his end was peace [thaxted parish church, thaxted, essex, england, 2017]
It's been a crazy busy few days.
I have so much to tell you.
New friends to introduce you to, as well.
And, hopefully, tomorrow I'll have a new self-portrait to share with you and can share a little of my new assignment with you!
semper vivum [church of our lady of the assumption of beauvoorde, wulveringem, belgium, 2014]
‘til death do us part
She wondered to herself - not for the first time - how many other's parents had set the bar for romantic relationships so high. So high that their children's expectations for their own relationships seemed a pipe dream. That anything less than what their parents had was a pale imitation. Anything else left them feeling wanting.
Her parents had shared everything. They had no secrets from each other. They trusted each other implicitly and loved each other unconditionally.
They supported and encouraged each other. Cared for each other and lost sleep worrying about each other.
They talked about everything, and they made decisions as a couple, as a partnership. All the way through their marriage until her mother's dementia meant she couldn't make decisions or talk about things in the same way.
Neither of them dictated anything to the other or made the other feel bad for asking questions. Indeed, most questions were answered before needing to be asked. Their relationship was one of open dialogue and transparency. Always.
There were never any power games. Never the sense that one made the other feel they were being given or denied a treat by being able to see the other more or less. When, how and where they met was a mutual decision. They wanted to see each other equally and showed no restraint from either side.
Her mother became part of her father's family and vice versa. She came from a very affectionate family into one less so. But her mother gradually coaxed her husband's family into the habit of hugs rather than handshakes. Growing up with an aunt whose catch-cry was "kissy-up, kissy-up" on arrival and on leaving her home encouraged her mother to engender that level of affection in her father's family. Though she saved kisses on the lips for her husband alone.
She grew up with the example of intimate and affectionate parents. Even as they grew older, she watched them reach for each other's hands as she walked along the streets of London with them. Instinctive and natural.
Their friends were their friends. Not her mother or her father's. The friendships may originally have been made or found through one. But they became mutual friends her parents spent time with, both together and apart.
There was never any compartmentalisation in their relationship, their relationships with others and their lives. They even worked together side-by-side for about 10 years.
Their weight gains and losses were irrelevant. They were the same people beneath the flesh and bones, so what did weight matter?
As her mother's dementia took hold, she saw how it broke her father's heart. His best friend, lover, partner and confidante of almost fifty years changed. Her mother saw him as a stranger, and he recognised the real her only in glimpses of lucidness. But he has never stopped loving her.
In her own life, she felt she'd never truly experienced what they had. What they have.
Others might argue that what she sought was a romantic fantasy. But she'd witnessed it growing up, so she knew it wasn't just in her imagination.
Sure, she knew their marriage wasn't perfect. Their relationship wasn't perfect. None are. But they worked through anything that might have created an issue. And came out stronger together on the other side.
But what she witnessed of their relationship over more than forty years of her life was always one of love, trust, openness, communication, honesty, affection, adoration and longevity. Damn near perfection, in her eyes.
And so far, she'd only had glimpses of pieces of what they had in her own life. Samples. Tasters. But nothing that stood up to the same tests. Nothing that lasted long enough or brought as much happiness as that she'd witnessed watching her parents as she grew from a child to a teenager, a teenager to an adult.
Everything she had experienced felt like a shadow of what she'd witnessed.
When it came to her own relationships, she viewed the possibility of something even three-quarters as good as what they'd had as a chimaera. Something she hoped for but felt she would never achieve or realise. The stuff of dreams. A fantasy.
Except she knew it could be real.
So she kept seeking it out. Hoping against hope. Believing that maybe, just maybe…
But again and again, she returned to the thought that maybe her parents had set the bar too high. Raised her expectations of what love and "forever" might be to something only achievable for a select few; for people of previous generations, perhaps. But not for her.
She thought, not for the first time: maybe she should just let go of all expectations. And forget 'til death do us part, even if it didn't involve any formal declaration or ceremony. Clearly, it wasn't meant to be.
contemplation
Today was the 120th anniversary of my grandfather's birth.
Some days I marvel that I live within walking distance of the house in which he was born.
For many folks I know, this would be unremarkable.
But my grandfather was born in Stoke Newington, London, England. I was born in Garran, Canberra, Australia.
My grandfather is the reason I can live in the UK.
Our birthdays were 76 years less one day apart.
Day seventy-four of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I don't think I have a lot to say about what is now yesterday's sketch. I'm actually pretty happy with, despite various shortcomings (shading is questionable (as usual), proportions are a bit off, detail kept to relatively minimal).
If I let my eyes drift as though I'm looking at one of those magic eye pictures, her locks look more like a two-faced alien in profile. But I'm relatively happy with how I rendered her hair if I focus on the sketch.
I wavered about shading in her back as shown in the source image but decided I would probably be unhappy with the results and wish I hadn't. So I didn't.
Throwback to wandering around the Hong Kong Protestant Cemetery on a hot and humid day, getting bitten like crazy by mosquitoes and only registering the banners on the fences warning of the potential of them carrying Japanese encephalitis on the way out...
The initial sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil. Overdrawn with an HB and a 6B; shading with the 6B.
Day twenty-three of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Another late posting, though the sketch was completed on the day.
This time inspired by a photograph of mine of Melbourne General Cemetery, taken in November 2005.
I took it on the first day I took my very first DSLR - a Nikon D50 - out for a trial run before taking it to New Zealand with me on holidays.
It was the first and last time I got locked in a cemetery after closing time. I have a LiveJournal post about it but it contains a bunch of information about other extraneous stuff happening at the time, so maybe I'll edit it and share it here another time if you've not already heard the tale and would like to.
Meanwhile, getting on to today's sketch: I used an HB pencil for the base and then a 6B for shading and going over the outline. In retrospect, it was probably a little heavy-handed on the outline but I notice that my hand erases/fades some of the lines as I draw. I should probably use a tissue or a small square of paper to lay on the page under my hand to avoid that (I think I recall friends in art class doing that).
Her upper body is a little foreshortened. I started drawing her plinth about 4cm from the bottom of an A4 page. About halfway up her wings, I was worried I would run out of space for the full height of her. I had about 2cm to spare at the top of the page at the end, so if I'd started lower it would have been fine, but alas, I did not.
I also drew the shadowed section of the front of the statue on the left too wide so it's out of proportion with the rest of the drawing.
Drawing the plinth, I thought I'd gone too wide on the right panel but I've definitely thinned it. And the left side is possibly a little wider than it should be. The width of the lower section of the angel seems proportionate though, so there's that...
I realised, as I was doing my quick edit for the web, that I was wearing my glasses while drawing. I'm not sure if that had a positive or negative effect.
I generally dislike editing photos while wearing my glasses because they make everything on my screen look smaller; not right. (Though they do wonders for my figure when looking in the mirror...) If I'm going to be editing photos I always put my contact lenses in.
For those who don't know, I have a prescription of about -3.5 in each eye. I'm myopic (short-sighted) to the point that, without special (more expensive) thinned lenses, my glasses would look like the free ones on the NHS Jarvis Cocker used to sing about. Okay, maybe not that thick. This is a good illustration if you look at the -4 prescription
My prescription got as bad as -3.75 for a while but apparently, people become more long-sighted as they get older so my sight's improving over time (yay!) The last optometrist I saw did manage my expectations though. She laughingly told me that with short-sightedness as pronounced as mine it will never get back to 20/20 through ageing. Apparently, if I have to have cataract surgery later in life (which she assured me almost everyone has to) I may have 20/20 vision then. Something to look forward to in my old age, eh?!
Sorry, another tangent!
So today was another example where it looked better once I photographed it and 'stepped away from it'. Still lots of flaws but I'm learning.
And it was relaxing to draw while I listened to my music collection on random varying from The Cure, Diamanda Galas, Ash, NoFX, Aerosmith, Julia Holter, Jefferson Airplane, U2, Barry White to Madness.
A positive end to a more positive day than the previous two. Even washing a horrendously large pile of dishes is less tedious when listening to old episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
Hopefully tomorrow my sketch will appear online on the day of creation. But I make no promises. I'm just taking things one day at a time at the moment. I hope you understand x
And I'll leave you with a song that popped up randomly on shuffle in the last 48 hours that felt appropriate to my current project. Evident Utensil by Chairlift. Enjoy!
lost love
Day fifty-three of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
she is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain
Day forty-five of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Woman by Walter Crane from The necklace of Princess Fiorimonde
cheeky monk, he!
Day forty-three of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations: