spider web drawing

Crayon lines form a landscape of assembled scribbles, like a drawing made of brightly colored spider web threads.

When I was engaged in the thick of my Big Tidy Campaign of 2017, having read Maria Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I found things that had disappeared into life’s alluvia.  I found, for instance, the photographic inspiration for this fanciful landscape at around the same time as I found the drawing itself, which I had started as only a vague sketch. Having the two things converge in time once more seemed like a token from the universe that maybe I should continue drawing — and so I did. 

It was a great confluential good fortune, actually, because I had really loved the idea but I don’t recall now what event interrupted my work, causing the drawing to languish.  With photo and drawing reunited, I could take up the theme once more.  Indeed, I found the photo first and remembering the drawing thought to myself to have a new whack at it.  But then soon after I also found the drawing.  It measures 24 x 36 on beautifully woven, straw colored Nideggen paper.

I love the devil-may-care approach afforded by crayon drawing.  It’s scattershot, a roll of the dice.

I love the dynamism of scribbled lines applied to a peaceful foggy clouds covering rolling serene blue mountains.

Here’s some wispy, spider-webby details ….

and another

 

Little House “on the prairie”

We have a garden in our yard.  It’s become a backyard habitat.  It all began with a compost pile.  The idea was to provide nutrients for the garden’s soil.  So all the household garbage went out to the pile, apple peels, carrot tops, cantaloupe rinds, pistachio shells, coffee grounds.  In they went.

Sometime later, my husband noticed strange worms wiggling around in the debris.  Not knowing what they were, he contacted the Agricultural Extension Officer of a nearby university.  “Don’t disturb those guys,” was the reply.  They’re helping you out.  Eating your compost and turning it into soil.  They’re grinding it away for you.

Soon birds started showing up.  Evidently the worms are tasty.  We were putting bird seed out into the yard already, but these new visiting birds were after the worms.  And they weren’t the only new arrivals.  All kinds of birds starting coming.  It has become a game with my husband and daughter to figure out what kinds of bird visitors we’ve got.  Blue jays, cardinals, brown thrashers, starlings, doves came, even a Baltimore Oriole came.

Then, there was a new development and a different kind of bird feeding event going on.  We had a hawk visit, who came to catch an occasional bird to eat.  We knew it was a hawk before we ever saw him because all that were left were feathers.  But of course some neighborhood cats showed up to hunt and do a little “bird watching.”

Recently we added a bird bath and now there’s a lot of exuberant bathing taking place, with chirping and splashing and thrashing about — and not just on Saturday nights.

Squirrels have arrived in such numbers that I told the family that the yard was beginning to look like it’s been carpeted.

My husband and daughter saw a opossum wandering around one morning, and we have a bunny who’s a regular.  I expect to see deer and moose next.  If we put in a beehive, I’m sure we’ll attract a bear (and this is 6 miles from the nation’s capital!)

All we wanted was some fresh vegetables.  And we got all this.  Mother Nature — you gotta love her.

[Top of the post:  My Backyard  by Aletha Kuschan]