Sketching the Female Tree-Mermaid

For much of my life, I would have told you that I was no good at visual arts.  I was a word person.  But if you could look at my school notebooks, you would notice that I was always drawing.  I would have dismissed those efforts as doodling, the kind of drawing that doesn't count as art.

I still do that kind of doodling, particularly during meetings where I'm having trouble paying attention.  Sketching lines which turn into vines.  I'm also fond of swirls.  Sometimes the lines want to be something else, something larger:  a bird beak and then the whole bird.

This week, I was taking notes during a meeting, and then I drew a box around the date of the meeting.  At the edge of the box, I drew this:

I thought about how it looked like a tree, so I decided to start a new sketch that would be a tree.  I drew a few swirls, and I realized that my tree also looked like a woman dancing, perhaps a very flexible woman with her leg stretching to the sky.  I continued to sketch, and I ended up with this:

As I sketched lines at the base of the tree (or the woman's skirt), I noticed that it had a certain mermaid vibe going, so I emphasized that.

In the end, I liked the sketch enough to save it, which I don't usually do with my meeting doodles.  Maybe I should start calling them illuminated meeting notes.

If William Blake had to sit through some of the meetings that I have attended, he might have sketched a whole different set of doors of perception.

While I'm recording my sketching life, let me also record the words of my teacher from late in 2021.  She said the my swirling style reminds her of Van Gogh.

I think of my 7th grade self.  In 7th grade, I became obsessed with sketching a horse.  I had a friend who could draw such beautiful horses.  I could not.  I just kept drawing the same sad type of horse, over and over.  It was probably that experience that made me think I couldn't draw.  I kept drawing a horse, week after week, seeing no improvement.  It didn't occur to me to try something else.

Many years later, when I was in my 30's, I did try drawing something else, and I was delighted to be able to draw a flower that people could recognize as a flower.

Now I draw any number of creations, and many of them have a bit of whimsy--or a lot of whimsy, in the case of this female tree-mermaid.  They delight me, and they make the hum drum parts of life more enchanted.