Zen Drawing of an Angel

Sometimes, an object speaks to you in a way you simply can’t ignore. During a quiet moment in the beautiful garden of my Airbnb, surrounded by birds and trees, my eyes kept returning to a small angel candle-holder on the table in front of me. I had planned to draw some of the flowers—but the angel kept asking for my attention: “Draw me.”

So I did.

Zen drawing as a starting point

As always with Zen Drawing, I started with a blind contour line. I followed the outlines slowly, carefully, without looking at the paper. What emerged was a fragile, childlike figure—not quite boy, not quite girl. The face felt young from one angle, older from another. The wings needed adjusting, and the part where the candle was attached felt a bit clunky—but the feeling was right. I wanted to add a sense of angelic innocence and vulnerability to the drawing.

Drawing what you see

The light filtered through the trees, casting shifting shadows. What I saw kept changing as the light and leaves moved. It became impossible to create a drawing that truly resembled the ever-changing candle-holder in front of me. So I had to let go of the result and simply draw what I saw in that moment. That’s what Zen Drawing is really about: drawing with attention, not perfection.

In the middle of all this concentration, a squirrel kept stealing the show. It jumped through the branches like it was doing acrobatics just for me. I had to pause my drawing more than once to watch the performance—totally worth it.

Although the angel was made of clay, I didn’t want to draw it as just an object. I wanted to capture it as if it were alive—like it could stand up and fly off the paper at any moment. That’s the feeling I tried to express.

From distraction to inspiration

The squirrel that kept distracting me that afternoon—raiding the bird feeder like it owned the place—ended up being more than just a playful presence. I snapped a quick photo, and later that year, it became the reference for one of the watercolor exercises in my book Watercolor in Simpele Stappen.

So while the angel made it onto the page on my sketchbook that day, the squirrel found its way into my book.