Raindrops in the pond

Some blogs (ignoring those that are of no interest, or so infrequently posted that they are outside any idea of pattern) provide a constant torrent of information, stimulation, or head testing input; others deliver a package every few days or every now and then.

Then there are those where one is, in the very best sense, "waiting for the second shoe to fall"; PencilPad (see sidebar under "other voices, other eyes") is one of that sort. I've commented previously ("Magic in a smear of graphite") on my envy of the drawings themselves; this is now about the posting of them.

PencilPad posts are like single raindrops into a still pond, sending ripples of delight outwards until they reflect back on themselves, crisscross, gradually settle, then ... the pond is still again, until the next drop - and who knows when it will come.

I spend periods checking PencilPad every day. Nothing happens; the pond surface is still. Then the rush of the world distracts me, I forget to check for a day or two ... and discover, when I return, that a drop has fallen while I was away.

More than a month of stillness went by before "That last minute revision thing" on August 19^th. From August 20^th to August 27^th I went back to checking every day ... but on the 28^th a spatter of new academic year business broke my concentration. Returning this morning I thought it was too soon to expect anything, that my four days away wouldn't have mattered ... but, blow me down: there, posted on the 27^th, nine hours after my last check, was "Reader studies."

On an unrelated track (but sparked in my mind by this one and so I may as well include it) Julie Heyward remarked, yesterday, on the different levels of training and practice in different fields of artistic activity. I'm not sure that I entirely agree with her (surprise, surprise!) about assigned levels or loci of requirement, nor of result, but the disparity certainly exists ... and drawing is certainly an area which benefits from constant practice. The observational sketches on PencilPad are only a sampling from a larger ongoing practice of which I often wish to see more ... but then, I would lose the expectation – and the experience of each post as an unexpected grace.