Looking back over the past 10 years

Next Friday will mark 10 years that I have been writing this blog. No one is more surprised than I, that I have kept at it for this long. It has been a very satisfying journey for me. Not every post has been a gem, but in nearly 1800 posts over the past 10 years I think a few stand out as favorites, either of mine or of those of you who have been reading. I decided to look back through the stats and pick out a few to share this week.

I was really, really surprised to learn which post, from all of them has been the most viewed and shared. It is one from 2009 about summer TV and doodling. Almost 20,000 people have viewed this post. I would never have picked this as a winner in a million years! Here it is again.

Monday, July 06, 2009

So you think you can doodle

My guilty summer pleasure is the TV show, "So You Think You Can Dance". It really is about the only thing worth watching on TV this summer, though I am catching "True Blood" on HBO and saw the first episode of "Hung" which looks promising, if a bit risque! I like the dance show because these kids really can dance! It is always entertaining and sometimes quite thrilling. The judges are good, say intelligent things, don't bicker among themselves; the choreography is interesting and creative and the choreographers talk about what they are doing, which I find fascinating.

While I watch, I doodle. I put my pen down during the actual dancing, but doodle while I listen to the talky part. I am continuing the doodle style I showed awhile back. Here are the latest.

I find I am now seeing patterns to doodle everywhere I go. Even peapods in the garden.

This one (above) is not a favorite. I think the center turned out looking like a little quilt with a ruffle around it—or molars around it.

Ray dubbed this one a "Martian fruit".

There is something really quite satisfying about working in black and white. I saw the Escher exhibit at the Portland Art Museum this month, and Escher's prints are really wonderful and graphic. A lot of the detail really reminded me of my doodles. And the rediscovery of my old prints has gotten me thinking a lot about the simple and not so simple process of working with only one color. I think the universe might be trying to tell me something.