Count Your Blessings #125 – Time to sketch

One day last week I decided to take some time off. I’ve been doing a lot of travelling and working long hours for a couple of months now. Weekends have been busy too. It was time for a break.

I’d normally aline an impromptu day off with Sue’s day off, but that wouldn’t have been possible for a few more weeks.

It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, and there was a cooling gentle breeze. I packed some lunch, my camera, my iPod, a book of walks, some pencils and a sketch pad then headed off to a small village nearby called Hurst Green. Hurst Green is the home of Stonyhurst College. John Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien went to school there. It was arguably one of the places that inspired the scenery of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It’s certainly a beautiful idyllic place.

The map book had a new walk for me to try out, I’ve done a couple of walks from Hurst Green before, so I was excited at the prospect of seeing some new sites.

The walk set off down a lane through some woods beside a small brook. The dappled light created by the sunlight shining through the leaves of the trees was lovely.

The walk took me up a hill and then down towards the river Ribble eventually reaching the Dinkley pedestrian suspension bridge. There used to be a ferry that crossed the river at this point apparently, but now it looks a bit out of place sat in a valley not really going from anywhere to anywhere.

It was time for lunch, and time to get the pencils out.

The water levels were low and I could sit on a rock practically in the middle of the river, looking up at the bridge. The harsh straight lines contrasted wonderfully with the more subtle soft shapes of the trees. There were a couple of fluffy white clouds in the sky lighting up the iridescent blue sky. It was a scene that demanded to be sketched.

The pencil moved across the paper drawing me into the scene before me. As my eyes switched from scene to paper and back again I noticed the different trees that lined the river and the tall grass away in the distance. I noticed the flow of the water as it ambled along.

I have no idea why I don’t sketch more, the creative act makes me feel alive.

Perhaps that points to one reason why I don’t. I tend to save sketching for the times when I have the time to enjoy it. I don’t actually want to sit down and bash something out, I want to enjoy the process.

My sketching isn’t high art, but that’s not why I do it. I don’t want to spend my time asking the question “It’s pretty, but is it Art?” as the Devil whispered in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Conundrum of the Workshops“:

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art ?”

I’m not being artistic, I’m being creative.

Creativity is something that seems to be drummed out of adults, as I’ve said before. It does me all sorts of good to spend some time creating something and it saddens me that life leaves so little time to do it.

Few people are likely to see my sketches, and I’m not doing it to pass an exam, I’m just being creative.

My sketches aren’t going to an expedition, and I’m not trying to win approval, I’m just being creative.

Reading through the Bible I see a God who was and is massively creative. But God also seems that value the creativity of man.