The new year began...and my daily sketches continued. I wrote to Marion Boddy-Evans, the artist from whom I got a year's worth of word prompts, and thanked her for helping to keep me sane during these last many months. Having committed to daily sketching has focused my drawing and kept me being creative during this coronavirus lockdown time. However, since I began my year last April, I will run out of word prompts at the end of March! I hope she will offer another year's worth of words...unfortunately, it's going to be many more months before our world becomes 'normal' again.
So, here are the January sketches and my attempts to connect the images on each page in some sort of creative story:
Yes or No and Reddist - Day 1 of each month is always an either/or... Yes or No seemed simple enough. Thumbs up or down are universal symbols by now. I had misspelled reddist - it should have been reddest as in the most red. Trying hard to figure how these two are related... Maybe a judge could decide if the red blob is 👍 or 👎!
Sharp pencil and Letter - The sharp pencil was fun to draw and it takes me back to some long ago school days when we had to raise our hand to get up and use the pencil sharpener in class. The letter also takes me back to the days when we wrote real letters! Although as I age, my handwriting has gotten harder to interpret - maybe email reads better. These images go well together, except that we were supposed to use ink not pencil when we wrote letters.
Stamp and Read - I think stamp was supposed to go with the last page - too obvious - I had a guy stamp his foot in a puddle of water. Read could have been part of reading the letter that had been stamped and written with the sharp pencil... Stretching my brain here, this guy is reading a book. I putting these together ....this guy is reading a story about a rainy day and a guy playing in puddles.
Together and
Jump - Someone always gives me a puzzle for Christmas and I spend a week or so putting it
together. There are so many things for
jump - I decided to go with the trampoline. I have spent a lot of time watching grandchildren jump together on the trampoline!
Yellow and
Sunshine - Well,
yellow is yellow - what else? It's dreary winter here...I love the feel of warm sunshine on my face. These go together so simply!
Full moon and
Carrot - We had the first
full moon of this new year a few days ago. I understand it is called the Wolf Moon. I'm sure there is a long story there, but I don't know it. My son used to grow
carrots. I have always thought they were beautiful with their tops on them. Okay, often the full moon is orange as it comes up... OR, maybe if we ate enough carrots we could see better even without a full moon. (Yeah, I know, that's pushing this 'how do they relate' thing)
Luck and
Glitters - There are a lot of images for
luck - I remember looking for 4 leaf clovers a lot when I was a kid. The word '
glitter' is one that sometimes makes me shudder. Have you ever done any arts and crafts projects with your grandchildren...and then tried to clean up the glitter??? I went with glittering stars instead. Relationship between them...With any luck, not too much of the glitter got on the rug or stuck to your hands that were also full of sticky glue!
Darkest and
Green - Years ago when we had children bringing baby grandchildren to visit, we looked for the darkest blackout shades we could find so we could put them down for naps in the middle of the day. When the shade was pulled down, it was the
darkest. Green is green... I tried to go from dark to light. It is interesting that when it is the darkest, you can't see color - it's a black and white world. There is a little green when the shade is up.
Envy and
Grows - I had no idea what to draw for
envy so I looked it up. Did you know that there are symbols for each of the seven sins? This is what envy looks like...easier to draw than someone looking over a neighbor's fence. In order to show
grows, I thought I needed to do a before and after...small plant growing into a larger one. Relationship between these two...sadly, envy grows.
Eats grass and Acorn - Well, there are a lot of animals that eat grass. The first one I thought of was a dog...I remember being told that they do that when they are sick. I did not want to draw a sick dog. I love the way giraffes have to spread their legs in order to eat grass. We used to live in an area that was surrounded by oak trees. In the Fall, the acorns fell everywhere. We had to sweep and shovel them up.
Obviously, these are both animal food - easily go together!
Top and
Spiral - I first thought that
top would be the top of something - but what? But of course, it is also a toy. We may have all had this kind of toy growing up. You pushed the handle up and down to wind it and then watched it spin. And, then there is
spiral - fun to draw! There would certainly be a lot of different spirals watching a top!
Blue and
Hole - I guess that
blue could have been sad...but it was fun to do several shades of blue. I couldn't just draw a
hole. It had to have something coming out of it! I guess I could be feeling blue if I had a hole in my bucket.
Rain cloud and
Bird - When we used to go sailing on the Chesapeake Bay we always watched for
rain clouds toward the end of the day. We no longer sail so this cloud in over land. I was challenged with the word
bird... I think I was having a very down day - a little angry at the coronavirus still hanging around - so my drawing for bird turned out to be a hand gesture. So as not to be 'blackballed' from the internet, I offer this instead. Relationship here? Angry rain and angry gesture...
Flying and
Fluffy - I don't have space for the whole story of
flying except to say that flying a kite on this day has special meaning. I am thankful for treasured lives in my life. On the same page as flying...a
fluffy cloud seemed appropriate!
Apple and
Mixture - Now,
apple could have been my laptop, but every artist learns to draw spheres not computers. I can practice drawing skills on an apple. (And if I was much younger, I could probably practice drawing skills on the computer) Primary and secondary colors - ever since I learned about this I have marveled at how this
mixture works. It was fun to mix some of the primary colors to paint the apple.
Cake - And, I end the month with
cake! For the past several weeks I have been craving sweets - and my husband keeps making brownies... By the time we are able to get beyond this pandemic... well... we will be draping the mirrors!
See you next month!
