Forgotten Things

During the sorting through and throwing out or putting away that I was doing today, I came across some forgotten things.  There's nothing unusual in that, of course, I do it all the time.  But this was odd in a couple of ways.

First, I was going through a bin that had mostly crazy quilt things.  There were the expected silky, shimmery fabrics, silk ribbons, velvet and embossed ribbons, glittery beads, and laces, but there were also those items that didn't fit the category and must have been tossed in that bin by accident or sheer weariness (you know, the I'm-too-tired-to-think-so-I'll-just-put-it-here-and-sort-it-later syndrome).  I found the odd button that might have come off shirts or old coat, a shopping list crumpled at the bottom, a folder with notes on a book, and a really shabby looking drawing pad.  As you can tell, those are the items that you simply glance at and throw away.  

Except . . .  I didn't recognize the drawing pad so I gathered it had to be old, but for once I didn't merely chuck it though I did come close.  It was pretty dog-eared and the entire pad looked as though it had been put through a wringer so I nearly did just toss it away.  Yet for once, I stopped and thought about what I was doing so I glanced through the pad and saw nothing.  Into the wastebasket it went.  

Later in the day, I happened to see it again (okay, I knocked the wastebasket over) and remembered that I had thumbed through the pad starting from the back.  I plucked it out of the trash, opened the front cover and found -

Three pencil drawings from 2005.  The one above is a view of the lake, but from the west side looking south.  It shows two boat houses just down the lake from the cottage where we stayed in those days.  I remember drawing this the summer that E painted a lovely watercolor of the same scene which I now have hanging in my family room.  It's much prettier in color without those splotches.  I would have been sitting down right on the edge of the property - probably sitting on the rocks with my legs dangling almost in the water.

The second drawing is the same boat as in the first but obviously from a different angle.  And I remember it was the angles that intrigued me.  This one I worked on from the hillside looking almost directly down on the lake. Again, I must have been sitting as it would have been difficult holding the pad and drawing without something to lean on.

The final drawing is from the same property but looking north up the lake.  There is the boat house belonging to the neighbor right next door to us north side and farther on in the drawing are the steps to the lake from the next cottage beyond.  

None of these drawings have been the subject of any of my paintings.  D and I were both still working, and the idea of painting some day hadn't entered my thoughts at all.  And I had forgotten these three . . .

Isn't it odd that I never tied the second two subjects down in any way?  They appear to be floating; they aren't grounded at all.   It's only the first one that included any indication of lake and the mountains behind. Strange.  

Oh well, they served as exercises in perspective then and as memories of the lake now.  They were fun to come across.