Sketching

I get a lot of inspiration in the shower.  No, really!  For some reason that mindless hygiene routine allows me to think.  Maybe something about the water, the drops on the shower door, the warm and relaxing water…

I need to spend some time in the sketch book.  This sounds really artsy – ooo, aaah pretty pictures.  Well, not always.  I’m only mildly trained in sketching. But I can put down on paper the ideas in my head, at least. I can’t imagine losing them entirely, so if the sketch is less than artistic, at least it keeps an idea at hand.

The most amazing sketch I’ve ever made was for earrings for my niece’s recital.  She majored in harp and wanted earrings to go with a lovely dark blue dress. I looked online for inspiration and found a harp site with a beautiful, contemporary concert harp that suggested a clean line I could represent in a pair of silver earrings with dark blue “goldstone” beads.

Later, in her senior year, my niece purchased a concert harp.  Without knowing what I’d used to inspire her earrings, she chose the same model I’d seen online. It was a strange convergence of inspiration and art.

Right now a pair of earrings and a necklace are suspended in my mind. It’s about time to get them on paper and start the paper-to-reality process.