sleeping Ayla sketch

Last night, I was lying in bed thinking about why I like  blogging.  I have always liked the idea of diaries and journals to document my life.  When I was a kid the diary with the lock and key and little lined pages never quite worked out because I was always more prone to drawing, sketching, and doodling than writing in words.  The pretty cloth-covered journals seemed equally enticing as I got older, but also lacked the visual element that I enjoy with blogging.  Also, blogging provides a virtual audience, much like my imaginary anonymous reader that I always had in my head while writing a Dear Diary entry, and thank you to all of you who do take the time to visit here.  Well, lately taking photos has been a great way for me to interpret my family's life, but my camera is dead. (I ordered a new one and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival!)
So, all these rambling thoughts led me to wanting to do a sketch.  I haven't been inspired to draw much more than a "Mama, can you draw me a frog with this green marker?" kind of drawing, since Camille was very little.  So, I hopped out of bed at midnight found a box with some old charcoal stubs, and pastels, and lovely art-y pencils and grabbed a piece of computer paper and sketched, what else?, my sleeping Ayla.  I'm quite pleased with it, though she shifted positions a couple times just to give me a good challenge :)

 When I went to dust off the scanner, hasn't been used in a year or so, I found this sweet fairy that Camille drew when I was pregnant with Ayla.

While unschooling my children and supporting their creativity, I sometimes forget to support my own desires to create something that is not "useful" in some manner.  My creativity these days has mostly been channeled into knitting, photographing, playing, cooking, and drawing green frogs.  It feels good to create something just for the sake of it.