The Doldrums!

 Along about mid-January

and on through most of February, I usually find myself in the doldrums.  Doldrums. That's a great word.  It's an old maritime expression that I remember finding in a pirate story when I was quite young.

         *  Doldrums: an equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean with calms, sudden storms, and light unpredictable winds *

The stock market hijacked the word to mean "a period of inactivity" but I prefer the old version used by sailors.  At any rate, I think I'm in the Doldrums, the calm between the storms of inspiration.  And so, I let my thoughts run to the sea, where I'm always renewed.

We go to the beach a couple times a year,

and one of my favorite things to do is

"Beach Squiggles." 

Squiggle! Now there's another good word.  I commandeered the word and the activity from a Kindergarten teacher who used to give her charges a sheet of paper with a line, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, straight or curved, and tell them to make a picture incorporating that line.  You could almost hear those 5-year-old wheels turning as imaginations fired.  What wonderful creations! 

Part of my travel accoutrements,

paraphernalia, 

trappings

odds and ends,

 is a small travel palette with pan colors, a few brushes and a 4x6 watercolor block.  First, I make a squiggle and then I paint, quickly, almost automatically, just having fun,

  I think, often, the hardest part of a painting is making that first mark on the paper or canvas.  It's almost like how when you get a new car, it always seems to run better after it gets that first ding. After I make that first mark it's easier to paint. 

"Beach Chairs" above is one such Squiggle.  Just after I drew a pencil line (look closely, you can see it) across the upper third of the paper, people came and put two chairs down in the sand in front of me.  I painted them in with a small brush, and when I got inside, I drew around them with a fine point pen. I like this simple little picture.  It makes me happy.

And there was a little boy wrestling with a float that kept trying to get away from him. It dashed and danced on the surf like it was a living thing and he held on like a character from Hemmingway.

A small girl shaking sand off a towel that threatens to wrap itself around her as if to protect her from the elements, far, far away from the midwinter doldrums.

Beach Squiggles!

Hope you enjoy them!

Carole