Archive for the ‘wabi-sabi’ Category

A few random thoughts for today, a nice almost too hot Sunday in the desert. Anne of El Milagro Studio posted this week about looking large and looking small, which reminded me about wabi-sabi, which loosely translated is looking for the beauty in small things. I knew I had written about this before, so I went looking (so THAT’S why we put labels on posts!), and here is the link to a two-year-old post, after a trip to Flagstaff. I still find it fascinating that a passing tourist commented on the drawing and knew it was an example of wabi-sabi.

I am playing with blending modes in Photoshop, something I stumbled on in the tutorials through NAPP. This is a whole new way to look at blending and layers, and I have had fun with this. I’ll post the results on Photoshop Friday. Oh, heck, here’s a sample….

Getting ready to go to San Diego. Gotta tell ya, I am impressed with booking on line. Used to be we would take “pot luck” as we traveled, looking for a place to stay that seemed okay. Well, as age kicked in, now we need a frig for meds and decent beds. I’ve used a few online sites, but this time I really started to compare pics, rates, opinions from guests, free breakfasts, shuttles, and just what it was we wanted to do. Too much traffic for us to stay outside a city and drive in each day, especially as my eyesight doesn’t catch signs and such as quickly.

Tomorrow cooler weather awaits!

A few weeks ago a letter arrived from one of my lists about the art of “miksang” – looking at the small stuff for the beauty within. The photos were interesting, and I started giving this some thought. This past week for our anniversary we went to Sedona, and thence on a picnic to Sunset Crater with our friends. We were on a sketching/photographic journey.

Every time I’ve been to Sunset Crater I’ve wanted to sketch the trees. I absolutely love this place – there is such beauty in destruction – another Japanese concept called wabi-sabi. So this time I took my pad and pencils and just sat and started to sketch. Since we were limited in time, I knew I wanted to go fast, which meant the pencil was moving – no time to critique or rework anything.

I loved it. And at one point an Asian gentleman came to look over my shoulder, and I heard him say, “Ah, wabi-sabi.” I was thrilled – I was actually capturing the beauty of this particular trunk. I got a few sketches done – next time I need a camp chair with a mug holder for my pencils!

One thing, overall, that I noticed, was that, because of my vision, I tend to always look large – trying to take in the big picture. This worked really well at one of the turn-offs, where you had a canyon formed by lava. Great vistas. But then I started to really look small – several colors of lichens growing on the lava, shades of blacks and browns in the lava itself, and lots of bark. I have been absolutely fascinated with tree bark for years – who knows why? But I got some sketching and pictures done – lots to play with over the next few weeks.