Matthew Laurence February Sketchbook

This is my contribution to Andrea Hendrickson's sketchbook titled "I hear it in the deep heart’s core".

It is a collaboration of my 3 year old daughter Naomi, 6 year old son A.J., and a sketch my me. 

I started a drawing on the right with the shadowed figures and while taking a break, my daughter decided to add to it, so in going with the flow I decided to let my son play as well.

Hope you enjoy-

My Singapore

Marina Bay Sands, the Singapore Flyer, rooftop bars, and skyscrapers don't do much for me. But turning a corner in Joo Chiat and seeing a friendly row of candy colored shophouses makes me grateful. "My Singapore" is those quaint, hidden pockets of art and charm and elegance. I love 'em.

What's Brewing in Becky's Book

I initially intended to design some homebrew labels for my sketchbook. As a family, we're embarking on a lot of "brewing", and I had visions of clever faux-beer names that reflect the idea-percolating (and good microbrew sipping) that takes place in our quiet evenings.

As I doodled, and as we mused as a family, I realized that a lot of our mental "brewing" comes from two things in our lives: An old, about-to-fall-down barn and our ties to a third generation pear orchard. As people that have lived away from the homestead for over a decade, it's hard for us to sort out what we'll someday do or where we'll someday land or how we'll raise our completely unrooted son. So, we dream and we scheme. The dreams get large and unwieldy--tentacles all over the place of what might happen.

Returning to the sketchbook,  I took two beer mats and turned them into doors. If you flip them over, there's some embarrassing scribbles in there of what might become of the Green ranch or the 100-year-old barn. Looming over it all is our octopus of too-many-thoughts...it's a beast that is as stressful as it is liberating...and maybe someday we'll figure out what it's pointing to.

Treasuring where I live

Anybody who knows me well will know that I'm a tea fiend.  I sip a different cuppa depending on my mood.  At home, when the mood is blissed contentment, when I'm loving life and I'm in the moment, that flavour is a full-bodied orange pekoe (I cart a year's worth of it back from Canada every summer, and visitors bring me my favourite blend rather than items from duty-free).  I've been known to drink three to four pots of it a day.  If my mom, sister, grandmother or either of my mothers-in-law is with me, double that.  So here is a huge cup of that blend, and on the cup,  places & people that make my heart happy. The top two bands are Canada-related treasures from where we live - mostly because we're  at t-minus 24 days until these feet hit Canadian soil & Rebecca's theme immediately flooded me with visions of long summer days at the lake.  If it weren't for that, the bottom two bands, of Singapore places and the names of the kids whose laughter I hear on a daily basis at Mimosa, would be at the top  :)

Rhian's entry into Amy's reinvention journey

I am married to an amazing man, have two incredible sons, my father and brother are my role models. I was the first girl born into my family for what  (apparently) seemed like generations. After high school, I chose to pursue a degree in math & science and from there fell in love with the idea of teaching high school math: a heavily male-dominated subject area if ever there was one. I have, for most of my life and career, been outnumbered by the male of the species in most situations. As wonderful as all of the males in my life are or have been, as my own sons get older and require less from me, I find myself rediscovering the girly-side of me. Always there, just well hidden behind being "one-of-the-boys". I love Amy's theme of reinvention, as I feel am in a state of reinvention in my life right now. Working with a new team of fabulous women (and a couple of lovely chaps, too!), meeting new friends, having the types of new experiences that moving to a new city and job affords you, I am enjoying rediscovering my girlie side again; simple pleasures and joys not forgotten, just shelved for a while. Looking at my contribution to Amy's book I am reminded that I really need to find some art supplies….black pen and coloured pencils were all that were at hand J

pencil and pen

I pencil sketched over the weekend and came up with this. I had back surgery in January, and it has dominated just about every part of my life. The top half shows a frontal view of a spine, my doctor's eyes, my hospital bed, and the phrase "Goodnight, Mr. Joshua," the last thing I heard before going under the anaesthesia. The bottom half shows a spine from the side and lots of numbers. Some are the weight I've lost, some are my class periods, some are my vertebrae numbers. The spines in the top and bottom show the places where the vertebrae are fused by screws and rods, and I drew those in pen. --Josh