How to live in the world with a little more grace

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How to live in the world with a little more grace

Without looking up the definition, I would say that grace is a noun that names a quality of being—and like other abstract ideas such as love or kindness or confusion, that quality is of being, a verb.

So the way I see it, to give grace is to first see the possibility of what is good, beautiful and true in others or ourselves (or any living being), and then to reflect it, magnify it, bring it into the world. Another word for that is creativity.

And usually involves humor.

You might be wondering at this point what in the heck I’m talking about! Well, this week Seth Godin shared the work of a person who just blew me away, honestly, so much so that I had to capture him in my sketchbook. His name is Ben Zanders, renowned Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and I’d like to share with you what was shared with me—

First, his TED Talk is not to be missed! Seriously, watch it right now! You won’t be sorry:

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ICAD Challenge 2022 - complete!

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ICAD Challenge 2022 - complete!

And that’s a wrap! I am really so grateful to Tammy Garcia at Daisy Yellow for hosting this annual challenge. It’s been a great experience and I’m glad it’s over!

Art Challenges aren’t always easy—thus the word challenge—and it is true, sometimes making a card every day felt like a slog. But sometimes it’s worth the effort to push through to finish a goal. And as it turns out, I met two goals. And yes,

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Posada De Las Flores — Urban Sketch

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Posada De Las Flores — Urban Sketch

I did it! I actually took one hour of my vacation in Loreto, sat myself down and in my art journal drew the lobby of this lovely hotel where we stayed that night. Then, still on vacation, I took another block of time a few days later, sat myself down and finished it with watercolor and linework. As I said last week, I have such a hard time carving out time for art while traveling so this is a huge accomplishment.

And the drawing isn’t half bad either. Ha ha.

All kidding aside, as soon as I stepped into the lobby of the Posada de Las Flores — Inn of Flowers — I knew I had to draw it! All those angles! That circular staircase to floors two and three! The water fountain! the colors! It was a great drawing challenge. I certainly didn’t get it all right — at all — but I’m pleased. My urban sketching is making progress, I think.

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Sea creature - 52 Cards Project #14

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Sea creature - 52 Cards Project #14

We got lucky and rented a house four doors down from the beach (in Ventura) during a heat wave this week. There is nothing better than being on a California beach during a heat wave! Perfect temperature. I got to spend many hours walking on the shore, looking for “treasures”, and just sitting in the sand.

So of course the theme card for my 52-Week Cards Project this week had to feature the ocean. And my heart. Because I am—for sure—a sea creature.

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Cat Shots

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Cat Shots

This is a fun exercise I did for Este MacLeod’s video on Sketchbook Revivial 2022. You can’t see them now, but every cat started out as a number, 1-9. Este was one of thirty teachers for this free annual online event hosted by Karen Abend—and this demo was one of my favorites. It’s an exercise in pure creativity where possibilities start to roll onto the page. My mind is still thinking about what else I can do.

I can’t say enough about Sketchbook Revival. It’s kind of like an intensive two-week sampler course where every day for two weeks registrants receive two new instructional videos featuring two different artists by email. The two weeks ended Monday but they are available (you can still sign up) until April 18th (and did I mention its free?)

Videos focus on different ways to fill a sketchbook and introduce a variety of people to follow more online, and all kinds of mediums and techniques.

It can be overwhelming for sure—Each video is about an hour long and trying to keep up with two every day is too time consuming. This year, though, I found a way to keep on top of it. First,

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Inspiration — 52 Card Project #13

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Inspiration — 52 Card Project #13

I barely got my card of the week finished on time this week for my 52-Card Project. And by “on time” I mean that for this personal project I have committed to myself (and only myself) that I will create a card every week, and I will post it on Mondays—after the week (ending on Sunday) has just passed.

So this deadline is self-imposed. And let me just say that I am really proud that I value my commitments to myself as much as I would, say, to a boss. This is relatively new in my life. There was a time when I came last, but now, I understand that life is short and there’s nothing more important than being true to your Self.

Ironically, the reason I almost missed my deadline is that…

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Drawing practice

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Drawing practice

One thing I like to do when I feel like drawing is to practice drawing people while watching “talking head” art videos on YouTube. I can’t remember who this Youtuber is now, but I liked her clothes so I started in with my polychromos colored pencils in my art journal. While her mouth looks a bit odd here, at the time I thought it actually caught the sense of it. Mouths are hard to draw—especially when showing teeth.

I think her blouse is about the same color—but then I went rogue with the colors of her hair and the background.

I used to watch more art videos YouTube, but

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