TIMED DRAWINGS

"Timed Drawings". I can't stand the 2-minute things. It's supposed to be an exercise to teach your eye and mind to hunt for important things and just jot them down on the paper. In 2 minutes, you really can't get anything down other than the bare essence. Maybe those in art school who have drawn all their lives can manage to make respectable drawings, but this was the best I could do...see? my pelican ended up without his signature pouch lip! Have you ever seen such a pelican?

You feel like you can breathe in a 5-minute drawing, and a 10-minute drawing, you almost feel like you can draw a masterpiece...only, you KNOW I wasn't born with that kind of natural talent.

Actually, I don't know if even Rembrandt or Van Gogh would've created their works of art in 10 minutes.

It is only the Master Artist Who says "Let there be Light" and instantly forms a bow of colors across the sky; sprays a dark velvet canopy with glittering lights then gives them names. It doesn't take him 10 minutes to have streaks of silver electricity pierce the canvas of the universe accompanied by echoes of rolling thunder. Original beauty? Have you ever seen the sunset, waterfall, wildflowers, designs on birds and fish, marveled at the snow, ice, insects?

The other day, when I finished ten 2-min. scrawls, four 5-min. sketches, and two 10 min. drawings--in other words, I'd been working for an hour--it felt good to take a snack break. I had a slice of banana bread Chiaki Garner sent over for my birthday. My Creator can say "Let there be Life" and breathe it into being instantly, but I hear He gives parents 9 months' preparation time.

えっ？！

Here are a few more in both languages--I wasn't sure if I'd posted it in English or not. The idea came to me when it started sprinkling as I was going home after finishing up my pool-walk exercise.

"Oh-oh; looks like rain," I said, and almost berated myself for forgetting to bring my umbrella. It would make absolutely no sense to any sparrows watching if they knew I'd paid money to get wet for a good while before that!

公園で一大事。人が、プールから家に帰るとき、雨が降り始めると、ぬれないように傘をさしたそうだ。プールと同じ水なのに。もしかして、人間は代わりに別のものを使っているのでは？池・小川を流れているのは、水だよね、私たち、公園の鳥・虫・魚・動物たち、騙されていないよねと心配し始めている。やれやれ。

WHAT KIND OF "NOTICED" AM I?

"Junior came by himself this year, Maggie didn't come?" the park animals found it hard to believe. It seemed everyone knew about the female mallard, altho' it was the greenhead who had the bright enamel head.

It was Maggie who encouraged him through his juvenile days before he got like that, the spot-billed mallard M & M knew, who'd watched them grow up together at Step Creek.   Male ducklings look pitifully like females, until they're older.

And Speckles the carp had heard how Maggie had been the one who even on cold, wintry days cheered up the pond gang with walks on the ice; posed for sketches for a convalescing artist.

I saw Maggie call to those male greenheads and have them follow her across the pond, Peter the Kawasemi recalled. Most people notice only the bright green, not the dull brown--but Maggie was the one who got them there.

It was this year, when she didn't show up, I realized for the first time how noticed she had been.