I tend to lead a very quiet life, with the goal to make it ever quieter. I've never been a fan of conflict - which always seems like a lot of energy wasted down a path that just isn't ever going to be satisfying. I don't generally get visibly wound up about things but instead [...]
Today's coloring started with a big mistake right at the very start. I had it all figured out how I was going to shade the corners of a few of these ribbons with a dark purple - but then I lost track of where I was in the pattern and ended up with shadows in [...]
Wow, the clock change (end of Daylight Savings Time) has really thrown me for a bit of a loop. I tend to write my blog posts in the afternoon or evening, and my morning ritual is sipping tea, writing a short note to my Facebook group and then posting the blog post I prepared the [...]
As I get older I get ever more comfortable with short pencils. My current sketchbook graphite drawing pencil is somewhere between stub size and ridiculous stub size right now. It gives my rough drawings on my sketch pad extra unplanned touches as lines bend every which way. Short pencils don't have the same elegant balance [...]
I tend to be a calm and rational person. I feel deeply but forgive easily. And I'm pretty good at stepping back from external fuss and finding the place of inner peace and strength that is always with me - even if some days it's kind of a challenge to find it. Sometimes there are [...]
Are you feeling a lot of fear and tension in the air too? It seems that most people I know are. It doesn't matter how much we may differ in opinions or beliefs, we are all quite united in our understanding of how it feels to be uncertain, apprehensive, fearful or overwhelmed. And if those [...]
Slow coloring is about a lot more than just taking a long time to color a picture. For me, it's about being aware of all the little feelings that could be trying to draw me away from being truly relaxed and in the moment. Many of the demands that we have on our time come [...]
I try to make up for slow coloring by taking a picture every time I move on to the next marker shade - but some of the photos today are really going to test your ability to spot what's changed since the previous photo. It's even worse for me when I'm organizing my photos to [...]
Today's coloring has a very October color scheme (totally unplanned, but probably a reaction to the colors around me today.) When I step back and look at my finished colorings, I see black night skies and blazing Autumn leaves that are starting to get a bit crunchy. Also, a hint of glowing bonfire embers and [...]
I'm finding it helpful to make a practice of disconnecting from expectations about how long it "should" take for me to color a picture - and that has done so much to increase my comfort with shading. Once there is a comforting foundation of ease, and acceptance of things taking however long they may take, [...]