Sketching the Feast of the Annunciation

Since May, I have been creating a card for the temperature check in station that gives the date and has a sketch.  Some days, the sketch has something to do with the date, while other days, I'm simply sketching the latest thing that appeals.  Some days I'm striving for realism, while others, I'm being fanciful.

When I realized that the feast day of the Annunciation was coming up, I decided to see if I could create something special.  I ended up with this sketch:

I might have been less pleased with it, had I not gone through several rough drafts.  Here's one with a goofy face that turned into a deformed face when I tried to fix it:

And another, where Mary looks too masculine:

As a model, I was using a linoleum block print that Beth Adams created years ago, a process which she describes in a blog post that makes me want to do printmaking:

In the end, I worried that the image was too religious, so I decided to create something more ambiguous:

I love the feather left behind from Gabriel's wings.  I love that the image of the feather gave me a poem that I wrote yesterday.  I love that the Virgin Mary image hearkens back to images I was creating back during Advent (see this blog post for more on the Advent images of the Virgin Mary).  I love that I'm the only one who will see the religious significance.

And let me include my process notes, in case I can't remember later.  One might wonder why I don't use a pencil and make copious corrections.  Part of the reason is because I haven't worked much in pencil, and I don't have good pencils in the office.  Part of it is because I don't want to get too bogged down in a quest for perfection.

Similarly, one might wonder why I'm not using a better quality paper.  When I started, I thought I would be throwing them all away, so I used the backs of paper from the recycling box.  But I found I couldn't bear to throw them away.

I have 3 sets of markers here, so I'm limited to some extent in terms of color.  But that's true at home too.  I'm not as good at blending these markers as others are--and on this kind of paper, it's even more difficult.  But again, I want to be aware that I'm not creating works of art; the goal is to do a quick sketch, to train my hands and my eyes, staying focused on the process, not the end result.

In short, like Mary, I want to say yes to a plan that shimmers with hope.