Lessons from My Ostrich

Draw close then back off, and see the whole picture.

I have been at it again.   This drawing thing has drawn me in !  And I find myself so engaged that time flies and things get left undone.

An awful lot of concentration goes into preparing the matrix of a drawing.
Draw rub out, draw rub out and so on until some semblance of sense comes out of it all.  Then comes the rub – chuckle, sorry, full of puns today !! – to create something presentable and colourful that gives me a sense of achievement, and something pleasant to look at and to glee over.
Not every drawing turns out that way.  There are some that don’t get the desired effect,  they stand out as ‘lessons-learnt’ in my art journal – with perhaps a quote to distract from the flop !

But one fruitful lesson learnt came from the Ostrich, a peculiar, but interesting bird. Seemingly easy to draw in its simplicity until you get to the mouth and the eyes.  These  are always a challenge for me.

I had deeply engaged with the Ostrich until in exhausted frustration I tossed him aside, to take a walk.   As I passed him by, I threw him a sorry look.   That is when he popped out at me !  I saw him from a distance, I saw him as a whole, I saw him as quite beautiful in his peculiarity, and I saw where  I had to make adjustments  to make him more presentable.

My Ostrich taught me a lesson in drawing – draw close, then back off and see the whole picture.   And isn’t that too, the way we see some people.   We look to intently at them and see their peculiarities, their faults, inefficiencies, even uglinesses,  but when we back off  – from our judgemental notions and ever-ready criticism  – we may see them differently.   Viewed from a distance, as a whole in a bigger setting, they become acceptable, and sometimes their silly faces can even make one smile surreptitiously !

My Ostrich is not a perfect image of the reference I used to draw him from.   But then who of us are the perfect image of the original intention of our Creator ?  We’re all less beautiful than we should be, a little distorted even dysfunctional and in no way perfect, but we are accepted and loved nevertheless in the Beloved.

 

My Ostrich, may not be a master-piece, more a piece of the master !   But to me he is just fine, not perfect but acceptable in his ugliness – and his silly face does makes me smile.  But you be the judge.

My Ostrich and I have spent a lot of time together, rubbed off of each other you might say ! –  but the important life-lesson,  read more  reminded me of the wise words found in  Matthew 7:1

    Judge not, that you be not judged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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