handcrafted meditation

 

I do a lot of handcrafts, still, even now.  My hands often hate me for it now, but still - I press on, although sometimes a project will sit until I can take the 'balancing point' again between I have to do 'other things' (like driving, etc) with my hands that are more pressing than this.

 That sounds a bit depressing, but it's not -really.  It's a nice thing to have 'in my back pocket' to do in the middle of the night or when I need to think something over.  I'm not solving deep math problems or physics or etc.. but I do let my mind wander far and deep and wide and sometimes that 'doing nothing while doing something' is valuable beyond compare.

 I do tend to use these things - washcloths, and bags, and baskets, hats and scarves and mittens.  They always get used somewhere.  And I do like the 'encapsulated time' effect I also have with items I have made.  I can remember where I was, some of what I was thinking - maybe a movie that was on, by looking at the work.

 A handful of washcloths in different cotton and linen yarns - and a crochet hamper basket, because FB keeps advertising one to me and I scoff and say 'if I wanted to - I could make something as useful, maybe not as 'chic' as that one - but it would be mine.

 

 

Marie Lynn Lamb

Acrylic 16x20" The Yellow Light : An Absorbing Tale by Lamplight

expressionist painting, comp. Jan 4, 2022 

yellow, titanium white, cyan, ultramarine, yellow ochre, a bit of sap green but other greens were mixed

cat on roof and bookracks at 'le magasin dans la rue' (the shop in the street)

taking a look at the book by lamplight  - can't even wait to get home

I feel that one down deep sometimes

a bicycle in a puddle outside a vestibule -  there are little bits here that could be improved but it was all the colors here and there, building it as I went until suddenly it was a bike (le vélo) - so I am scared to get back into it and mess up what was 'created out of the mist' here...

What it looked like last night at 'stage one' - when I put it up because everything was too wet and I just kept dragging the colors around instead of helping

 

 

'Jungle Cats in Grass' - acrylic painting, 2022, Marie Lynn Lamb  

16x20"

 

 

recent artworks on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

 

 

 

Happy New Year and safe travels

 

The Almost Black Flowers 

 

Where the Lovelights Shine, drawing 

 

"Near Atwoood" (Tennessee), ink drawing

 

 Pets Help with Art

 

Rabbit-like creature

 

The Journey

 Il Tournee

Merry Christmas 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luss Scotland ink landscape drawings

Pier at Luss, Scotland 

in 'Kentucky Bluegrass' ink with a little bit of brown

Ink series of the village of Luss, Scotland

finished some with colored pencil

all 5x7 images

 

reason for doing this series : I saw the village featured in a Facebook post, especially the pier, which is above.  It mentioned the little ice cream shop and the wonderful long paths that go along the shore all the way to the 1,500 year old church.  It is also listed as the Loch Lomond Faerie Trail for walking.  I wandered Google Street view and captured a few images I thought would be interesting to repeat the motif in a couple of drawings and see how, even with different inks and treatments, they might fall together as a series based on their shared subject. 

(I have more images saved, will add to this post as I decide to attempt them)

  

Pier Street at Luss, Scotland

in 'goldfish' ink with colored pencil (and a perspective alteration 'to fit')

School Road at Luss, Scotland

in indigo ink, with a bit of changeup because the big bush was in the middle of the scene and obscured too much, so I moved it.

 

 The Parish Church at Luss, Scotland

in indigo ink with added carnation pink - which wasn't doing it.. so I added one drop of red beyond that and achieved the color I was thinking of

 

Loch Lomond Arms hotel, Luss, Scotland

goldfish ink with a touch of brown

colored pencil because the trees did not stand out like I wished them to

 

Other Notes: All of these were completely left hand drawn.  It has been a few months since I decided I should embrace being mostly left handed, even though I learned to do everything including drawing and writing with my right.
 

Postal Route drawings

 I've done a few drawings of my postal route - this is the one I did today - 'Near Watkins Lane', colored pencil and inks

the thing about the postal route images are they are a 'smash together' of things I see around that place, not an actual representation foot by foot of what you would see there.  For example - the tree at the end of Watkins Lane, and beyond it you see the lake one way and t he tall straight bare trees on the OTHER side... and the cows live across the highway, not down the lane, but they are pretty and I wanted to put them in there somewhere.... if you knew the area, you would recognize that the 'parts are there', but all jumbled up.

and at the end of laying out the above drawing in blue, my pen snapped and popped - which made me wonder if I needed to throw it out and use the other one I have instead.  But no, I took the rest of the paper and wrote this out and drew this tree - and there is no reason whatsoever to throw the pen out.. 

It's been a hard week on the postal route.  It's been cold - my truck has been broken in a minor but annoying way (door handle) so I've had to improvise.  I'm very glad I'm as stretchy as I am at my age - but it's been annoying and my left arm is in that 'what did you do to me' stage that doesn't even really hurt anymore until the middle of the night and then I wake up and everything clicks and cracks and eventually I forget about it like a bad tooth until I try to do something 'different' with it like carry laundry or hold something up.. and then it goes wonky again.  hypermobility is not as fun as it looks, but it could be worse... maybe I can get some more sleep now, as I don't have postal route (that I know of) for another week or more now

cold stress

"HWY 105" postal route drawing

This one was done a few months ago, and oddly enough, it is the very next section to what I just did now.. sort of like working backwards without even trying to

So now I'm thinking about working 'forwards' on the next chunk from the horse onwards...

 

 

completed it what will I call this one?  "HWY 105 - CONTINUED" ?

The horse in it is the same horse as the above one, just around the corner to the mailbox that is broken and most of the time in a mud puddle

 

" Railroad streets West and East"

I did this in black and white but haven't went further with this one - it is still in town and was done while waiting for them to bring the mail one morning then forgotten at the post office for weeks.. it's home with me but I still haven't moved too much forward on it.  It is also 'compressed' and represents a section of postal route that is actually more like a mile in length but would be recognizable from the elements

'Old Trezevant Road' 5x7 inch

This approximate area is where one day there was a huge white cow walking down the middle of the highway.  I slowed way down, not wanting to hit it - and it put it's whole head in the left-hand side of my postal truck.  It then proceeded to lick the dashboard a bit - and then decided to 'move on'.  I really hoped no one would hit it.  I didn't want to come back to 'smeared cow' all over the road since I go down that road and come back.  But, by the time I returned, it was nowhere to be seen outside the fence... and there were so many inside the fence well, I couldn't tell which one it was.  *ha*