Pencil Doodles, Photos, and Piano by Brenda Leyland

In response to our June prompt, I'm delighted to share what other creative work I currently do when I'm not writing.

Pencil Doodling. Pencils make me want to doodle. No piece of paper is safe from the irresistible urge of forming alphabet letters in various calligraphic styles, creating flower petals, sprigs and posies. I want to draw cozy teapots with fat round lids and stacks of colouring book style teacups. Even the odd fashion design, especially dresses with billowy skirts from the 1950s.

"The imagination needs noodling --

long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.

 ~ Brenda Ueland, "If You Want To Write"

About a year ago, I finally bought a sketch book. That simple gesture seemed to give acknowledgement to this doodling desire that never goes away. If I'm going to doodle then why not acknowledge its value in my life and give it space. Now I doodle and sketch. I sketch to improve my observation of the world around me. I doodle to relax. It's fun, comforting, restful. Something pressured writers could experience more often.

"Lord, give me an open heart to find You everywhere,

to glimpse the heaven enfolded in a bud,

and experience eternity in the smallest act of love."

~ Mother Teresa

Photography. When I'm not noodling over a doodle, you might find me out and about with my iPhone camera capturing glimpses of creation's beauty. Sunsets and storm clouds. Pansies and feathered friends. Rainbows, spider webs glistening with raindrops, red berries, and autumn leaves. Did I mention flowers ...  and gardens and garden gates?

In the past, I would never have considered photography as a creative pursuit. As in, please don't make me fiddle around with lens, fancy light, and sets -- that all makes me feel jittery inside. But my iPhone camera is a gem. It allows me to take photos with the greatest of ease, simplicity, and to my great delight, with surprising results.

I fell in love with taking pictures, and now I look for opportunities everywhere for something lovely, interesting, or even what might not at first glance seem significant in any way. For one never knows when, after cropping away the extraneous, you find yourself looking at a real gem of a picture. Waiting for you to share in blog posts, on social media, with loved ones, or in digital-to-print books created on Shutterfly.

Photography is the story I fail to put into words.

~ Destin Sparks

To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. Elliott Erwitt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/photography.html

 
The Piano.  The piano is a lifelong love. These days I often switch from writing on my computer keyboard to playing on my piano. On any given day, if you walk up to my front door, you'll probably hear the faint strains of piano music wafting through the air. I might be patiently working, bar by bar, on a longtime-dream to master Chopin's sweetly pensive Etude in E Major. Or, I could be pounding out some lively jazz piece that makes my fingers dance.

Or, I could be creating a new piece of music. Or improvising. Which sets me free from reading notes and lets me play from my heart. There is a psalm that invites us to sing new songs unto the Lord. I love the idea of playing new melodies to Him when I feel the creative stirrings of the spirit (mine and His).

I'm currently working on a reflective piece that came to me years ago. Having never forgotten it, I often play it when the mood of the heart is right and I feel His presence. A few months ago, when I told my music instructor about it, she said, let's get it written into sheet music. What fun -- it's writing of a completely different note (wink).

 

"Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you're listening.

Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time."

~ Kelsey Grammer

To include one or more art form in our lives can add so much to our overall sense of well-being and our joyful response to life's good gifts. We were born to create and when we create good things happen to our minds, our emotions, and even our bodies. The array of art forms available to us not only adds interest, variety, and depth to our personal life experience, but these various disciplines use different parts of the brain (that has to be good), and I've found what I learn in one field often comes in handy in another.

I've never seen myself as a serious artist, but I have come to recognize -- and to honour --  the creative bent the Lord has placed within me. Finding different ways to express who I am, who I am growing into, enriches my own soul and stretches my mind as I embrace new ideas, tools, techniques, and skills. All of which helps me become a better, more engaging writer. That has to be good too.
 

Brenda Leyland enjoys writing on her slice-of-life blog at It's A Beautiful Life -- it's one place where she shares her many 'glimpses of heaven in unexpected places'. She continues to work at various other writing projects.

Note: (c) Above photos by Brenda.