Sage Green and Singing Scenes

A sketchbook in words, of this last week

Dear friend,

Last week’s post wandered deep, so this week, lighter fare. A kind of sketchbook in words, tracing what held my attention in art and writing these past few days.

(I asked my GPT to prompt me, and I chose the answers.)

• A sentence I wrote and liked:
  “Mr. Montrose didn’t strut through the world like most men did. He glided through like a melody caught on the breeze.”

• An image that stayed with me:
  Pemberley. It’s breathtaking in every version of Pride and Prejudice.

• A material I enjoyed working with:
  Fountain pen on linen paper. I always feel like I’m connecting to a time where my soul felt it belonged more than it does in this century.

• An unexpected moment of inspiration:
  When one character put down something important to tend to someone even more important.

• One thing that felt hard (but I kept going):
  Mentally listing all the changes I need to make to my canvas sketch of my still life. Because I want to paint it, so I want to be done with the sketch. But it’s important to get the sketch right before I start painting.

• A tiny triumph:
  Re-drafting a scene that now sings.

• A color that kept appearing:
  Sage green. Probably because it’s the color I chose for my profile picture on my new Instagram account (I know, I know, I said no social media in the past, but I thought deeply about this and it’s important to have that door open for reasons I don't feel like getting into right now. Perhaps next week, perhaps never.)

• A question I’m carrying into next week:
  Will I finish my still life sketch… and be pleased enough with it to begin the underpainting? I did an initial sketch and have been refining it to get the forms in place… and I have more changes to make. I seem to only want to work on it on sunny days and we haven’t had too many of those lately, so I’ve been staring at it a lot, cataloguing… and I suppose the answer to this may depend on the weather.

I hope you’ve had an inspiring week, or at least a good one.

Until next time,

Margaret

Student of the Natural Order & Chaos