Monk Magic

Sometimes picking a sketch for my daily art journal can be a most intriguing experience. It only happens every now and then when I am open to the concept but sometimes I let an image pick me. Like - if I see a repeated image, read of it, hear of it in the same day - then I "feel" I'm suppose to try to draw that image. Something, Someone inspires me....(bear with me to the end of this)

Well, that's how it happened with this monk. I like monks. I have used them before as imagery. But this time, I tried to draw "why" I like monks. They seem prayerful, intense, intriguing, historical, silent, passive, courageous, martyred, - those kind of words are the force behind this sketch.

Much later in the day, (not by coincidence) I'm reading and come across this quote: "Being an artist is like being a monk; you have to be willing to forsake comfort and desire for the greater good of your work"- Jason Robert Bell

This is a watercolor painting I did months ago from my Mary Ann Beckwith's class.

It's not finished. I could sure use some suggestions on how to finish it.

Anyone can use these images. I got them from this site . They encourage you to use these images of Burmese monks to promote freedom for Burma and its people. Though monks normally don't get caught up in politics, the monks in Burma silently and passively marched together with the people to protests their murderous government and many were killed, beaten and tortured because of their involvement.

By the way, do you know why they wear saffron (reddish,orange) robes? Well, there are lots of stories but the main one that always comes up is originally they would go to dumps and scrap piles and gather old rags for their clothing and then dye it in the cheapest dye available which was a deep orange powder (saffron) from the crocus flower.

Anyway, do you believe that you can be "inspired" by Someone? We use the word so casually. But one of the definitions for "inspire"is: to be guided by divine or supernatural inspiration. When we say the writers of the Bible were "inspired" by God, it means literally in Hebrew that their writing was God-breathed. Is it possible that God's breath still permeates in us/around us to do some certain thing? Wouldn't it elevate the things you do if you knew for certain that He was behind the thought or action? Should we be more open to His promptings? Did God nudge/urge me to draw this monk? Does that sound silly or even sacrilegious to you? I would like to believe that He influences me in my actions, even as He leads me in creativity. What do you believe?

Poppies for summer

Yep, I'm still into reds, oranges and turquoises. And I'm into poppies. I sketched this off the front of a magazine cover. I think that blooms, and living plants represent life to me and that's why I like to draw them.

I can feel something like new growth inside - from a seed to a bloom. Not pregnant, not possible!!!! But there are new things sprouting in me and my mind. Some people plant gardens and then there are some people who dig up and till the good, rich soil in their own heads and plant and nurture those new creative thoughts planted there. I think we have to pull weeds, and rake the ground of last year's debris and successes and work that soil with all the passion and struggle of a sweating gardener. We let the good Lord water and grow the things He is leading us to, and let Him leave the tares that will make us push passionately toward the sun (SON), and rid ourselves of the things that rob our nutrients.

After all, we started out in a garden walking with Him in the cool in of the evening. Maybe now that our body is His dwelling place, it's not too far a stretch to think His Spirit grows a garden within us. I hope mine is vibrant and hopeful as poppies!

Love Makes All Things Grow

This beautiful grackle lost his life somehow and fell right by my garden stone. He was so brilliantly beautiful in a macabre sort of way. I felt I had to record his death, and honor his graceful passing. My husband thought this photograph very strange and disturbing. I don't mind being odd chick, but I don't want to be strange and disturbing. So I leave it up to your comments about how this photograph affects your spirit. I feel stillness and peacefulness in the form in which he's fallen and that his current shining brilliance is only a vision of what his future holds. The Bible says that God knows when a sparrow falls so I know this death was recorded in the heavenlies.
But he didn't fall unnoticed in this place either.