My Aspidistra

Who would like to see my aspidistra? It's a rainy day here today, so I have done a bit of sketching. Et voila! My aspidistra. I haven't been doing enough drawing or painting in the last few months, and I'm very rusty -- to say the least. The aspidistra is in a brass pot which I did not draw very well and the whole perspective is all wrong, but I feel as if I'm getting my mojo back. It takes a lot of practice. I wish I had the time -- and the resources -- to be able to spend all my time drawing, sketching, painting. But I go through stages where I don't feel the inclination to paint at all -- sometimes for months at a time. When I was a little girl, my mother was a wonderful artist, but she would go for years without picking up a pencil or a paint brush. I never understood it then, but now I do. I do the same thing. I haul my paints out, my sketch pads and my paper, I set them up and look at them, and there they sit until I put them away again. Why is that? Does anyone know the reason for that? I think writers go through the same thing, and perhaps photographers, musicians...

The other day I was in a bookstore that was going out of business, and I found a sketch book for the princely sum of $2.00 -- so I bought it -- thinking it would inspire me to sketch. This pages are still brilliantly white and empty, however. Often when I am out for a walk, or having a coffee somewhere -- whatever -- I will look at something that I think would make a good sketch. Often I take a picture of it, but by the time I get home, the moment has passed. If I had my sketch book with me, I could discreetly open it and jot down some sketches. I had an art teacher who once told me this was the best way to keep the creative juices flowing. So, hopefully the next time I show you my sketch book, it will be filled with dabs and doodles of sketches I have done.