Practice

Whatever you do, practice a lot. Practice more, practice excessively and extensively, practice too much and then some. 

Let 'practice' be your mantra, your magic word unlocking the world of mastery.

Photo by Andre Iv on Unsplash

Sketching

Sketching badly is still better than not sketching at all.

Understanding art

Columbo: Could you explain this? 

Francine: Well you see, we don't explain art, I mean, that's just sort of something you feel. You see, you look at a picture or a piece of sculpture and that either does something for you or it doesn't, you know.

from Columbo, S4E5 Playback
Picture Source

Ulysses and the Sirens

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Waterhouse_-_Ulysses_and_the_Sirens_(1891).jpg

Zhang Daoling riding a tiger

Source

Jadeite Cabbage and Meat Stone

The Jadeite Cabbage

Insects - closeup

The Meat Stone

Information: 
Jadeite Cabbage in Wikipedia
Meat Stone in German Wikipedia

The deepest pit of the year

Today is 23 December - the deepest pit of the year. I'm remembering the stop it makes in the lowest point before swinging back in motion tomorrow. It's the day of death before rebirth.

There are nights...

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

~ George Carlin

Photo: Unsplash

There Was Once a Dog (Sirko)

Blue Moon - 31 July 2015

Teaching

Central Asian monk teaching East Asian monk. 9th century fresco from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves near Turfan, Xinjiang, China. 

Schweinerl in Stein by Alupus

Source

Nothing holy

廓然無聖 
Vast emptiness, nothing holy.
(Kakunen mushõ.) 

~ Bodhidharma

Source.

November

Feeding the swine with acorns for the winter
from "Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry"

Evening bell from mist-shrouded temple

Flowers and birds

Autumn warmth

Hedgehog in the Fog

Simplicity

And an old black woman
was dandling a baby and singing:
'If I were a pharaoh,
I'd buy myself two pears:
I'd give one to my friend,
and I'd eat the other one myself...'

From Alexandria Songs by Mikhail Kuzmin

А старая черная женщина
качала ребенка и пела:
"Если б я был фараоном,
купил бы я себе две груши:

одну бы отдал своему другу,

другую бы я сам скушал..."

Из "Александрийских песен" Михаила Кузмина

Ancient baking