Spirit Tree, Play Along with Me!

You've heard this before, I know, but every weekend I try to walk away from the computer to purge myself of All Things Social Media.

For me it's like an Honoring the Sabbath thing, an attempt at distancing myself from technology, a way of refreshing my soul with a bit of simplicity.

Sometimes I'm successful. Sometimes not so much.... This weekend was the latter, but I had a good reason: I participated in another PlayAlong courtesy of the 'Once Upon' site on Facebook.

You remember me telling you about the first 'Once Upon' PAL, I'm sure (if not, check it out HERE). The deadline for this one was yesterday -- a Sunday -- and by the afternoon of the day before I had yet to create my entry (you're surprised, I can tell).

It's not like I'd procrastinated about it, I've just been so BUSY. This is easily the craziest time of year for me what with the Monarchs, the grandbugs, the gardens, the Renaissance Festival, the fill-in-the-blank. When I remembered the PlayAlong I almost threw in the towel. I knew I'd be lucky to find the time....

But the directions for this challenge were to draw a 'spirit tree' on a sheet of 8.5x11 black paper stock using only white media, and I couldn't pass that up. Black and white? My favorite colors! TREES!? My favorite things!

Yeah, there was no way I wasn't gonna participate.

So although Saturday afternoon saw me scanning, cleaning, and readying original art for printing, I tried to sneak in some play time here and there with some construction paper and a white Crayola pencil. Thankfully my scanner is slow, so there were tiny blocks of time in which I could work.

Drawing on black paper was a challenge, but photographing it for the PlayAlong share was the pits. It would've worked had I used natural light, I'm thinking, but there wasn't much of that around at midnight. Still, I inched in under the deadline, and you can see my entry above.

I surprised myself -- or rather my pencil surprised me -- by drawing something more whimsical than spiritual. I went into it expecting to see stars and spirals and maybe a trunk like the body of a goddess, with arms reaching for the moon. Lots of drama! Yeah, no.... My drawing hand had other plans! But I like when that happens. I'm constantly surprised, and that's a good thing. And I wonder sometimes if having grandbugs now has my head stuck in Picture Book mode. Cool!

Be sure to visit the 'Once Upon' site and 'like' it, 'k? Then check out the PAL 2 album to see everyone's great Spirit Trees. Believe me -- there are some GREAT SPIRIT TREES. You'll be glad you did. :)
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Play-Along Update

This doesn't begin to describe it!

Remember my recent post regarding the PAL (aka 'Play Along') challenge?

Well, holy cow! -- I shared a link to it on the Once Upon page on Facebook before retiring for the night, completely unaware that as I slept all sorts of sparkly magick was about to take place.

BOOM went my 'likes' count, thanks to Janet Kisch and the very kind Once Upon Community! And by the time I logged in again in the morning my Mayfaire page had increased its audience by nearly a hundred new members.

It's been over a week and my astonishment levels are still in the red zone!

When I wrote that post I was in the middle of my PAL creation -- sketching, inking, and coloring tiny squares of Bristol, one for each day of the 12-day challenge. Each square featured an illustration and one-word description of the particular day on which it was drawn, and because 'The Day of All the New Likes' was so extraordinary -- and because it was all Once Upon's 'fault' (haha!) -- I created a square with a very happy owl on it, because Janet and a lot of what I like to think of as the 'Once Upons' are fond of owls.

Much of the remainder of my PAL challenge was spent up north at my parents' house in the country, enjoying long happy moments fishing, eating, visiting, relaxing, and (of course) drawing. And I finished it on my final morning there. Before I left for home I laid all the little squares out on my mom's oak dining room table, took a picture of the collection with my smartphone, emailed the pic to my home computer, and -- voila!

I promised to share it with you and so here it is. A bit blurry (sorry....) but I think you can make it all out. And if you're at all interested in a brief explanation of each square, a little write-up follows the photo.

Squares are ordered 1 through 12, beginning in the upper lefthand corner and ending in the lower right:
#1 -- Nostalgic. On this day I was looking at old photographs and enjoying the memories.
#2 -- Away. All my neighbors were home, doing noisy yardwork. I longed to move out to the Very Quiet Sticks....
#3 -- Playful. Time spent being entertained by my Grandbugs.
#4 -- Exhausted. Time spent recovering from being entertained by my Grandbugs.
#5 -- Cocooned. Windows are closed, A/C's on, my house is dark and silent and WONDERFUL.
#6 -- Patriotic. Drawn for the 4th of July. While fireworks go off outside, I write my blog post and link it to Once Upon.
#7 -- Astonished. I wake to a crazy amount of new 'likes'.
#8 -- Picnic-y. The Grandbugs and their parents visit for a barbecue and kiddie-pool party. (And yes, in the delayne dictionary 'picnic-y' is a word.)
#9 -- Hurt. I hate Facebook. 'Nuff sed.
#10 -- Withdrawn. More time spent in off-line rehab. Still hatin' Facebook.
#11 -- I visit my parents for an extended sleepover.
#12 -- My dad and nephew take me fishing. Best day EVER.
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