Chesterton on Imagination....

Found on this website.

"...the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for everybody has been a child. Ignorant as a child is, he knows more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine shades. And in this matter there are several fine shades. Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the beautiful things he sees; his hunger for secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its tale untold. He feels that nothing is perfect unless it is personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often said that pagan mythology was a personification of the powers of nature. The phrase is true in a sense, but it is very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces are abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths are not allegories. Natural powers are not in this case abstractions. It is not as if there were a God of Gravitation. There may be a genius of the waterfall; but not of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is that the personality perfects the water with significance. Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The test therefore is purely imaginative. But imaginative does not mean imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what the moderns call subjective, when they mean false. Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up."
          - G.K. Chesterton, Everlasting Man

Water Lady

I don't know if she is an elf or a nymph or human. She just is. It's based off a drawing in Guide to Tolkien's World: A Bestiary by David Day. I think it was a sketch of Goldberry, I am not sure. Anyway, I did my own variation of it.

Mr. Tumnus

    Sometimes I just have to watch the beginning of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to make things all better. I absolutely love the snow scene at the lamppost. Here is a quick sketch I did during/after watching it:

Admittedly, he is a bit baby faced.

Snow! Narnia. Christmas.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Carried Off by a Murder of Crows

Yes, I am still alive. Have some health issues that seem to like tmaking sure I am working hard, but, somehow things always work out.

.... Hopefully. My commissions and things ain't gettin themselves done. Sigh. What I wouldn't do for a bit of health. Maybe it's best this way. Keeps me from being a Drawing Terror of some sort.

Back to the drawing. This is a quick sketch I did inspired by the book Wildwood by Colin Meloy. It's been rather charming.

I thought a little quick sketch of someone's little brother being hauled off by birds was more engaging than more anatomy lessons.....

Latest GK quotes via my Dad:

"A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.  A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.  A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything." -GKC, "Heretics"

I Have Been A Bit Under the Weather...

... and that has hindered me in my work, but not in my looking.

I found these two young gentlemen and their blog, the Crimson Phoenix, and I absolutely love it. Not only are their drawings creative, but their names and comments as well. For me, I find it a refreshing blog to look at.

On the Crimson Phoenix blog, I found the blogs below that I LOVE:

Cory Godbey, and

Justin Gerard.


Ugh, my "non-drawing post tag" is about to be the top one. That can't be good.

Updates Updates

Well, in addition to my anatomy/drawing lessons from Drawing Tutorials Online...

Quick sketch of form light on a cast. Isn't that cool! No, I had NO idea about such lighting techniques before.

.... I have also added these two little activities:

I am illustrating for this lovely magazine for young ladies.

And I am participating in this little project.

Am I crazy? With that last one definitely- I haven't finished a story since I was 8 at least. Hopefully I have moved beyond stories about wild ponies who run victoriously in the Kentucky Derby.