Illustration Friday’s prompt this week was “parade.”  I doodled this while messing around with ink on my preccccciouuuuus hot-pressed watercolor paper.  Please do use your best Gollum voice when saying precious.  Thank you.

Interpret the drawing as you will, of course.  What I felt when I was drawing…

(Excuse me.  May I interrupt?  No this is not “what I felt when I was drawing…”  This is me interrupting myself.  Let me just tell you that sometimes when I’m writing, I type out a few words and  “…s”, then I go back and fill in the spaces of thoughts later.  What I did just now, for that last sentence, was this:

agitation…inspiration… desire to change the conversation…  I’d like to rain on the parade.

Hello, lyrics.  Can someone please write a song or a rap or something with those, please?  Thank you.

You know what…  No.  Not a rap.)

 Where was I?  The drawing.  I was thinking about motherhood, and I was drawing women, feminine doodles, apple tree buds.  Again–motherhood!  Motherhood, motherhood, motherhood!  I cannot escape this theme, it invades everything I create.  So, when I did half-heartedly consider the “parade” prompt, it was a parade of women–mothers.  This is the lineup.  The same old story, the same old labels, the same old conversations: good, bad, working, at-home-ing, TV, food, ballet, soccer, blah, blah, blah.  God, it bores me. 

It’s like a parade.  I’m easily amused.  Not easily impressed, but so very easily amused.  I love the floats, I love the bands.  I tolerate the politicians, I wave to the candy-throwers.  But after a while, the floats and bands and floats and bands all get a little repetitive.  Maybe this explains my embarrassing crush on the Wacky Wheeler, or why I love the stilt people so much.  They change the conversation.  The parade would be nothing without bands and floats, of course.  Likewise, this parade of mommy conversation requires that we discuss issues of feminism and child care.  I just have a few things to add.  I want to talk about the creative potential of motherhood.  I want to talk about inspiration and creativity and fulfillment and leadership and activism and contribution.  I want to start a movement, Dammick!

I’m not asking to be the Wacky Wheeler.  Maybe that’s just a stupid (and impertinent) analogy.  Maybe I just like to say Wacky Wheeler.

Maybe I just want to change the conversation.

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week was Fleeting. 

That pissed me off.  Why?  Because everything pissed me off the past couple of days.  I blamed it on the moon, but in truth, I was just being a miserable ol’ wretch who needed some breathing space.  Inhale, Exhale, is all.  Ah.  That’s better! 

So today was scheduled “me” day.  (Always a nice Hercules knee-jerk reaction to my occasional–yes, occasional!–crabby phases.)  My agenda was: 1. browse antique store for hankies.  2.  hit fiber store to touch wooly stuff.  3.  sit next to a river and be enlightened, Siddharta-style.  4.  doodle and paint with ink on new (expensive) piece of hot-pressed watercolor paper (the main event!).  5.  Wal-Mart (cringe) for Easter candy.

I could not find my new paper.  This made me cry and throw things.  I inhaled, exhaled, and grabbed sketch paper instead. 

I made it, without incident, to number 4 on my agenda.  (Enter crazy lady in van down by the river talking to self.)  Doodle.  Play.  Fleeting.  Ugh.  I hate creativity prompts.  As if I can’t come up with a theme on my own!  Fight the system!  But I couldn’t stop thinking the word.  Fleeting.

Just before I left, Hercules had learned that his uncle had passed away.  Fleeting was heavy on my mind.  Old, decaying leaves blew past me, and my mind was dark, morbid, and what’s-the-point-everything-dies-and-I-can’t-find-my-new-paper.  But I drew anyway, and in the mindfulness of drawing, with the birds and the leaves and the water rushing past me, my thoughts resolved.  “Fleeting” evolved, in this drawing, from a depressing impermanence to an enlightening, cyclical transience.

This, too, shall pass, floated around in my head, weightless and subtle.  I contemplated the fleeting nature of the seasons–darkness to light, death to life.  It was only later that I realized how timely a  thought this was, the day before Easter.  And so, despite myself, I cheered up (dammiCK.), and braced myself for a last-minute Wal-Mart Easter candy run.

Yeah, I know.  Medusa is myth, not legend.  But the line between the two is so blurry, we can just pretend that this applies, right?  Last Friday’s IF prompt was “Legend.”  I stretched it to “myth,” because I have been wanting to do some studies on Medusa, and I needed an excuse. 

Medusa has intrigued me for some time.  I generally blame it on my dark side, but, in truth, it stems to a Laser Tag game played over a decade ago.  I chose “Medusa” for my laser-tag-alter-ego name, and proceeded to Kick.  Major. Laser. Butt.  I still have the scoresheet that clearly shows “Medusa” far, far, far outranking “Hercules.”  Yep.  That Hercules.

Lately, I’ve been reading Medusa’s story.  It’s quite a story (as myths are, I suppose): Athena discovers Medusa in the temple with Poseidon, and turns Medusa into a terrible monster (Bitch!  Honestly, is there any blame for the male, here?).  Medusa’s gorgeous hair is transformed into snakes, and her beautiful face becomes so hideous that a glance at it turns you to stone, even when it is detatched from her body.  Perseus gets to carry it around and use it as a weapon after he chops it off.  Nice.

Pen and ink on an old book cover, sort of getting cheesy with the idea of  “story…”  Gedddddit?