Winter, an artist’s sketch in charcoal,
so clearly etched against a cloud-filled sky ~from Winter by Lynn Emberg Purse
For the past few years, I’ve been taking non-credit courses in subjects that interest me as a way to recharge and challenge my creative juices. This semester I’m taking a studio art class in drawing, something I haven’t done for many years. I was a bit nervous – could I still do this? – but as I began to haunt art stores and buy supplies, apprehension was replaced by growing excitement. I remember the gathering of artistic tools from my college days and the delight I felt in drawing and painting classes. Sketchpads, pencils, charcoal, erasers – a potential treasure trove!
10th Grade Still Life
We are using Betty Edward’s classic book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, as a way of bypassing the logical linear part of the brain and getting to the visual side that supports the creative process. The process of shifting perception in order to see and record what is there is markedly different from creating symbolic shorthand, like a child’s drawing of a house or stick figures, to represent what we think is there. I remember discovering that perceptual shift in my tenth grade art class while sketching this still life. I suddenly realized that if I looked at it in a certain way, I could reproduce it on my paper. I became obsessed with drawing and painting and continued to take classes in college; I only dropped the practice while traveling when photography became more practical.
There are lessons to be learned from this new challenge. I wasn’t sure if I could still draw but I realized as soon as I began the first exercise that I’ve never really stopped using my visual skills, whether in photography or gardening. According to Edwards “Learning to perceive is the basic skill that the students acquire, not drawing skill.”
A color shot of the trees and sky
Ironically, we don’t work with color in this class until spring, about the same time that color returns to the natural world. As someone who feels that she is banished from colorful Oz every winter, I quietly laughed at the weird synchronicity of using pencil and charcoal in the season of brown and gray and white. Looking through bare trees into a gray sky, I feel as if I’m living in the monochromatic world of Dorothy’s Kansas. Yet, if I look closely enough, I find color in leaf and lichen and a few daring flower buds. I will content myself with reconnecting to a familiar and beloved art form, embrace the artist’s sketch, and look at the world with fresh eyes. Enjoy a few scenes from the winter garden – click on any photo to start the carousel. (All photos ©2016 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved).
The painter draws with his eyes, not with his hands. Whatever he sees, if he sees it clearly, he can put it down . . . Seeing clear is the important thing. ~Maurice Grosser, The Painter’s Eye
The week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day has always been a special time for me. The everyday world seems to pause and recede, leaving time for inner reflection, time to consider the past year and the future to come.The Norwegians have a name for this season – Romjul. According to 
I’ve often thought about liminal space (
As I reflect on the year past and prepare for the year to come, the garden is on my mind. I hope to have my garden open to visitors this summer and have been busy preparing while the weather remains mild. The first packet of seeds came this week, along with a book on propagation techniques. More seeds are on their way, the light table in the basement is clean and ready, and visions of the coming garden season creep into my dreams.
I’m not ready. I’m not ready for Christmas, I’m not ready for winter, I’m not ready to wake each morning into the dark and cold world of late December. This morning, I awoke to snow and bitter temperatures under a dark gray sky and murmured to Angel “I’m not ready.” She sighed a doggy sigh and snuggled closer, ready to dream some more and pulling me in her wake.
It is no wonder that Christmas and many other traditions celebrate this time of the year with lights. In the northern hemisphere, the light of dawn comes late and the fading light of dusk comes early. With so few daylight hours and so many of them gray and dark, the bold and hopeful lighting of many lights is necessary to the human spirit and a reminder that the days will soon grow longer.
has allowed me to work in the garden deep into what is usually a cold snowy month. I’ve accomplished garden chores that often get delayed until spring – the leaves gathered and shredded, the trees and shrubs pruned, the summer soil from the pots emptied into the woodland’s edge for building new beds. I’ve already planned next year’s garden – the seeds to start, the plants to order, the perennials to propagate. In fact, it is focusing on next year’s garden that has softened the sting of the coming of winter.
The effects of El Niño are predicted to extend our weather into a long mild winter here in the mid-Atlantic states. It may be global warming, it may be a temporary weather pattern, but whatever it is, I admit that I will welcome a mild winter after the severe weather conditions that have prevailed for the past few years.
November and December have been very mild this year, encouraging me to work in the garden late into the season. But this morning brought both fog and a frost, turning the world into a frozen fairyland. The moisture from the fog that coated leaf, flower, twig, and spiderweb was transformed into a spectacular structure of glistening crystals. Sadly, the last lingering roses of summer have come to a sudden halt, now preserved in ice.
I have a few more shrubs to plant today once the temperatures rise but it is probably the last time I can play in the dirt. Dreams of next year’s garden are starting to stir as I begin a list of seeds and plants to be ordered in the dark days of winter. Enjoy the photos of the last blooms of summer, both in flower and frost, while you listen to Irish tenor John McDermott sing this wistful song (video at the bottom of the page).
composerinthegarden 