I was using this vase of flowers to prop up my phone at the kitchen table, as I doodled pictures from past adventures. Leaning back to take a break (well, honestly to internally fuss that my husband was still using the computer when I wanted to blog), I noticed how pretty this simple arrangement was.
So I drew them with a pen and colored pencils. Ta da… That was nice.
Yellow Flowers, ink & colored pencil doodle
I see Rosie the Riveter and Handy Manny in my mind. I hear the theme song from Rocky in the background of my thoughts… we got this.
I am a champion.
I dash back and forth a few times, 5 in 1 screwdriver in hand, and head down the front stairs. My older children watch me in confusion, eating their messy ice cream bars that I absentmindedly allowed in the flurry of sweaty chaos.
My AC is broken. My handyman Dad is out of town. My husband is at a funeral. It is h.o.t.
I’ve seen it done. I can do it. I am woman. Hear me roar.
Maybe that’s taking it too far…but still. I fixed my AC.
In my work dress and chignon, I took off the side panel of the unit, exposing the blower motor, capacitor and wires. I see that the capacitor has burned up (and YES! I even know what a capacitor DOES! Go team me!).
With my dad on the phone, we confirm the need to get a new capacitor. With the help of neighbors watching my kids, I’m able to pop off to the edges of downtown Birmingham, take my little self into the Washer & Refrigeration Supply Co., ask for and purchase a 5 microfarad capacitor for $10. Oh yeah.
I zip home in a jiffy and plug that sucker in. Voila! We have air flow.
I floated along in an internal cloud of success for quite a few hours that afternoon. I, Mary Liz Ingram, repaired my AC.
Washer & Refrigeration, 7×7 ink, colored pencil & pastel pencil on card
Me: “We’re going to a thrift shop.”
My 5-year-old son, very serious as he rubs his nose: “Where it’s $50 for a t-shirt?”
So… while he can quote it, my tiny boy seems to have missed the message in Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” We were about to change that.
The one rule for our outing: You must find something awesome.
Let the adventure begin.
First treasure goes to mom: awesome yellow sunglasses. 39 cents.
Yellow Sunglasses, Ink & Colored Pencil Doodle
We tour the facility, finding golf clubs, E.T., piles upon piles of unwanted, outdated, almost unusable items such as cassette tapes, VHS tapes, gigantic TVs, broken vacuums, horrible coffee cups. Our tiniest thrift shopper was ecstatic over the baby toys which littered the warehouse. It was a junk wonderland ready for our perusal…perfect for a rainy day.
Bright plastic shades, blue hats, orange carts…pops of color found amongst the faded, cracking grays and browns of dust-covered discards.
It hangs above an old dresser, painted white and made like new.
A backdrop of light lilac, softens and surrounds its frame.
The mirror has seen life come, on the wall when life was new:
A third-time mother waited, and filled the dresser drawers,
day-dreaming in the mirror, wistful eyes on her stomach.
A new infant lay below, tucked into tiny diapers,
little hands by the mirror, ready to grow and become.
A baby sat up laughing, and kissing her reflection,
while the mother took photos, of the mirror full of smiles.
Now the baby toddles in, holding onto mother’s hand,
bedtime on another night, the mirror bathed in evening.
Time goes by in the mirror, and the mother soaks it in.
The Mirror, pastel sketch on card
So I’ve had quite a few days on my own with the kids. I congratulate myself for successfully ending each day with everyone happy and whole by treating myself to a dessert or (oftentimes and) a glass of white wine. After a day of many doings, the house is always very quiet. All my little peeps are asleep, and it’s just me and the cat (my Dad might say, correcting my grammar, “The cat’s not mean.” But I think “me and the cat” sounds more fun than “the cat and I,” and on here I can write how I want. So there.).
It’s quiet. And a little boring.
So here’s a jaunty little poem to describe and illustrate the odd things that may or may not occur on such an evening:
Twas the night with just mommy, the toys put away, successfully living to the end of this day
The children were snuggled up tight in their beds, as visions of Scooby Doo danced in their heads
I on the couch in my pjs at 8:00, settled in with a blanket and dessert on a plate
I’d puttered about like a little old granny, and hummed and muttered and sat on my fanny
I had been in the kitchen preparing my snack, and was struck by a thought as sharp as a smack
I was making odd noises in a sort of narration, excited by donuts, a cause for elation
When it hit me that in this sad humorous scene, I sounded a lot like the man Mr. Bean
Well the noises stopped there, and I went to the couch, I tried to sit up instead of assuming the slouch
“I’m a 31 year old woman,” I said in my head, and though I may not want to go paint the town red
I can hang onto my dignity and hold my head high, then I ate my three donuts without even a sigh.
Toasted Donuts, ink sketch
I label myself as “Mary Liz Ingram: Pastel Artist and Instructor.” You can read that on this site, on Twitter, Facebook, in my bio. I create “Pieces of the South”: cotton bolls, hay bales, cows, pigs, donkeys, you name it.
But I haven’t been drawing with my pastels very much lately. And I haven’t been drawing cotton or pigs. If you keep up with my blog, you might notice lots of ink doodles, graphite sketches and watercolors of my children.
In business, I believe you go for it, you work hard, you do what needs to be done. When beginning my art career, I drew and sold lots of sheep pastels. Sometimes I wanted to draw something else, but I needed to make a name for myself and I needed to “increase the funds,” if you get my drift. So I drew more sheep – lovely, puffy little fellows.
In art, and in life, I believe you need to follow your inspirations. I am now in a place (hooray!) in which I don’t have to push myself as hard to promote and sell my art (thank you world!). I can “chase wild hares,” as my mother might say; I can follow inspiration without asking to where it leads.
As a mother of three, who thankfully gets to spend time with my children in tandem with my day job, I collect moments and experiences that scream to be drawn. I see so much art in my children: in their expressive, clear blue eyes; in their little hands with dimpled knuckles; in their creative mischievousness and busy minds. I’m sure my Facebook friends tire of the barrage of pictures I throw at them; some of the photos I am lucky enough to take are so artistically beautiful and touching to me, I want to share them with others.
There is something so deeply magical about the innocence, freedom and creativity of a child. It touches all our hearts in one way or another. So I follow my inspirations.
Front Yard Baseball, ink doodle
First Corn on the Cob, ink doodle
Silly Girl, ink doodle
More of my art inspired by my children (just to choose a few…)
“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”
-Francis Bacon
*Free, yet thoughtful, Christmas presents (as well as wedding, birthday, baby, anniversary, and, ahem, any presents…)
*An excuse for any quirks or eccentricities, aka being weird
*A ready excuse for wearing odd or mismatched clothes, or for having embarrassingly shabby fingernails
*Having a creative storehouse at your (dirty) fingertips
Another fabulous perk to being an artist is that if you are at your daughter’s ballet recital, and your phone (yes, I didn’t bring a camera) is unable to take photos due to the lighting, you can doodle your way to preserving memories.
I sat down at my kitchen table the Sunday evening after her glorious “Under the Sea” ballet performance and doodled a few of my favorite ballet moments:
The little 3-year-old “beach-goer” who frolicked around the stage, refusing to follow the plan:
Scamper, Ink Doodle
The sweet little ballerinas dressed and accessorized to be “jellyfish,” with tentacled umbrellas:
Jellyfish, Ink Doodle
The sound of a few tiny footsteps brings me out of softly nestled dreams into the awareness of morning. It’s 6:45 on Sunday, and I open my sleepy eyes to a beaming, messy-haired and snaggle-toothed 7-year-old, who greets me with a whispered “Happy Mother’s Day Mom!”
She holds a tray, taken off one of our nesting tables, set with her own well-intentioned version of breakfast:
Her Batman-footie-clad little brother comes pattering in soon after, with a handful of stickers and drawings especially for me. They also picked out all the yellow tubes of various paints from their own art kit, since yellow is my favorite color.
As I ate my – ahem – delicious breakfast, being eagerly watched by little expectant faces, I felt grateful for every too-sweet, soggy bite.
Later in the morning, I followed a white rabbit down the Google trail, discovering art techniques and artists previously unknown. A Danish artist from the turn of the 20th century captured my interest, with his “Sunshine and Silent Rooms.” Peter Ilsted, along with several of his contemporaries, created paintings and prints of clean, sunlit rooms with calm, still figures…very beautiful, very peaceful, very quiet. The pieces were so calming, I couldn’t help but pause. It was as if the only sound to be heard was the rhythmic ticking of a clock on an unhurried day; snapshots of ordinary places, ordinary moments, yet full of beauty and grace.
Inspired by the tranquility of Ilsted’s work, I sat down in my own quiet, sunlit room and sketched my two older children, who were quietly playing with a few small toys at the coffee table. While drawing their busy little hands, my daughter’s crossed feet, my son’s little nose, I felt so grateful for the ability to absorb each detail in this every-day moment, and so happy to be a mom on this Mother’s Day.
Sunshine and Quiet Play, graphite sketch
“How wonderful life is while you’re in the world” -Elton John
You can learn a lot of things from the flowers, for especially in the month of June. There’s a wealth of happiness and romance, all in the golden afternoon. …
-Alice in Wonderland
Honeysuckle Vine, Ink and Pastel Pencil sketch on paper
A quiet Saturday in May, we decided to take a stroll through the neighborhood. Our boy on his bike, Spiderman helmet secured; our eldest first trying out her roller skates, then after squeals and crashes, switching to her bike, sans training wheels; the baby in her stroller until Mommy’s hip sounded like such a better place to ride; Daddy helping the cyclists-in-training.
A song floated into my mind on the tails of the honeysuckle vine, and I slowly spun and danced down the street singing it to my giggling dimpled baby girl, as the big kids successfully pedaled home. I noticed a neighbor on a porch mid-(not-so-graceful)- spin and, I’m sure, badly sung version of the Alice in Wonderland tune, but I shrugged off any embarrassment and continued our freely twirling walk home, experiencing for a moment that pure, open and innocent enjoyment of all the good things in life.
Art desk scrubbed, pastels ready, paper cut, charcoal in hand, reference propped at just the right angle…
Deep, contemplative breath in, nervous exhale as I prepare to begin another portrait.
Grasping for my inner creative, I look at the photo reference, with the jet black backdrop behind this cute chubby baby, and I try to envision the finished product. I used to aim to be a camera: copy the image as exactly as possible. With some experience and years of art behind me, this is no longer my goal. I now try to take an image and “make it sing,” however that translates on paper.
Baby Boy, 11×14 preliminary sketch
I sketch out the sweet little boy; feel pretty good about feature placement. Now it’s time for the dreaded background. In my mind’s eye, I see a light, wispy something or other, which is not much help. Instead of agonizing over it, I just jump in.
Working on a deadline, I don’t have time to mess around.
The joy of being back at my art desk after a few busy weeks, mixed with determination to get the portrait finished, ended up surprising me with yet another evolution of my art.
I’ve found over the years, that even though you are creating art with your own hand, your own head and your own heart, the results can sometimes surprise you. Though you may have drawn something in the same way many, many times, all of a sudden the finished product is something unexpectedly and delightfully different.
With this portrait, I unknowingly used a lighter, looser hand, less defined edges, and worked the color and texture of my pastel card into the painting. I was (thankfully) quite happy with this new result, and am very glad that the new owners are as well!
Baby Boy, 11×14 pastel on card
I'm a self-taught pastel & watercolor artist and instructor, raised and based in Birmingham, Alabama. I constantly collect stories and pieces of the world around me, turning them into works of art. Inspired by nature, I love to share what I've learned and build connections and community. I invite you to browse and join my site. I hope you find something that inspires you!
Voted one of Birmingham's Best Local Artists 2013, Birmingham News & al.com
Featured in Birmingham Magazine, March 2018
Visit the Commissions page on the top menu to find out more about my pastel & watercolor portraits. Portraits are drawn from photographs in a timely manner with the highest quality materials to ensure they will be enjoyed for generations!
Thanks for visiting my site! I am an awarded pastel artist and instructor based in Birmingham, Alabama. A self-taught artist, I have been working with pastels for over 6 years, selling in shops, galleries, shows and by commission. I teach pastel workshops for adults, and love to help emerging artists on their journey into the art community.
