Mosaic Monday #174: Daily Drawing Challenge for Lent

Happy Easter, everyone!  Lent has drawn to a close, and for me and #1 Daughter, that is a literal statement.  You see, we took on a daily drawing challenge for Lent!  A period of time when Christians focus on spiritual purification, meditation and penance, Lent typically lasts 40 days, not including Sundays, based on the 40 days Jesus fasted in the desert before starting his ministry.  I asked #1 Daughter to consider something we could do together during Lent, and she came up with the idea of the drawing challenge.  We settled on 45 days, and she pulled from several Pinterest sources to compile the prompts.  And off we went!

These 45 days have brought laughter, amazement, and learning.  I asked #1 Daughter to make some observations, and she knew full well I would share them here!

I can commit to something daily, if I really put my mind to it. This honestly surprised me. I thought I would struggle to find the time each day to sit down and draw (and trust me, there were days that I did struggle or got swept up and completely forgot). On those days, I felt horrible, but had to give myself grace and tell myself it was okay. I have always been afraid to do something like bullet journaling because it requires daily sitting down to journal. I always believed I wouldn't have time for that.

It has been wonderful knowing that I will hear from her every single day.  But it's fascinating how that expectation can make a Mom worry.  We agreed that we would not send each other photos of our drawings until both of us were done.  No copying, or influence, allowed!  Given that #1 Daughter works full-time, and lives in an Eastern Time Zone, I knew that I would typically finish first, and would hear from her in the early evening.  This pattern was well-established after a week or so, when one evening came and went without a text, I worried!!!  

#1 Daughter is a natural artist; me?  Not so much.  (She drew "Milkshake", "Garden Tools" and "Sea Monster".  I think you can figure out the rest of her work from here.)  Where did she get this talent?  Even when I look at a real object, I struggle to recreate it.  We agreed (with a few pre-approved exceptions) that we would draw from memory.  It was amazing to me how often I could not conjure an image in my mind of objects that I have seen thousands of times.  As I read somewhere lately, you have to see it to draw it!  I also had to work on my competitive nature -- it would have been easy to be jealous of her skills!  (Most of the time) I focused on improving my abilities!  We both agreed that there are prompts we would like to re-do when the challenge is over.

My Mom is SO creative and her drawing has improved SO much since she first started. 

Some words/phrases prompted immediate ideas, but I tried to go beyond the obvious.  One example is Overgrown; my favorite is Evening Drink.

It was amusing that one time, we drew almost the same picture!  (The prompt was "Exhausted".)

I also found that I tend to "see" scenes rather than just the object that is represented by the prompt.  Or maybe this is just my way of hiding my inability to draw a certain object by giving the viewer lots of distractions!

For the drawing itself, I'm a very literal person. I don't often stray from the drawing prompt or draw additional items. You want a plant? I'll draw you a plant. Nothing more, nothing less. Even on some of my more creative drawings (ie. "Rain" prompt - rain coming from under an umbrella with clouds on it), I still almost always started with the item in the prompt or something closely related to it. I find the times I have the most fun doing it were on weekends when I had a whole day to take my time and enjoy it. To me, this is very apparent in the "Summer Fair" prompt. It started with the Woodstock sign, then the trees, then the guitar and then the posters on the tree. Because I had time to build it and stare at it and let my creativity flow with ideas.

One of the things I have learned from my daughter in the last 45 days is the value of sketching.  I tend to try and draw perfectly from the first line - and how often does that happen?  But even after I am done sketching, I like to convert that pencil drawing into something permanent.  I use markers of various widths to create emphasis, as needed.  I like to use color in my pictures, but sometimes I think the simplicity of the black and white is part of the message.  

Many of my drawings are in pencil. Sometimes this was intentional, sometimes I was too lazy to color it in, sometimes I just fell in love with how the drawing looked in pencil only, sometimes I was afraid coloring it in would ruin it. I think this is due to my limited color pencil collection and I have taken a vow to change that. Aside from pencil and colored pencils, my other medium was gel pens. I loved using a simple black outline to make a drawing pop (the "Music" and "Architecture" prompts are favorites of mine, you can also see my first attempts at this in the "Overgrown" and "Camera" prompts where a thin sharpie didn't quite cut it), but I also loved the crisp clean sticker-like feeling the gel pens gave me. The "Lantern", "Rain", and "Freedom" prompts are good examples of this.

The drawing journey also brought home the joy of shared experiences.  More than once, we each drew an object/scene that we knew would have meaning for the other.  At times it was amusing, even eliciting a full belly laugh.  Some drawings documented family memories, and I was touched to know that my daughter still finds them meaningful.

But the best of all was to hear this from her:

I love my mom. She makes people feel loved through her drawings. 

A fitting summary for Lent: it is all about Love.  #1 Daughter - thanks for the idea of the drawing challenge, and bringing a new element to this period of meditation and renewal.  I love you so much!

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I am taking a break next week; please come back for Mosaic Monday on May 1.

Mosaic Monday

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