Moss Whispers

Time to let Martha Julia Agnes Adele and her friends talk with the Owl while I head off to bed! Touch-ups later. Sleep well!

I’ve had trouble both creating a vision for today’s drawing that would go well with the, as well as learning the skills needed to paint it. It’s one of those days that I’d LOVE having some lessons un palette and technique ‘under my belt’! Guess it’s good for me to realize this. I want to learn how to paint a ‘luster’ and ‘twilight’ and many more things! Sofar, here’s the beginning of this day’s painting.

Added color to this page of Martha Julia Agnes Adele, even though it’s getting close to twilight and colors wouldn’t show as much.

Delight is a wonderful feeling to have! Had it tonight while we spent time with our wonderful granddaughters! It’s much harder for me to draw, especially when I’m yawning! Painting yet to come!

Finally Martha is listening to her heart and starting to have her ‘a-ha’ moment! And finally I get it done before midnight! Sleep well, Slab and Slug and Martha Julia Agnes Adele.

One thing I have learned about how my brain works is that it forgets many things that pass through it! Perhaps this is because SO MANY ideas go through it at lightning speed! and my brain storage system can’t possibly hold them all! nor does it know what storiess will need which ingredients. That’s where The Hillock comes in!! My sort of brain needs concrete, reminders to recall old images that have passed through it. The Hillock has provided a ‘container’ to hold magical ideas and artifacts that at some point can come alive as important ingredients for stories. Characters are also emerging faster than I can write them!

I’m so grateful for my walks with our dogs, even in times when my brain bubbles ideas that my body doesn’t have energy to carry forward! And also grateful for how time takes the ingredients of ideas & inklings and mixes them into a stew of stories! Years ago when I was dealing with intensely chronic pain from Lyme disease and other tick borne illnesses, I did a lot of walking and wandering… On hot, buggy days I’d end up at Goodwill just puttering and spending coin-amounts on little ‘idea relics’. Then over years a few would end up in my pocket on a walk with the dogs, invariably finding a place in The Hillock. This little metal owl and a roughly welded simulation of a nest of sticks, found a place in the fork of two branches of a large cedar, actually, the cedar that eventually became Potter’s tree!

And now, perhaps 7 or so years later, Old Cedar and the Wise Old Owl have become key characters in helping Martha Julia Agnes Adele find her shoe!

I just LOVE how Life leads me back and forth from Inklings of Intuitive…seemingly useless ‘pickups’ at Goodwill to Ideas that become Important Ingredients in Stories that I had no Idea would Evolve! HOW does this happen?

THESE are the moments when I’m so grateful for the crazy-nonstop wise brain that I have! (BeLIEVE me! There are also times when I wish I could STOP some of my off-the-wall, seemingly superfluous thoughts…and either REST or have a logical, normal one, for a change! Today, I’ll embrace GRATITUDE and all the benefits of creative connections that come with it!

This illustration was a little difficult for me! But hopefully it will help me remember the gist of things! I imagine a true illustrator could express this much more clearly.

This story about Martha was written about 6 years ago. Over the years I have revised and edited it along the way. It’s the illustrations that take me so long since drawing and painting are things I have had few lessons to help me! I mostly have a degree in trial and error for me! Sometimes I write planning notes for myself, like I did on this page. AND often some of the directions I give myself either would show up ‘off the page!’ or would need more expertise than I can muster with my little fingers! Here were my directions to myself:

Drawing tips: Martha is steadying Potter ‘on top of’? Slug as they ‘hobble’ towards Potter’s Tree, which is also not far from OLD CEDAR.

Potter has his hurt knee riding on Slug’s back and is hobbling with his other foot on the ground, assisted by Martha who is leaning to help but also hobbling herself.

Up high in the distance at OLD Cedar sits OWL, half awake, and half asleep, with one eye shut and one eye open. His head is turned to the side, and he’s ‘rubbing one eye?’ with his wing-tip.

As it turned out…only owl’s feet and wingtips made it into the picture, which makes it hard to see one eye open and the other almost asleep, or to see him tucked under his wing. Oh, well, Owl doesn’t really show up til the next page! So a sneak peek is okay with me for now!

Martha Julia Agnes Adele is realizing she’s not the only one who’s got shoe problems. It’s Slab’s turn now! Meanwhile, I’m trying to remember to leave some faded space in my painting to reserve a place for text to go! Will need to work on this! Only about 8 more pages to go to find this shoe!

Can you find the visiting Ladybug who landed on todays painting? She landed once on the fairy’s nose, but then found a bit of nature that she like more! I’m finally getting enough of a painting done to move on! Tomorrow’s page got really complicated. Be ready for some paste-ups! Hurray for finishing early today! Now to push ahead!!! I’m worried Martha is going to get blisters if she doesn’t hurry and find her shoe!

Getting going again with this seems harder than before! The story is finished all 29 or 30 pages! Just always more ways to edit. It’s the drawings and paintings that are taking so long. Just to get a drawing done took me most all of today! So painting will need to be tomorrow. (Learning to just STOP for a day, even if I’m not finished.) That’s really hard for me, but I’m too good at wearing myself out doing it the other way! Learning when enough needs to be enough. Hopefully, in the end it’ll be worth it to not burn out. We’ll see!