Simply Sunday - Drawing Hand Signs

Drawing hand signs, morning light, Illustrate Your Week, and more!

"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” — Barbara Kingsolver

Good morning and happy Sunday. First, a thank you. I think a lot about what goes into your email versus what I post as a standalone on the substack, about who you are, what you are interested in, and why you follow me. Bottom line is that I am grateful. I may be full of doubt and may always be hoping something shifts to make this sustainable as things crumble, but in the end, I am grateful. Thank you for giving me a bit of your time.

I really appreciate those of you who have left comments, shared quotes, or let me know that you use and value some of the resources I share here, through the podcast, or at Instagram. In a world where it often seems that everyone is trying to do and say the same thing, it makes such a difference to know that the content I am creating and sharing has meaning for you. That's what this is all about. There is always a reader on the other side of this imagined space, and I've always told myself that even one is enough.

I wrote several pieces for today, each of them too much and too long. I've put some pieces off to the side for now, and I've rearranged what’s left so that my curmudgeonly moment doesn't end up at the top even though that's where it belongs in the flow of words. Structuring and restructuring is an ongoing process. I have been cutting up words and essays and notes for years and sliding them into new order, new sequence, and looking for peaceful flow.

Some of the things I considered including in my Sunday mailing this week:

• A small list of functional things I use all the time right now and love (from blotter paper to a rainbow water bottle)

• A sidestep about "flying by the seat of one's pants"

• A follow-up to the airplane icon example from last week

• A series of photos from this week's morning sessions that show how different things can look morning to morning or even minute to minute

• A link to an old podcast where I talked about visualizing (or not)

• A list of reasons why I think you should keep an illustrated journal

• Five things that happened this week that should go into my journal but that got pushed to the side (I'm thinking about how my approach has changed and how to realign)

• My experience with a new social media app and the world of aesthetic everything

• Thoughts on the inner critic and my audacity in thinking I have a book

I was thinking about all of those things. But it would be a huge morning mailing. (By the way, if you read in the app, I think it's more enjoyable.) I wrote out several of the things in that list. At least one of them is important in terms of the book development. But then I sidestepped and wrote about sign language and a simple prompt from this week. Several things listed are included today, but from the list above, I wonder what you would have been interested in reading?

This week:

• A hand sign prompt in the illustrated journal (+ "live long and prosper")

• Illustrate Your Week 16 prompts

• Morning Stories for April 9-15

• A few morning photos of the subtleties of changing light

• Thoughts on being a curmudgeon (or how Notes made me feel)

In last week’s prompt set post, I mentioned how much I enjoyed drawing this “elf boy” portrait. He makes me smile. Your pages should make you smile!

Hand Sign — Live Long and Prosper

One of the prompts this past week (Illustrate Your Week 15) was "hand sign." That was in the mix because of National ASL Day. In the last year or so, I've found that I really enjoy drawing hands making letters from the sign language alphabet. Like coffee mugs, hands have always been one of the things I suggest people draw when they say they have nothing to draw. You can draw a coffee mug over and over (even the same one), and it will always be a different experience. The same is true with hands.

Hands are always a challenge for me, but there is something about them that I really like. I probably could have done 100 days of hands and enjoyed it. Glance down at your hands, right now. What are they doing? Focus on just one hand. Is it holding something? Is it curled in a fist? Is it relaxed? Flex it just a bit one way or another, just a micromovement. Freeze that. It's another view. Twist, turn, shift, close, open, stretch, one finger, two, three. Your hands offer infinite variety and inspiration.

Hands always surprise me because they take more space than I expect to make them balance. My scale is always a bit off. I might start a drawing and then realize that the fingers need to be much longer. Sometimes I have to add to them multiple times as I refine the placement of the different fingers in relation to the rest of the hand. I frequently choose portraits with a hand, often curled under the chin. I find these challenging, but I am drawn to them. Some weeks, I snap a photo of my hand in a few positions and draw it. I find myself more and more enamored with drawing hands and fingers. Similarly, drawing individual sign language letters has become something I often include on my pages, like the simple “OK” in the page below.

With "hand sign" as a prompt, last week, I thought I would draw a sign language "word." That proved to be much more difficult than I expected. Most ASL words are not static. They require movement. Something is in motion. Online, there are many videos that demonstrate words, but it was difficult to find static photos. I almost scratched the idea. It was one of the final prompts I hadn't done (and I don't worry if I don't do them all). I thought about spelling out a word again. (I did "p-o-e-t" recently and “o-k” another time.) But I only had a scrap of space on the page that I wanted to fill, and I wasn't sure I was up to a series of three or more hands.

I wanted to do “word,” but it seemed complicated. I considered “name,” which tied in with another prompt. I settled on a sign I saw in a list of beginner signs. It requires two hand positions. First, you tap your forehead with your fingers and then you draw your hand away, making a "y" shape, palm facing you. I snapped photos of myself doing these two things and penciled them in. While I worked on the drawing, I marveled, again, at the world of ASL. I remember years ago when I was determined to learn ASL. I wanted so badly to be able to sign. Then, when my boys were little, baby sign was popular, and we tried. We used a number of signs. I don't remember them now, although the signs for "more" and “milk” definitely come to mind. I am sure the boys have no idea we ever did that. I learned the alphabet in 4th grade (and never forgot it), but I never learned to sign.

Looking at the photos of my hands (as I drew them), I was reminded of the increasing stiffness in my joints. When I made the signs, some fingers didn't bend as fully or flatly as the videos show. I thought of my childhood fascination with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. I thought, in a sideways leap, of the prospect of learning Braille, of my fear of losing sight, of a recent eye visit, and how I put things off. One thought so often leads to the next while we draw.

The "hand sign" prompt was a slim little thing in the list for Week 15. You might have even interpreted it as "hand gesture" and thought of something very different. (I love that prompts can go many different ways!) I knew from the beginning that I wanted to draw something in the context of ASL because of the observance. In this moment though, I'm rather wishing I had thought to do Spock and the classic "V" with the fingers, "live long and prosper." Now that that has come to mind, I think I have to draw this. I stopped and tried to make the hand sign, one of those things we don't forget, and I found that one of my hands can do it and one can't. Maybe I'll snap a photo and draw it before posting this — or else as part of next week’s pages. That sounds like a lot of fun. Feel free to draw Spock (or just the hand) yourself, too.

A simple prompt. It can take you in so many directions. The dichotomy for me is always that there are so many words that could go with the simple drawing the prompt inspires. A lot gets lost or elided in the process of drawing, and while a picture may be worth a 1000 words, my drawing of the two hand symbols for "why" doesn't convey or record any of this story or, in truth, the fact that I ultimately (even I can’t believe it) forgot what word I'd drawn. (This resulted in some really panicked and frustrated searching. I even recorded it wrongly in my journal and deleted the source photo I'd snapped that might have helped me retrace my steps.) That the sign needed a "head" behind it (for the forehead tapping) meant that I “sort of” got myself in the scene. I decided that glimpse was enough to count as my weekly self-portrait. Had I realized I was going to do that, I would have turned the page and given myself more room, but it’s all good. I fill space. That’s basically what I do. And filling space with drawings of hands, however simple or wonky or skewed makes me happy, feels mindful, and helps me balance.

We make so many decisions every time we draw or write in our illustrated journals. And each decision can go myriad different ways. This flexibility can be freeing, but it can also be overwhelming. I try to not overthink it. I draw something and then move on to the next space or drawing and find a way to fit it in. On some level, you just have to tune it all out, pick a path, and carry on. But now, we all need to draw the live long and prosper sign, right? I haven't thought of that (or watched "Star Trek") in years.

This is what I love about writing…. Only in writing do I find the strands, however small and thin and fading, of memory. If I write enough, will things that matter from all the years gone by start to reappear, little shoots and weeds popping up in the field that always looks, at first glance, to be empty? Can I trigger a superbloom? Maybe. Or maybe I'll just find that my memory is really just a field of pop culture references, clichés, adages, synonyms, and Farmer's Almanac wisdom that has shaped my life.

Write for Life Read-Along

As a reminder, my notes on Week 2 of Write for Life are live.

Morning Light

Watching the shifting light, passing clouds, and changing color through this wedge of view in the morning is proving to be endlessly fascinating. Every day is different even when “similar,” and some mornings, things change in a matter of minutes. See how the outline of the houses in the distance is barely there at the beginning and completely gone in the final picture, a few minutes later?

The three images below show a bright morning (the most magical light), the white light of a dense foggy morning, and today, evenly gray. All of these images were snapped this week from my chair at the table.

Morning Stories

My “Morning Stories” (posted daily at Instagram) for this week are compiled on one page here.

Illustrate Your Week — Week 16

The new prompts for Week 16 have been posted.

Always a Bit Out of Sync

My experience this week with both the new Notes feature on Substack and trying a new social media app reinforced for me that I'm far from sparkly and shiny. I want to write and connect, but I don't want to jockey for position. I don't want to elbow my way through a crowded space. I don’t, really, want to call attention to myself. This week reminded me, yet again, how unavoidable some of this is.

I've gotten jaded and frayed around the edges through the years. Tarnished might be a good word for it, and I know that if I think about art and journaling and writing as a race, I immediately shut down. I don't win races. I can't catch up. I seem to be on the wrong path half the time. I lack whatever strand of charisma it takes to reach and hold an audience. I'm not exciting. I rarely leave the house. I'm not good at parties. I'm not even invited to parties. I never even managed to find another mom to hang out with at the playground all those years ago. I was writing a book in my head at that time, too, one from the outside looking in at all those playdates unfolding on red gingham table cloths spread in the grass. Today, I'm a curmudgeon. I don't even sit in grass.

Stopping to look more closely at these statements, I wonder….

• If I think about this as a race, I immediately shut down. (True.)

• I don't win races. (I used to win races. But not in the last twenty years.)

• I can't catch up. (I always seem to be late to the party? I always take the scenic route? I don't take shortcuts?)

• I seem to be on the wrong path half the time. (Perpetually. Do I have the wrong map? Did I miss the road sign, the turnoff, the memo?)

• I'm not good at parties. (Historically true.)

• I'm not even invited to parties. (True.)

Ironically, most of these statements are ones I take comfort in. When it comes to my art and writing, I prefer the scenic route. I don't want to race or run. I want to meander, skip, play hopscotch when the mood strikes me. Ever since someone gave me the phrase birdwalk, I have lived and embodied it. It is a metaphor and a framework, one I hold close about how I think, how I write, how I string words and stories and fragments together. Metaphorically, I prefer the off-road, the winding path, the impenetrable forest. (In real life, all of those things would scare me. I don't like to be even slightly lost.)

I didn't plan to write about this today, but Notes left me feeling anxious this week, anxious and discouraged. I have been feeling uncharacteristically hopeful since starting to wallpaper my space here with weekly musings, fragments of morning poetry, and the ongoing Illustrate Your Week project. I’ve been feeling hopeful on the page and excited about the proliferation of words and ideas and the forward movement on projects related to writing “about” Illustrate Your Week and the illustrated journaling process. I’ve become super attached to this “podcast on a page” version of me and my writing. I don’t want to lose that energy and optimism. I’m hashing things out with my inner critic. Sometimes, I need to just keep my fingers in my ears and go on doing my thing.

Miscellany

• Thinking about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, I looked at two collections of photos held by Perkins School for the Blind. There are some stunning photos in both the Helen Keller Childhood, Early Adult and Anne Sullivan albums.

• An old (2021) episode of the Creativity Matters Podcast about drawing stick figures. (I think it relates to the icon practice.)

Question

What are you most looking forward to, anticipating, or even dreading this week in your list of things “to do”?

Enjoy your Sunday!

Amy