A Magical Sighthound in the Imaginary Garden

I was drawing this watercolour with my friends in mind; they have sighthounds and I adore those dogs. One friend has Saluki, and another one has a racing bred Afghan hound which means less hair and more muscles and temperament, simply put. However, the dog in the picture looks more like a greyhound which is okay as it is a sighthound, too.

I wanted to make the picture look somewhat medieval in style, and I tried to remember all the paintings, miniatures and tapestries I have seen which were relevant. This is magical dog in the imaginary garden, as you can see, and I wanted the garden to be as full of beautiful things as possible.



This was my first attempt after a long while. Basically, I wanted to remember how to do it. Of course the picture is not as it was planned, as I am still very clumsy after many years of not drawing and painting, but I enjoyed the process immensely. Now I have some other projects in mind, and I think it will be easier technically.

I Am a Greedy Person and Do Not Like to Share

( In a Lamplit Dream - a giclee print by ruralpearl on Etsy)

At this time of the year, blogs and other types of media are full of motivational articles, New Year resolutions, findings and conclusions from the year past and plans for the new year. I have read a lot of posts by my friends and some posts by other people; there were some fascinating and smart texts and some really boring ones. People have new hopes and plans or want to have them and try to develop or invent them.

For some reason, I do not have the slightest urge to share a summary of the year or plans for the next one. In my case, that would be very artificial and unnatural. I do not write plans; I live as if I were swimming in a river. I guess for many people it might sound horrible, but I feel very comfortable that way. I do have my plans and goals, but it is not a table or bullet points; it is like floating apples or flowers in the water. It is a pleasure to swim to them and grab them, and it is fun, and I do not feel restrained or obliged to stick to the plans. I live and breathe and swim, enjoying the process.

In addition to that, I think that I am a very greedy person. I prefer not to share my most cherished memories and most important hopes, and I only share a limited information on my family. Sometimes I have the urge to show my beautiful dog or our beloved children, but there will not be a lot. Could it be that I do not feel safe enough? Or that is greed, indeed? 

I know that if you share your childhood memories generously, they will somehow fade; at least, for me this is so. They loose the scents and colours and sound, and become like old photographs. Telling about them might help retaining the factual data – who, when, where, what – but the flavour goes away. And I prefer to forget the date, but to keep the warm feeling somewhere deep in my chest. As for the current information on family, yes, I guess I have a deeply rooted feeling that talking too much about them is not good. In the Caucasus, there was a tradition not to talk much about the dearest ones; keeping all to yourselves, if we are to believe Fazil Iskander, a great Abkhazian writer.

So, you will hardly ever find any general motivational posts or plans and outcomes shared here. I can share something very specific, like my studies of Uzbek language, but not life concepts. I am just a swimmer, or maybe even less – a leaf in the stream - and I am content with that. Thank you for watching me.