Timeout for Art: Drawing

I just returned from the states…another long, strange adventure trying to get back to Nicaragua, but that’s a story for another post. I didn’t have time to draw this week, so I’m posting a pen sketch I did eight years ago. What makes this sketch so unique is that I found it in my old sketch pad, tucked between worn, moldy pages. I’m surprised that it survived the ravages of the tropics.

This was the first wedding we attended on Ometepe Island. I wanted to give Eric and Danellia a portrait, but I couldn’t capture the beauty of Danellia. Portraits are very difficult!

Below is the first pencil sketch I did for Timeout for Art…a sand dollar I found on the beach.

While in the states, I bought new sketch pads, pencils, and a few new watercolor brushes. We are remodeling our guest house and transforming the upstairs bedroom into my arts and crafts studio. It will be so nice to spread out my projects.

Timeout for Art is brought to you by: Zeebra Designs and Destinations. Check out the many talented artists on Lisa’s incredible blog.

 

Timeout for Art: Waiting for Mangoes

This week’s Timeout for Art challenge is brought to you by Zeebra Designs and Destinations.  Lisa, I anxiously await your challenge every Thursday. Thank you for the inspiration. I think my waiting for mangoes has come to an end.

Princesa and I share mangoes every morning over the barbed wire fence. She bellows…I respond. She slobbers, then bellows for more. Sometimes she lets me pet her while she’s munching on mangoes.

While drawing today’s challenge, I was in a contemplative mood, thinking about the cattle and other animals barely surviving on Ometepe Island at the beginning of the rainy season. For six dry months we all endure the heat, dust, and brittle grass. Then…mango season arrives..glorious juicy mangoes enrich all of our lives once again. They nourish our bodies and our souls giving us hope for a prosperous harvest. Princesa and I are both happy….the wait for mangoes has ended.

Cultural Pizza

One of my favorite bloggers, Zebra Designs and Destinations, has inspired me to sharpen my pencil and sketch again. Like writing, painting and sketching has always been therapeutic for me. It transports me into another world…contemplative…observant…
introspective.

I lost myself in my drawing I call Cultural Pizza, for in sketching the Pre-Columbian pottery shards I found on my daily beach walks, I lost my ability to talk and time lost all meaning. My perceptions of life turned inward looking at edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and gestalt (or perceptions of the whole).

Learning to perceive things differently through drawing, is a deeply moving experience for me. It’s all about the feeling that I get..redirecting my focus..seeing life more fully. Of course, I’d like to improve my drawing skills, too.  I have a long way to go, but with practice and 30 minutes of drawing a day, I know I can enrich my life in wondrous ways.

Thank you so much Lisa, for the inspiration and your challenge of Timeout for Art.