Why I like to draw cards…

So… I have quite a habit for sitting up late and drawing what ever takes my whim…. and frequently the subject of my scribblings comes from Mystereum… and I’ve been asked many times by many people – Why? Why do you do that?

And sometimes I answer… and sometimes I don’t… and how I answer… well … It depends on the mood I’m in…

But today, I think I’ll share the reply I gave to Mr S…

The same reason that you spend hours listening to Joe Bonamassa!

So… I’ll heavily edit here and give you the gist as I don’t remember the exact conversation… and also my dear old husband at some point most probably called me The Queen of the Harpies… and you don’t need to know about that… D’oh! 😀

So… he’s trying to learn a new style of playing… and he has played for donkey’s years… so I asked him  – yes, but why don’t you just get sheet music?

To which he replied – you can’t learn nuances from reading…

OK… I said… So why J Bona M?

He looked at me a bit puzzled and then said flatly – Because I LIKE IT!

I said – Exactly! You do with your music, what I do with my cards… I like the colours… that’s like the notes… I like the way the characters show up to form chords… I like the way it sings!

Oh! he says… Now I get you!

Then we happily part company… Him to play with his bass and me to play with my pastels…

But I don’t stop at my scribbling… I then like to scan in my image and play around on the old laptop to see what comes to mind…

So… my 4 of Wands in pastel got morphed into this…

And as I play with the image, ideas float in and out and I consider it to be a sort of active meditation… or maybe an idle musing… much like staring out the kitchen window to watch what is happening in the garden whilst you wash the pots…

I’ve always been a bit intrigued by this card, as for a fire card, there’s an awful lot of water… and as I played around, I became increasingly interested in the shape created in the gap between the flows of water and in my mind, it started to take on the shape of a Knight from a game of chess…

Now that made me laugh as I’m looking at this watery fire card and puzzling on it and a Knight rides by… Now the Knight is a bit of an unusual piece and interestingly, due to the way it moves, it lands alternately between black and white squares… always swinging between opposites… black and white… fire and water…

So… I said OK Knight… tell me more of how you move…

Ok listen up Sealey! It’s like this… I’m fast and a little bit unpredictable… I can move in any direction I want though I do it in an indirect way … I work best when I’m in the middle of the game… I don’t like to be hemmed in and have my style cramped… Oh… and get this… I’m different to all those other BIG players… they all have to wait for the little guys to move out the way before they can hit the open playing field… Not ME… Whoosh! I wait for no-one… POOF ! I’m always ready and raring to go!

Ok… so what exactly are you telling me Mr Knight?

I’m saying… All those ideas you’ve got… Get them moving… Hold on tight and enjoy the ride… So… you might find a few who will say it can’t be done… But do what I do and leap right on over the top of opposition… Give them a good view of your ass…

I said Sir Knight! That’s not very gallant…

Hey… Oh… He’s gone! 😀