doodling

Bliss of Solitude

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Pitcher doodle

 

Nature teaches us how to be quiet and calm.

 

*from William Wordsworth’s poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

My favorite lines are the last three:

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

 

The Lion’s Tooth

 

 

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Dandelion Doodle

The dandelion* is a wondrous flower. Many claim it has medicinal and nutritional value. I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s true. I just find them wildly beautiful. Please watch this time lapse video of a dandelion over one month (Neil Bromhall):

 

 

*dandelion literally means “tooth of a lion” in French

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legacy

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“Flower in an Hour Glass”

Grandma is visiting us

she got a really bad perm 

and her hearing has worsened since her last visit

They love her, but The Teens don’t like kimchi

Obvious and unsaid:

You, my daughters, are the land

ravaged by a series of battles from all sides,

the cry of hungry orphans

and thousands of years of cultural pride

You are the Hermit Kingdom and King Sejong’s children –

the offspring of a man who reinvented an alphabet

so the common man as well as royalty

could read –

You are women warriors 

You might have to fight 

for what others are given 

but you will never back down

The Trick

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My doodle of daisies

If you’ve read Aesop’s fable, The Crow and the Pitcher, you know that the moral is “Little by little does the trick.”  My 5th graders read the fable and then were assigned a response: Give an example from your own life that describes this moral.

Here are a few responses:

  • “I got more flexible by stretching every single day, now I can do the full splits!”
  • “I practiced drawing every day and now I’m really good.”
  • “I saved up for an expensive video game by practicing piano every day (got paid $2 each day).”
  • “My mom used to be addicted to soda. Each day, she drank a little less. Now, when she has some, she feels sick.”
  • “We planted watermelon seeds and watered it every day. We got a watermelon!”
  • “I have played tennis since I was three. I play three to five times a week and I’m really good now.”
  • “It’s really hard for me to wake up in the mornings. When my alarm goes off, slowly, inch by inch, I move sideways to the lamp and turn it on and get out of bed.”

 

When can you do little by little to achieve your goals?

 

 

 

Tea Bag Art

Through another blogger’s post, I discovered a fantastic artist named Ruby Silvious. I could not stop admiring her used tea bag art!

I had to try it myself. Here’s my first one:

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Used tea bag and ink

It was fun and quite challenging. Used tea bags are much more delicate and harder for ink to take. I’d like to try watercolor, but I’m finding that challenging to do on regular paper!

Thus far, my “theme” or key words for 2018 are: adventure, fun, creativity and presence. It’s going well thus far.

 

Rumination

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This doodle (exercise from Lisa Congdon’s How To Draw Everything) reminds me of the Korean card game hwatu!
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Hwatu

I used to “meditate” incorrectly. I closed my eyes and focused on being aware of my surroundings and my thoughts. I noticed my thoughts and tried to “let them go.” But my thoughts were either judgments or I was judging my thoughts (!) I assumed I was meditating correctly, because I was quite aware of everything…however, I was placing opinion on all of it.

Being present (meditating) means being aware of everything in the present time without judgment. 

If you’re like me, you’d be shocked at how much you judge yourself and others. With practice, you can minimize placing personal value on yourself and others. I catch myself doing it and am able to correct it.

Criticizing is the opposite of kindness and impedes inner peace.

 

 

 

Wanting Vs. Doing

 

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Creative Bug Class (Lisa Congdon) Day 18: Structured Doodle

If you want different, you have to do different.

 

This includes:

Putting more hours in;

Doing smarter research;

Visualizing it happening and then doing more work; or

Thinking about it differently and accepting it for what it is. This last possibility escapes most people. They don’t believe they can think or feel differently about something. And they don’t feel they can accept reality. But they can!