writing

Autumn is the time to gather ideas for winter creativity

| Patricia

“The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In countries like Canada, the winter can be an inhospitable environment for plein air artists and writers who take inspiration from nature.

Whether you hike on a forest trail, walk to the local park or snap pics of colour in your own backyard, now is the time to collect images to use through the winter as inspiration for making art.

You may choose to take your paints on your hike and create colour studies en plein air (en plein air is a French expression that means in the open air or outdoors, to describe the act of painting outside on location.)

Images can be colour corrected on your computer or tablet and reflected on to a large tv screen, as inspiration, on days when the icy winds are blowing in January. Writers can also find that images work as inspiration for writing a verse or describing a scene.

How do you like to work during the long, cold winter months? Do you brave the temperatures and go out on location, perhaps finding a sunny spot out of the wind, or do you prefer to work with photographs or rough sketches captured in your travelling sketchbook? Or both? Do you have an unusual process that others might try? Please leave a comment. Thank you for reading.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright © of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

What will YOU do with YOUR 168 hours?

| Patricia

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

What if one week, 168 hours, was all that was left of your life. What would you do differently than you are doing now? Are there amends you would make with estranged family or friends?

Would you spend it hiking a well-worn trail through an old-growth forest? Compose an opus for the generations, paint a masterpiece or write a biography of your life and times? Would you teach a language or craft to underprivileged youth, or perhaps volunteer to work in a food bank?

Much has been written about the impermanence of life. Love ballads, songs of sorrow for missing times and people. Grand epics, from The Lord of the Rings to Asimov’s Robot series; Shakespeare’s Othello to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

The saying “youth is wasted on the young” may be true in the respect that we have no foreknowledge of the impermanence of life when we are becoming who we are, whether it is who we are ‘meant’ to be or who we become as a consequence of our life experiences.

Jot your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.


All artwork and creative writing is Copyright © of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.



Modern Technology: A Not So New Paradigm for Creating Art

| Patricia

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Modern Art 2022

I resisted creating digital art for a long time. I was wrestling with whether it was ‘real’ art if actual materials were not used. For example: paint (acrylic, gouache, watercolour), pastels (soft and oil), graphite, coloured pencils, as well as other materials.

Although I still mostly work in analogue art (click links to see a couple examples: link, link, link), as arthritis worsens in my hands and arms, I might work digitally. At times creating concepts to be reproduced later with brush, paint and other materials.

I created this 2022 screenshot of some of the devices I utilized (iMac not pictured) to try out concepts as well as to create fully digital works. Note: a flat-bed scanner is also a useful tool for incorporating analogue work.

Procreate is one of the applications I find most useful, along with Adobe Fresco and, for a time, the Affinity Suite of apps, though I have not used them since they added ai (artificial intelligence). Call me old-fashioned but I want my art to be my work and mine alone, not taken from other artists without their permission. I ran a design agency for many years and we took copyright issues seriously. Nothing has changed in my attitude to using work that is someone else’s, without payment and/or attribution.

Thanks for reading.
How do you like to work with new tools?

Leave a message in the comments.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright © of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

Strokes of Paint Define the Artist’s Story

| Patricia

“That a work of creation struggles and insistently demands to be brought into being is a fact that no genuine artist would think of denying.” ~    Dorothy L. Sayers, Author

What happens when a painter or writer or other creative person sits down to work?

Does she know what the end objective will be or is it an exploration into the unknown?

Does the sculptor look at the lump of clay before him and envision the finished work?

For me, in these later stages of my lifetime of creating art, I tend to sit down with materials spread around me, zero in on something that catches my eye or my imagination—a paint colour, a shape, a few words or a snippet of verse that pops into my head—and I begin. I try not to censor any idea at this point, allowing all zaps of inspiration to take their place in the beginning lineup of inspiration.

After all, what is there to lose? A bit of time? A few materials? For me, the experience is the thing, the equity, the purpose of the entire process of creating something that wasn’t there before I started.

The verse included in today’s post came all at once with only a few improvements made after the fact. I popped the text over a digital watercolour I painted months ago to create this piece.

What is your creative process? Please add your thoughts to the comment section.
Thank you for reading this post.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright © of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

The Night the Artist’s Tools Took Over the Studio

| Patricia

An Anthropomorphized Tale – After hours artist’s materials do their own thing.

The Artist had left the studio for the day. Her materials breathed a sigh of relief. Their workday was finally over and it was time to  play.  

The micron ink pens wiggled their way out of the package and rolled across the table toward the drawing pad. “What will it be tonight?” the .30mm asked. “How about a nice linear seascape” the rigger brush suggested. So it was that the ink pens sprung into action and sketched an outline of a simple linear landscape. First, drawing a rectangular box, wider than deep, then the outlines of rolling hills and striated clouds, along with a round orb hovering on the horizon. Standing back, hands on ‘hips’ they surveyed their work. “It’s a good start” an older stub of a graphite pencil said, balancing on his almost used-to-the-rim eraser. 

Next the watercolour box flipped open and the number six rigger brush jumped into action. First wetting its long hairs in a jar of water and then, rolling itself in a pan of colour, mixing up a warm teal and a light turquoise. The brush then deposited light layers of colour inside the inked-in lines. The painting tools finished up with some shading in the sea and sky sections and dabbed on a yellow-orange wash in the sun shape.  

Then the pens and brushes stepped back and admired their work. “Won’t the mistress be surprised in the morning” cooed one young liner in her high squeaky voice. “Hah, she will likely think she painted it and just forgot, the dolt” boomed the ancient, and well-used, 1” Aquarelle, to howls of laughter. ~ Patricia White (the dolt in question), July 5, 2026.

I hope you enjoyed this fanciful vision of art materials feeling the need to bust out of their servitude to the whims of the artist.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright © of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

The Great Orb

| Patricia

“As the great orb hovered above the land, it felt sadness. It was time to depart this place, this existence. To move on where others need its presence. “Peace be to all living beings who inhabit this space. May your way forward be a gentle journey.” ~ Patricia White

I often write a paragraph or two as a story idea reflecting my Daily Notes app sketch.

Above is an excerpt from the The Great Orb work-in-progress:

This Daily Drawing is part of a recent series of posts showing work that was created in the Apple Notes App (essentially a writing app) using just the basic drawing tools within the text-based app. The basic art is sometimes resized and enhanced in Procreate 5  on my 12.9” iPad Pro. Over the past year or so I have experimented with simple drawings made with these rudimentary drawing tools iPad Pro using a second-generation Apple Pencil as my sketching pencil, ink pen and paint brush. 

This drawing exercise has been an effort to show that all the bells and whistles contained in dedicated paint applications are not always needed to create interesting art. If you try the experiment of sketching in the Notes app with its in-app drawing tools, please post a link to your work in the comment section.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

Altered Ego: Daily Notes App Drawing

| Patricia

“There’s a mysterious alter ego in everyone. Some call it hallucination, some call it art.” Bhavik Sarkhedi, Author and Branding Expert

This Daily Drawing is part of a recent series of posts showing work that was created in the Apple Notes App (essentially a writing app) using just the basic drawing tools within the text-based app. The basic art is sometimes resized and enhanced in Procreate 5  on my 12.9” iPad Pro. Over the past year or so I have experimented with simple drawings made with these rudimentary drawing tools iPad Pro using a second-generation Apple Pencil as my sketching pencil, ink pen and paint brush. 

Altered Ego Notes Drawing June 18, 2025

I often write a paragraph or two story idea reflecting my daily Notes app sketch. Here is an excerpt from the Altered Ego work-in-progress story:

“She woke up feeling fuzzy-headed, one foot still in the sleep world and the other planted firmly on the floor beside her bed, feeling something heavy and oppressive commanding her thoughts. Thoughts that were still back in the realm of the sleeping, not quite connecting with the waking world.”


This exercise has been an effort to show that all the bells and whistles contained in dedicated paint applications are not always needed to create interesting art. If you try the experiment of sketching in the Notes app with its in-app drawing tools, please post a link to your work in the comment section.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

The eyes: windows into the soul

| Patricia

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes” ~ Marcel Proust


I have always loved drawing eyes. Eyes express the depth and disposition of their owners’ moods.

They bring portraits to life and express a range of emotions—fear, sadness, happiness, interest, anger, confusion. Here is a sampling of eyes drawn through the years.

More on the author of today’s quote: Marcel Proust (pronounced proost) is best known for his monumental seven-volume novel—À la recherche du temps perdu’ (In Search of Lost Time), also translated as `Remembrance of Things Past’.

This work is considered one of the greatest achievements in literature due to its intricate exploration of memory, time, love and society.

“Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.” Proust first and foremost wanted us to be grateful for our initial circumstances in life. He wanted us not to despair at how our life is but rather, to feel appreciative for what we have.

Links to more information:

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.

Somewhere There IS A Light: Apple NOTES APP Drawing

| Patricia

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” ~ Desmond Tutu

Some followers may know that I have been battling with debilitating osteo Arthritis for several years which has thrown a spanner into my art practice. On those days when I cannot work with analogue materials, I often draw on my iPad. This Daily Drawing is part of a recent series of posts showing work that was created in the Apple Notes App (essentially a writing app) using just the basic drawing tools offered within the text-based app. The basic art is sometimes imported into Procreate 5 on my 12.9” iPad Pro and enhanced. 

Over the past year or so I have experimented with simple drawings made with these rudimentary drawing tools iPad Pro using a second-generation Apple Pencil as my sketching pencil, ink pen and paint brush. This exercise has been an effort to show that all the bells and whistles contained in dedicated paint applications are not always needed to create something interesting where there was nothing before. This piece is one of a number of works created for use as a greeting card series (paired up with some of my poetry verse as the inside message.)

If you try this experiment, sketching in the Notes app with its in-app tools, please post a link to your work in the comment section.

All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.