Instead of Lenten readings I found myself taking a quiet mental walk in my cozy world colors while laying pigments on this image. It was like saying a prayer for every pencil stroke, a mindful exercise of keeping my heart free of any yearning other than what the pencil and the paper wish to accomplish through me.
Where the artist's lines curve there my wrist follows.
Where the petals meet in the flower's core there my darkest shades converge.
Where the tips open up to the light there my pencil lifts as if in flight, to leave the surface white, free of color, to bare the highlight.
Petal Maddock, a colorist friend, gave an insightful comment about my recent muted works admiring the restraint she surmised I had summoned to finish them. 'Less is more' was my reply to her comment. Indeed that's what I may have developed, not just as an approach to coloring, but as a way of living as well.
Adult coloring is an addicting hobby to many but to me it's evolving as a manner of self expression in my adult years, to show how much I have come to appreciate my life, my family, my friends, and myself. There is much to be pruned in me but that too must be appreciated.
In the absence of extravagant colors, in the muted presence of the greys that are normally shunned is a kind of spiritual solace. A concealed yet still beautiful path to take for a deeper understanding of beauty and life that are all, ultimately, gifts to our being.
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