Odhin Joy and I just got back from our evening walk.  We went all the way across town and back.  That’s a total of ten blocks.  We walked right by a crowd of people gathered outside the local YMCA.  We were almost completely past when  a young boy yelled, “Look at that big dog!”  And then everyone turned and were completely startled that a dog that large had just walked past and they hadn’t noticed.  It amazes me how many people go through their entire day on cruise control, completely oblivious to their surroundings.  I know I have.  Now I mostly walk around looking at everything to see what angle would make the best composition, still oblivious to what it may actually be.

Tonight’s edm challenge was to draw a picture in a frame.  I wanted a picture of all three kids together.  Turns out I don’t have any with more than two kids at a time.  I didn’t notice that.  I’ll have to remedy that this weekend.

EDM
EDM 58: Draw a picture in a frame

Just a couple of quick thoughts tonight.  Isn’t it funny how differently we see ourselves than others do, or more importantly, how differently we see ourselves from reality.  Seems we only see what we want to see, good or bad.  Why is it that looking at ourselves is so hard to do?

EDM
EDM 57: Draw a self portrait

I might have mentioned before that I live in a 100+ year old house.  All of the rooms downstairs have at least two doors and each of these doors has this style doorknob on it.  Houses of this age were designed so that you could open all the doors and windows and get a good breeze through the house in the summer.  Or you could shut and lock certain rooms off to help contain heat in the winter.  You would think with all of this concern over heating and cooling, they would not have had 10.5′ ceilings and 6.5′ tall doors!

Tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw a doorknob.

EDM
EDM 56: Draw a doorknob

P.S.
For the record, either put us on Daylight Savings Time and leave it, or quit having DST altogether.  Either way, leave our time alone!  …stoopit daylight savings time… stealing an hour of my sleep!

My wife and I were having a pretty serious conversation about Love the other night.  Not the “partner” kind of love, but love in general.  Love as a sincere desire for the well being of everyone and everything.  Oddly enough it began as a discussion of Boy1, Girl1, and “The Prodigal Son”.  Ultimately, no matter how foolishly, selfishly or maliciously the son behaved, the Father never stopped loving him and celebrated his return.  The love that is genuine can’t be killed by temporary acts, and it is all temporary.  Jesus walked from town to town trying to convince people to temper their lives with love.  As a matter of fact, if you read the bible stories through that filter, you can find that all of them are about how someone tempered their decisions/actions with love and became a great success.  Or the story is about how they did not let love in their life, and failed miserably.  Hold your neighbors and all of creation as dearly as you do yourself.  This was the Buddha’s message also.  Everyone and all things are worthy of the same value you place upon yourself.  I sincerely try to live my life in accordance with this principle.  I very often fall far short of the mark, but I do try.

That said, tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw something or someone I love.  Do you have any idea how scary it is to take your hand off the throttle and take a picture at 80 m.p.h. on a motorcycle?

EDM
EDM 55: Draw something/someone you love

Tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw a mouth.  Why I didn’t go with the lips from Rocky Horror I’ll never know.  This is from one of the many free photo references over at wet canvas.  Before thing-a-day started, I was in the middle of some weekly lessons over there.  They have all the lessons from “How To Draw What You See” broken down with demonstrations and examples.  A moderator strolls through occasionally to critique your work with the sole intent of helping you improve.  I will be firing that back up on Sunday.  They also have weekly and monthly challenges for colored pencil, watercolor, and drawing/sketching.  Maybe that will fill the lonely void left when Thing-A-Day ended. <sniff>

EDM
EDM 54: Draw a mouth