Ravings of a Mad Feverish Woman

I'm that mad, feverish woman. I'm in bed with a fever, feeling as though someone has put a vice grip on my head about the ears. It also feels as though they are standing on my chest. You get the idea, today is not a day of exertion for me.

Now a little story...the other day while driving in the rain I noticed a puddle on the side of the road. Maintaining safety above all things, I stopped looking at it and continued driving home. Since I've been lying in bed, unable to get much rest, I keep thinking about that puddle, how beautiful it was, what a common, universal image a puddle is. So then I started thinking about how I would try and convey that. A puddle is such a simple, common thing, it ought to be able to be portrayed effectively in a brief way. Examples in graphite immediately jump to mind. But, I wanted to try and think about how I would do it in pen and ink. What would it take to convey those little concentric circles for raindrops? How smooth could you make the surface appear, apart from the ripples? What about reflected tree shadows?

So I took up pen and paper and had a go. I instantly was confronted with questions...what is the outside edge of a puddle like? how do the circles move out from a droplet of rain? do they get farther apart? etc? All questions that I felt my math and physics classes in college discussed, but apparently are too far back in the "rolodex" to come forward anymore.

Here's the attempt:

Not very satsifying, but an interesting start.

Monday I will make my 100th post! It will be a good time to review my goals from the year and look at what's ahead.