Part of an 8 x 10" watercolor in progress

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Henry David Thoreau

Bending over this watercolor, I found myself getting lost in the minute details as I picked up an Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencil (dark sepia 175) and commenced scumbling tiny areas here and there about the desert sand and in the rocky butte in back. As I tinkered, I recalled the moment last July while in Colorado that I picked up one of my Blackwing Matte pencils and began scumbling on the enormous boulder I had been rendering in watercolor in one of my sketchbooks.

Small study from my Colorado sketchbook

On both of those occasions the same thought floated through my consciousness--"Is this really necessary? Do these minute pencil marks really affect the outcome of the overall composition and general look of this painting?" I don't know the answer to that. But a story passed on to me over fifty years ago still comes to the surface when I wonder about such minutiae:

I was told that Michelangelo, while working in his studio, was visited by a patron who admired the sculpture he was chiseling. The artist, looking at it, uttered that it still wasn't finished. When the patron asked what on earth still had to be done to it, Michelangelo pointed out a few refinements he still wished to address. The patron snorted: "Trifles!" Michelangelo's response: "Maybe so, but trifles lead to perfection, and perfection is no trifle."

It's a good story, but I suppose it isn't the point of why I'm doing the scumbling just now. All I can say is this: while working on a piece of art, these moments come when I peer into one small area and work minutely in that tiny space, and when that happens, time truly elides. I cannot tell if I'm working for minutes or hours. I don't desire food or company or any kind of external stimuli; I just love staring at a small portion of my overall composition and allowing myself to get swallowed up in that moment of creative eros. I'm probably trifling, but I truly enjoy it. I feel I've entered the zone. Often I think that mechanics who truly enjoy working on machines sometimes get lost in time while assembling, adjusting, disassembling, and tinkering. They love working with their hands and love seeing what's taking shape before their eyes and under their working hands. That is how I am when making art and feeling that the world around me is alright.

Thanks for reading.

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