"Soft Fascination"

I was in town for a bit today and wandered through Deering Oaks Park....a beautiful sanctuary in the city.

I learned about "soft fascination" today....when your attention is focused on things that are effortless and not overly stimulating often allowing you to reflect and ponder.  Soft fascination is most often associated with enjoying nature....and Paul and I do this all the time on the back patio.  

Just recently we have been watching 4 or 5 baby squirrels forge out of a few holes in a hollow tree. They dart in and out...chase each other up and down the tree then scurry back in to safety. We can sit there for a long time....just watching.

So you won't be surprised that the title of today's class assignment was "soft fascination" and we focused on trees. We worked in just black and white on brown paper taking all the pressure away about which colors to use.....it was just about the trees.

We were to find a good view of the trees and Tansy suggested an upstairs window.  But I didn't have to go farther than my backyard....I have a lovely view of trees right from the living room. 

I made a one inch grid on viewfinder using washi tape on a piece of plexiglass and taped it to my sliding glass door. I placed it at just the right height to see through it while sitting on a stool so I could complete the assignment. Our goal was to focus on the spaces between the branches and notice the layers of our view. 

In each vertical row of my grid I tried to focus on a different layer....the strong larger trunks, the skinny smaller trees and branches, the distant scruff and the pine branches that cut across horizontally. The translation from what I see to what I draw is generally a bit lacking....but I really enjoyed this "soft fascination" activity.