Creation

What does it take to create art? Every artist has their own rituals and formulas to get the right side of the brain to that place where creativity takes over and the world disappears. It can be a change of surroundings or light, music, or solitude.

In my case, I need solitude to produce anything of worth. If someone is looking over my shoulder, I find it impossible to put a mark to paper or canvas. There is a remarkable shift in thinking for me once I start the process of drawing. It brings me to a place where nothing else exists, just the drawing that I am working on and even that isn't a conscious thought. It is a feeling of watching from outside myself, which I know sounds very odd and Twilight Zone-like. But in fact its just the way my mind takes over the creativity and provides total concentration.

It doesn't happen everytime that I draw, but often enough and usually signals my ability to control hand/eye/brain coordination to produce something that actually looks like it should do!

This is an example of one of those times. A foray into coloured pencil which I hadn't used a lot previously. Now I am hooked.

One of the Chinese goose eggs hatched yesterday and a single lonely little gosling has attached itself to me, so I take it out of the incubator and carry it around tucked under my sweater where it stays burrowed for warmth, peeping occasionally. Tiny claws on big rubber feet scratch my skin and the gosling keeps trying to eat my necklace, often continuing on with nips on my throat. Finally,having other things to do I have to put him back into the incubator where he protests vehemently and bounces around demanding to be taken out again. He is cute and nicknamed 'Blizzard' due to the day of his birth but adulthood turns cuteness into aggressiveness. I will take advantage of the cute factor while I can.

Snow! Close to 70cm fell in yesterday's storm so most of today was spent digging out. My chore was to tackle a chest high snowdrift blocking the greenhouse door where the wood is stored for the winter. Just getting to the greenhouse was a challenge in its own right with thigh high snow in the way, so I half walked, half rolled to the greenhouse, shovel in hand. Here I am having a break from shovelling. Guess I won't need that treadmill workout today!