GOT WORDY...

It got too dark...in more ways than one.

After my dentist appointment this afternoon, I thought I'd hop over to the park again, but I looked up at the sky, then over at Kinya. It would be too dark by the time I got there to do any sketching today, wouldn't it?  Maybe tomorrow.

I'd sketched crows in the trees at Corner Cove the other day--I'd seen them countless times before and wanted to draw them but never had the chance. Besides, altho' I think the birds' dark black bodies against the green and brown of the tree is pretty, whenever I try to draw crows, it tends to get too dark; I still don't know how to draw highlights and shadows of black things. Even with my initial sketch, I left most of the crows' bodies completely unshaded in--in other words, white!

Sure enough, when I colored the black and white drawing, the resulting picture was way too dark. I thought of how pretty those crows had looked when I'd seen them, and it almost made me want to cry.

How does God do it? He makes things like shimmering black opals and pearls, glossy black-furred animals, rich velvet-winged butterflies, dragonflies, birds. 

We humans seem to do the exact opposite. We take things that are supposed to be clear, luscious for the eyes and somehow dim it down, "uglify it", and call it "art", many justifying it by saying "art is free self-expression." BOSH.

There's always that student in art class who's jealous of the top artist and knows he can't do anything that good, so he scrawls something ugly and decides to declare it "self-expression". I realize some dark composition is legitimate--and perhaps skillful--presentation of a concept. I'm not negating that. But I AM saying we should NEVER dare to put the creator's--man's--expression on the same or on a level comparative to the Creator's--God's--untouched beauty, nor ever cease to marvel in it.