Artistic Expression on the Road

"The Farmhouse - Banning, CA"

While on a recent trip to California to visit family I had moments that I was able to do some drawing in the mornings just a couple of days.  I am so grateful that today I don't feel like I am blocked by situations or events in life that used to kind of "freeze me" or leave me unwilling or unable to continue to express myself if confronted by emergencies, etc. 

The first drawing is prismacolor with watercolor and some pen and ink of "The Farmhouse" a restaurant in Banning that we frequented while living in Cherry Valley.  My husband worked with the owner's brother and we always loved going there for breakfast.

The second is the beginnings of a prismacolor pencil drawing I think of as "Natural Beauty" from a photo I saw in "Indian Country Today" magazine which I was given a gift subscription to.  Funny how, as in the past, I start out drawing or painting something from a photo and the face turns out to be, in MY drawing or painting, the person who is on my mind or in my heart at the time of it's creation.  In this case my sister-in-law, Rosa, who is in the final stages of brain  cancer seemed to emerge. A similar thing happened with my mother-in-law - I was painting a native woman and the face of my mother-in-law emerged and not that of the original. Wonderful women I have been blessed to have in my life.  Makes you think ... each day is a gift, each person.