Another one of my favorite reminders about how brief and ephemeral are our lives.
An imperative to savor every moment.
“Our life is like a flash of lightning
in the dark of night,
rushing by like a torrent
down a steep mountainside.”
This has always been one of my favorite verses for morning calligraphy practice.
A way of starting the day with a gentle reminder – setting the intention – to be present in every
moment and enjoy the amazing and sometimes perplexing gift of being alive.
This is the first time I’ve tried doing calligraphy on canvas. I had some old
pieces lying around collecting dust so I thought I’d see what happens – I left the canvas untreated to help bring
out texture. I used walnut ink, which is essentially watercolor, so I knew the canvas wouldn’t take the ink
consistently. This created an interesting, improvisational texture that I had very little control over.
This texture was enhanced when rain blew in from the open window and started to smudge the carefully written lettering.
Since there wasn’t much I could do in the moment, and I liked the result of the rain, I enhanced the
effect with watercolor paint.
