Straddle the Turtle

Learning to slow down, because life's too short ~ ~ ~

Whirlybird

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Whirlybird

My friend Marilyn is a talented watercolor artist. She’s sort of a perfectionists, though, and sometimes when she messes up she throws her paintings away. I’m the type who saves everything just in case I can make it into something. So I tell her, “Don’t throw away that good paper; give it to ME!” Well, this is one of her throw away birds. I cut up the paper around the bird and saved it for the center of this piece. I think this red bird is adorable! I can’t take credit for it’s body – that’s Marilyn’s work. (*See more of her wonderful paintings here 🙂

A New Way of Walking

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Dreams can be so fascinating. I came across this page describing “The Ballet Feet Dream” from over 20 years ago. 

In case it’s too difficult to read my writing, I’ve converted to text here:

“This takes place in a small circle apart from a bigger group of people at some type of gathering.

A few people (including Dori who is laughing hysterically) are watching me attempt to stand and walk with my feet and ankles wrapped and taped up in toe-shoes.

I start off very hopeless – hardly able to stand at all – knees bent to keep my balance. But I begin to try to straighten up some, and it gets a little easier, and then as I walk and turn around and keep persisting it begins to feel fine, and I can balance with no problems at all. In fact, my feet and ankles are so secure that this binding around them and this way for walking seem like it’s permanent.”

Heart-shaped Cucumber

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Here she is modeling the heart-shaped fruit of a Japanese Climbing Cucumber plant that grows in a pot on her porch. I am lucky that our friendship has continued through the years, and that she enjoys posing for me now and then.

I first met Peggy in an exercise class over 10 years ago. After we’d gotten to know each other well enough, I asked if she would pose for a painting I was working on. It was her profile that I wanted to copy: straight nose, high cheek bones, long neck. 

She enjoyed sitting for me, and after that experience went on to do more modeling for our nearby college art department. She is such a wonderful model, because she can stick a pose and hold it until the timer goes off. (Artists tend to lose track of time when engrossed, so a wise model utilizes a clock.)  

I believe it is Peggy’s yoga practice and knowing her own body that help her settle into long poses. She is able to meditate or become lost in thought, even as she is aware of the the bustling of artists at work: the scratch of drawing tools, creak of easels and stools, sigh of exasperation!

She stays cool as a cucumber ~ ~ ~

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