When I draw any subject, I understand it better. I understand it in a visual way of course, but also in a kinetic and emotional way. I understand it in ways that cannot be said with words.

When I run my eyes over a flower and then recreate every line of it on the paper, I seem to be hearing a song sung only for that moment. When I see the flower start to appear, I understand the dance of being-ness that is the flower. Entering into the dance, I harmonize with the song, and hear its poetry.

And that is magic.

Wishing you much magic,

Carol

Images from the Deep

One day and I was overcome with a strong emotion and an image came to mind. I don't know what made me see this image or what triggered the emotion. It may have been something as simple as the angle of the sun, but the image was quite clear in my mind and still is.

I experimented with the image for a while, sketching it and trying to understand how I wanted to draw it. Then I found an image my photos that matched my mental image very closely. It was four years old and I had forgotten all about it.

I use my camera a lot for my art. I consider it my sketch book and I take lots of reference photos. I have so many that I can't remember them all consciously.

The image that bloomed in my brain that day is still very strong and, although I found a reference photo that expresses it very well, there's still more to say. It feels like it has enough energy to inspire more than one drawing. The drawings will be different, but the main image / emotion will stay the same, or maybe that will evolve too. I think of it as a seed that's generating many different versions of itself.

Art is deep and wide and alive and I wish you the joy of it.

Carol

How To Draw

1.  You will need something to draw with and something to draw on.  Paper and pencil, chalk and sidewalk, finger and mud, burnt stick and cave wall; any of these things will do.

2.  Make a line.

3.  Realize the this line is much more than a mark.  It is a passage of time, a dance of motion, an opening into the soul.  This one simple line.  Is.  Everything.

4.  This line, that is everything, did not exist in this reality before you created it.

5.  This line, this simple stroke, is the point at which the universe moved through you.

6.  The universe is waiting to flow through your pencil tip in a kaleidoscoping generation of creativity.

7.  Humbly make your next mark.