days may have crumbled, with the night star ushering defeats past to light, but with that mustard seed of faith, sown in love’s heavenly blue battlefield, we shall rise forth, to mirthful morning glories.
A very wonderful New year to you and yours I pray, with all yearned goals coming to pass🙏🥳. As always, do remain blessed.
It’s Halloween season again, and it’s time to unleash the spookiest of costumes for tricking and treating. This time, however, I resorted to commemorating Halloween using graphite pencils and poetry. Weird?
The portrait study this time is a screaming Simon Pegg found on Pinterest.
Drawing of screaming Simon Pegg on Bristol Vellum Paper using STÆDTLER pencils
Graphite pencils were chosen this time as it’s much easier to work with one color (greyscale) compared to the abundance of hues in colored pencils. Moreover, working with graphite pencils gives more freedom to explore one’s range of drawing techniques without fear of making mistakes. This is particularly useful when those learned and perfected techniques are subsequently implemented in color pencil drawing.
Enjoyed creating this drawing (particularly the wrinkles); so much that I was inspired to write a free verse that centers on fear. Hope you like it.
I tremble not at the sight of scornful scorpions and creeping creatures,
nor do I quiver in the face of vast chasms spewing fire and brimstone;
I fear not the traversal of the deathly Elm street,
riddled with ghostly apparitions and prancing monsters,
for in the ambiance of neon-lit jack o’ lanterns,
the incandescence of His word further belights my path;
Alas,
I’m scared I’d find solace in the dark,
for the light keeps revealing my tears to sneering seagulls;
I dread that at Love’s feet layeth humanity’s jigsaw puzzle,
but pride keeps bloating my piece,
so much, I no longer fit;
I’m afraid that for my good deeds
Mother Nature bestows a priceless invisible garment,
but never gets to see its beguiling beauty on me;
I’m petrified that the world has lost all sense of color,
and through her monochromatic lens, I’d be deemed shady.
I’m frightened my trust for humankind has eloped with the wind,
for her cold shoulder has turned my heart to ice,
and in her spiky grasps, it shatters to bits;
I’m affrighted life may morph into the desiccated woods
with us, each tree,
and my voice, endlessly drowning in its psithurism;
But most of all,
I’m scared I show no fear,
for fear is a rampaging hound preying on feeble minds,
and strong, I must appear.
🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃
So, what are you most scared of? Feel free to share your thoughts.
Happy Halloween by the way, with hopes November brings good tidings. Do stay blessed.
afloat on crisp sands whilst bathed in Sun’s mirth showers, she hears gulls chatter as troubled tides ebb to sleep; thence she knew, that life’s a beach.
Feel free to also read and share your thoughts on By The Sea (Haiku version), as you bask in the merriments of the lovely week ahead. Ciao!
…as the jagged talons of religious conflict ripped through earth’s coat of many colors, she struggled for what to believe in, thus condemning her ways to the eerie bliss of karma and the beguiling warmth of morality. Alas, she decided to pen an open letter to the world, pronouncing her new-found faith.
As the nothingness of the blank pages and her steel blue eyes embarked on a cold staring contest, imaginary quills swiveling between thoughts began etching words on her mindscape saying:
Like always, I came across my recent portrait study on Pinterest, all monochromatic, and the wisest option was to approach this drawing using graphite pencils on a vellum surface. What particular piqued my interest in this study was my long-dreaded fear of going too dark in shading and drawing drops of water. I found this crying child or Ninõ (as dubbed by Pedro Luis Raota, the actual photographer, in 1970) encapsulating all I have always feared in drawing; thus, I decided to take on the challenge.
Initially, things went smooth, but I had not even gotten to the teardrops and my 8B pencils were already toast because of the number of dark areas I had to cover; however, I had to improvise with my other pencil grades.
Although likeness suffered a bit, one key takeaway from the drawing was that the bigger the size, the better the details you capture in your portraits, so these enabled shading the teardrops fairly easy.
Overall, I was somewhat pleased with the drawing, if, for anything, its successful completion and I look forward to taking on more expressive portraits before the year runs out.
Lastly, do imbibe this quatrain I wrote as inspired by the drawing, and take it with you as you enjoy your lovely days ahead. Cheers!
It has been two years and some months since I launched this blog, and I vividly remember my first blogpost which was a limerick of some sort that goes like this:
consumed by pride, envy and scorn,
the feeble veil of my heart is torn,
one which no golden needle and silver thread can mend,
one which only the agape love from persons can tend,
The poem very much typified my emotional state at the time and how I held all kinds of feelings bottled up, searching for meaning and answers in our nature. However, interest from a few persons piqued gradually and my world began to morph artistically. With the gradual growth of the blog, I have been able to find my channel of catharsis with some areas botched in shades of gray, and others smeared in resplendent hues. As such, many thanks to you all who have literally given me a thousand reasons to be grateful for the interest, love and support rendered towards the achievement of this milestone.
As always, it will remain a tremendous pleasure to keep putting smiles on your faces through my works as you have done so effortlessly on mine. Cheers to our next artistic adventure, and a thousand hugs and kisses to each and every one of you. Happy blogging.
As her world spun still, dreamy days flew by, and the Earth slowly grew giddy.
With defenses now laying bare, space-grey goblins came scything down her core, and every milky taste she once had of her galaxy became a forlorn memory.
Darkness crescendoed and, alas, from her seven siblings, she became estranged.
However, there lived a being; a bright beaming being, who always stood firm by her, and ran circles around her adversities, thence, illuminating her dimming mien, and after three sixty six days of twirling and courtship, a new child is born.
A Happy New year to you, and may all your wishes yearned come true🥳🙏.
Summer’s scorching reign was over, and the world finally became a stage for the succeeding princess. High hopes were held of her and the events of her coronation as documented in a lost journal reads;
As the sun crowned autumn,
with a fitting tiara bathed in gold,
whistling winds blew their bagpipes,
tree twigs swayed softly in the melodious aura,
and lush leaves fell fatuously
in deference to her majesty;
Alas, not all subjects agreed to bend the knee,
for they feared the land’s drought may never cease,
Dear humanity,
I write this to ask you,
How did we drift so askew,
to the point where
the vain is inanely adored,
and the sane is insanely abhorred?
Why do the colours that make rainbows smile
and give the auroras her alluring style,
no longer ignite beauty sparks on faces,
but smear the tracks of individual races?
Why do we worship the elitists
at their altar of greed,
but ignore the sinister cysts,
sprouting on those in need?
Why do we still play the game called fame,
whilst our high-scores keep putting us to shame?
When did everyone suddenly become so fickle,
leaving us to trust only the Reaper’s thrusting sickle?
If you’re reading this, I need some answers,
I really do,
because the world slowly sinks into hate’s murky gutter,
and I need to know how to keep my head above water.
It’s been a while since I sketched something, so, I got hold of this sketchbook and a couple pencils, then decided to portray Arya from the Game of Thrones series.
Still off by a long shot, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let’s see where these baby steps to realism lead and how many souls I’ll draw out from the walls of these blank pages.
.
The drums of my heart throbbed,
as you left me to wither,
but its melody so sonorous,
as sonorous as a swan’s song,
sweeps you off your fragile feet,
and slides you right next to me.