Heading into my art room today, my goal was to stay true to the 5-minute aspect of this challenge. I love the idea of not over-thinking and fussing around with mountains of stuff cluttering my workspace. Armed with black paper, chalk pencil, Posca and gel pens, and a Micron, I set the timer and started in with the chalk pencil, aiming for simple and minimalistic. (Note to self: test and prime Posca and gel pens BEFORE starting the timer.) A-l-m-o-s-t succeeded. 🙂

Old hometown (Cleveland) newspaper from 1987, my Dad’s old printing set of rubber stamps, scribbles in acrylic and oil pastel, and lots of play.

  My first time doing this. First, I did the blind contour* of the sailboat as a warm up, followed by a regular, sighted drawing, and finally the blind of Dad’s sculpture. Fun, instructive, freeing experience.  Goodbye, expectation of perfection. Adios, left brain.   Great surprise in the reveals. I found myself immediately appreciating parts of the blind contour but criticizing the regular drawing. Hmmm….there is something profound to be said of this appreciating the blind and criticizing the sighted thing, but I am too tired to put it in words. Maybe, expectations? Finding the beauty and wonder in chaos? Finding the flaws and imperfections in the orderly? Something to ponder. * The blind contour method involves carefully observing the outline and shapes of a subject while slowly drawing its contours in a continuous line without looking at the paper.  The goal of blind drawing is to really see the thing you’re looking at rather than retreat into your mental image of...

A previous prompt (lyrics) inspired a tribute to my mother. Today is Dad’s turn. When going through and organizing family treasures recently, I stumbled upon Dad’s army stuff . . . this manual on map reading, his ration stamp books, uniformed photos, memorabilia from Hawaii, postcards, letters, and more. My family is one that, across generations both maternal and paternal, saves EVERYTHING. Being an only child, I am the repository of all family memorabilia, and I am most definitely carrying on the family tradition of hoarding (er . . . saving) stuff. This was an interesting experience delving into Dad’s military experience. I remember him  speaking of Pearl Harbor and his time in Hawaii, but the details mentioned in this letter from a friend of his who served with him provide an interesting picture of his time there.  Though I have treasured artifacts, I wish I had spoken with him more about this time in his life.  I do remember him playing his ukulele. This last photo is...

I always get a side eye when I smooth out and save tissue paper from gifts. What folks don’t understand is how cool it is to use in collage! (Tissue paper is like an extra gift.) This took longer than 5 minutes because I really got involved in this one. Fun, airy, light.   Moral of this post: There is no need to actually buy me gifts; just a wad of tissue paper will thrill me!😎

Ok, this one made me cry. Everything was significant: Mom’s diary of all the books she read, that one of the book titles was “No Greater Love,” her handwriting, the green “W” on the bottom left side for her maiden name West, and the green “S” on the right side along with the 1945 wedding photo of when she became a Shaw, and her memorial card from the day I said that final, tearful  goodbye. And that brings us to the prompt - lyrics from one of my most treasured songs. 

Ta da! I met the challenge goal and did this in 5 minutes. (Well, the scribbled Micron, the neurographic drawing, and the glued prompt sticker, that is. I spent another 25 minutes having fun with acrylics, Posca pen, gel pen, and embellishing.) I used the gorgeous color palette in the prompt sticker. I’ll tell ya, that huge white space haunted me. Fill in or leave blank? It’s ALWAYS a challenge for me to know when to stop. Then I found the quote and couldn’t help myself. Very meditative session today. Enjoyed doing neurographic drawing again, as I haven’t done that in a long while. FUN!