Leave art in the heart

Hi everyone,

Finally summer weather started here when autumn, arrived so I’ve been busy in the garden instead of writing my blog!

In the past few weeks the world has become strangely surreal - countries attacking each other for reasons which seem odd to me, innocent people in many places becoming victims. Fear of violence, fear of invasion, fear of shortages , fear of what might happen next. And most of it caused by the hands of a few “powerful” male egos. I began to think about those people and wondered whether they had any hobbies- or do they just spend their time planning wars and killings?

I know that both Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler were watercolour painters! So I set out, with the help of AI, to find out what the current batch of world leaders do in their leisure time.

And that was interesting....

Mr Trump says golf is his passion.

Mr Netanyahu lists smoking cigars and reading history books.

Mr Putin claims karate, hunting, fishing and horse riding (with occasional photo shoots in manly poses).

Kim Jong Un indulges in action video movies , cigarettes and , strangely, also horse riding.

Mr Xi Jinping reads history books.

None of them list any kind of creative activity! No one admits to being a furtive knitter, or writing poetry or baking cupcakes.

Hmm. This really got me thinking ...

Take the “art“ out of “heart “and you’re left with “he”- is that some kind of message?

Anyway, all of that depressing stuff aside, I read an interesting article last week about the importance of art in everyone's life- whether as stress relief or just relaxation. And only today I read that sketching and keeping a journal is a recommended high blood pressure treatment! So there you have it, if they all would only take up sketching the world would be a much more peaceful place. I’ve been having fun, treating myself to an online sketchbook design course, which has given me lots of good ideas - watch this space for a future workshop. And I’m well on the way with planning the drawing workshop for later in the year.

By the time you read this , my beautiful new website should be up and running , so please visit and see what I’m up to: www.janthomsonart.com.

In the meantime, please keep on creating, sharing your love of what you create with others. Anything lovely , including kindness, is so important at the moment to keep people realising that most of us are peaceful human beings who would rather just get on with each other.

Let’s leave art in the heart.

Jan

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