George

Pencil study of George from this week's life drawing. On my way home, I saw her whiz by on her motorcycle with her surfboard, no helmet and smoking a cigarette...

"Hashing"—Run #931

In May 1977 the “Bali Hash House Harriers” was born and since then people have been running or walking through the muddy rice terraced countryside and jungles near Ubud, Bali. Every Saturday afternoon following a trail designated by small piles of shredded paper, often in remote areas of this beautiful island, 200+ people head out on this crazy short or long trek.

An hour and half later we all return hot, sweaty and muddy to the starting point where there are presentations, singing and lots of beer drinking. Some say they are runners who like to drink and others say they are drinkers who like to run. Being our first “hash” we were called “virgins” and required to chug a beer or the Hash Master would pour it on our head. I managed to avoid both.

After the hash, run #931—mud, singing and lots of beer.

Balancing act

I had to sketch fast to capture this one and then quickly splashed in color after they were long gone down the beach path. I could not believe this cute little dog was comfortably sitting on this 2' x 2' wooden platform attached to back of this guys bike. What a good dog—anjing bagus!

Our home away from home

View from my desk in the spare room we have turned into an office/studio. Tile rooftops nestled amongst the lush tropical jungle of palm trees and hundreds of other deciduous and flowering trees and plants.

We are in the back of a three villa complex. It's a lovely garden walkway to get to ours. The tenant in the second villa has two small dogs that my little cat enjoys visiting. Which means she just stares down at them from the high garden wall. Drives them crazy!

SPF what?

Quick watercolor sketches of some bathing beauties at the beach. Wow, check out "the girls" on these girls! I don't know how people do it, but they are all out there roasting in the glaring sun—hello, it's the equator. I think you can actually get tan in the shade here.

A cat named mouse

This is my little 3lb cat named Tikus, which is the word for mouse in Indonesian. She is probably the only cat in Bali who is spayed, gets shots and meds from Dr Kadek who makes house calls on her motorbike and sleeps in AC all day long.

Most evenings are spent cleaning up after a day of sleeping. She will be with us until we leave in January and then she will go back in her rice cooker box and take that 1/2 ride on the motorbike back to Umales with Uul. I think she's really Uul's cat and he thinks she's mine. Hmmmmmmm.

Life drawing class

I have a style and it is fairly illustrative. It's just who I am. However, in today's life drawing class we had assignments which took me out of my comfort zone and away from my old friends pen and ink.

This one I had to create the form with shading and to try not use too many lines. Damn, look at all those lines.

For this assignment we had to first use chalk to establish the negative areas and then add lines and shading with charcoal. I made the biggest mess! Blue chalk and charcoal everywhere and then look at that pitiful drawing...

I'm back home now with my friends pen and ink.

Our villa entrance

Bali is filled with statues from very small to quite large and imposing. Many are wrapped with a black and white checked "Poleng cloth" which signifies mutual dualism that makes up the world. Two opposite things that depend on each other to exist, such as day and night, dry and rainy seasons, bitter and sweet and black and white. The Balinese believe that the balance of this mutual dualism will bring prosperity and peacefulness to mankind.

I love this stone statue that greets me whenever I enter our villa. I think it might be Buddha, but I am not sure. I always give it a friendly pat with my hand as I walk by.

Woven Voices~Messages from the Heart

My good friend Sarah Haskell is an artist who specializes in weaving. One of her recent projects is Woven Voices~ Messages from the heart. It is an interactive global art project inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, Shinto paper prayers and the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

People send positive messages of hope and renewal, dreams, wishes or prayers written on paper or cloth. These messages will be read aloud in a public place and then woven into brightly colored prayer flags. the flags are then sent back to those who sent messages. The hand woven flags will hang outside in communities around the world to fade, unravel and release the message of hope, peace and renewal.

She gave me three flags to bring to Bali. They are now hanging from a Frangipani tree here in Sanur.

It's pretty cool! Check it out.

http://www.wovenvoices.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wovenvoices

Hot, tired and glowing in Bali

It took me 36 hours to get from Maine to Bali. The bus to Boston and flight to JFK were easy peasy lemon squeezy. Even the 6 hours to Vancouver was okay. It was not full and I stretched out a bit. The guy next to me popped a hand-full of Ambien, put on his eye shades and he was gone. It was the totally full 14 hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong that was the killer, except for "Ambien guy" who woke up ate some noodles popped another hand-full of Ambien and was out until Hong Kong. I watched movies drifted up and down the aisle and managed the above sketch. Did I mentioned that my lower back started hurting before I even left Portland...

I finally got to Hong Kong and fell asleep at the gate. Luckily the 4 hours to Bali was not full and I managed to sleep a bit more. Arriving in Bali where it is 100° and humid has made my jet-lag even harder to overcome. So I have been glowing and lazily drifting around the villa for the past week. Maybe tomorrow I will do a little more...