The New Year has begun and so have weekly sessions of life drawing. Drawing a live model is one of the most energizing ways to invigorate a drawing practice.

Yes, I'm primarily a painter, but drawing forms the bones of most of my paintings. Drawing live models ensures I maintain fast eye-hand coordination.

Each class begins with ten two-minute poses. These warm-up exercises loosen up the hands and eyes, and train us to get the basic form drawn quickly.

Once we've gone through those poses (and taken a ten minute coffee/tea break) we draw ten-minute poses. The sketch shown here is from a ten-minute pose. The model, seen on the left side of the photo, is resting between poses.

Often my best drawings are done quickly, before I've gotten too involved with the outcome or concerned with how well I'm doing. Maybe the Ten-Minute Revolution is more pervasive than I'd thought. We really can get a lot done ten minutes at a time.

The idea of going out on a limb was never before so clear as when I saw these Palm trees growing on the lawn of a home in Honolulu.

Wow! What courage these trees portray! Can you imagine the strength it took for them to first grow parallel to the ground before deciding to turn up toward the sky?

Most palm trees start out reaching for the sun. I wonder what made these two trees grow differently (the tree in the middle is also supported because it too grew horizontally).

Yes, I anthropomorphize, but I feel a kinship to these trees and a deep sense of appreciation for the homeowners who took it upon themselves to lend support to these beauties.

There are times in all of our lives when we feel the need for support. Sometimes that means financial support, but more often than not what we crave is emotional support. We want to know our efforts are worthwhile; our lives are meaningful.

Here is a close-up of the supports for the palm tree on the left.

When we need support, it is important to ask for it, and to be clear as to what kind of support we seek.

When we see others in need of support, let's first be honest with ourselves to be certain we can be of support, and then, when we can, lend a hand to those in need. We will all benefit.

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.

Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.

One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.

The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source

and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young

what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

Please permit me to add that the Arts teach these things to ALL of us at ALL ages. We are never too old to learn new tricks.

You might wonder what a mermaid could possibly lament, but if, like many women, you enjoy a new pair of shoes, this painting is self-explanatory.

The Mermaid's Lament celebrates whimsy, light-hearted fun, and perhaps a moment of sadness or regret ... one we can live with.

While we all have something in life we could "grouse about", why would we? Complaining rarely changes our situation for the better, and often makes us feel worse.

Instead, let's decide to look for the best life has to offer, no matter what our circumstances seem to be. 

Appearances can be deceiving. Artist and illustrator Rene Magritte once said, "Everything we see hides another thing."

What would this mermaid be without her tail but another woman with red high heels?

We don't really need another one of those, do we?

Let's all celebrate our own circumstances, no matter what they may be.