Do you remember the exhilaration of running down a hillside with bare feet? It is a slightly dangerous feeling with the possibility of ending up head over heels if you take a bad step, but worth the breathless, laughing rush! I like the way this drawing makes the girl take up the maximum amount of space available but still manages to convey a sense of space beyond the page. Like life, there is so much beyond what you can take in in any one given moment.

11th February

Juggling Some More

All dressed up and in full flight with balls in all directions! I love having to do these drawings - today it is an unmitigated pleasure. I can't really juggle, but everything is possible in your mind's eye. I read somewhere that when a gymnast has a tricky new move to learn, they spend a lot of time imagining the entire event before they attempt it. Somehow this teaches their body what is expected of it, and maybe the body thinks the imagined event was a real happening and it can perform the movement because, after all, it has done it before successfully. It is a wonderful idea that probably is worth testing in other circumstances instead of going over the worse case scenarios I often review before some dreaded event!

10th February

February's First Mermaid

The first mermaid for the month! Mermaids seem to be one of my enduring interests. There is something about being able to manage to live both under and above water and yet being unable to get beyond the edges where the sea and dry land meet, that captures my imagination. There are so many stories around mermaids too. The beautiful but treacherous mermaids that lure sailors to their deaths, the little mermaid who forsakes so much for the love of her prince, the poor creatures paraded at freak shows in the circus sideshows of yore. There are flesh eating creatures with pointy teeth and nasty appetites, and beautiful undersea princesses with mother of pearl palaces and magical powers. Mine are creatures of the outdoors, decorative, pensive, and very tactile. All that water streaming past their skin and wind blowing in their hair, sometimes free in the ocean, and sometimes dreaming on the shore. Creatures of warmth and coolness, night and day, air and water, soft skin and scaly, shiny tails. Creatures full of contradictions and beauty, movement and calm. There will be more of them!