a bunch o' challenges

I loved Nina Johansson's "week drawings", so I decided to give it a try. I started at the end of last week using EDM challenges to fill the page.

Check out how old that mustard is—YIKES!

Olympic sketching continues...

I am continue to watch and sketch the Olympics and I am so in awe of these amazing athletes. I sometimes find myself just staring at the television as I watch the events. So many times the sketching stops and I have to finish the next day. All these sketches are combinations of the athletes doing the sports. I added features to try to make them look more like the individuals.

Shawn White—Halfpipe and Snowboard Cross.

Lindsay Vonn in Downhill win.

Apollo Ohno in short track relay.

I have started to do these on cheap watercolor paper that I have cut up in small (about 5X7) sizes. I am throwing so many away that using a journal just doesn't make sense.

What will I do when the Olympics are over...

More Olympic moments

Once again watching the Olympics, drawing with a pencil and a BIG eraser then correcting and coloring the next day. This is from Tuesday nights Women's Snowboard Cross. I guess this sketch is suppose to be Lindsey Jacobellis, but it is a combination of all the boarders.

Lots of interviews with the beautiful Lindsay Vonn. Pencil in small Moleskine watercolor journal. I was going to add watercolor but liked the pencil lines. Maybe later I will add color. What do you think?

Another pencil sketch of Lindsay Vonn adding color with colored pencils in Handbook journal.

EDM #261—an olympic event

I was watching television last night trying to sketch the Men's Downhill for this challenge. These are small (done in a small Moleskine watercolor sketchbook). I used pencil to draw because I kept having to erase—THEY GO SO FAST!!! I added the USA uniform, color and corrected body positioning today.

Valentines Day

The Aftermath—I finally succumbed to the call of the dark chocolate. I ate three and when my back was turned so did Sophie. She managed to get up on the coffee table, unwrap and eat several out of the candy dish before I caught her. She is a good dog that does bad things!

24 years of "The Valentine Phantom"—The earliest known occurrence of this phenomena was 1976 in Portland, Maine. Every year since, Portland awakens to red hearts taped to all the windows throughout the city on Valentine's Day morning. This Sunday when Sophie and I took our morning walk, all the local shops were once again plastered with red hearts.

Happy Valentines Day

I bought these Hershey kisses to create a Valentines Day post for my best friend who is in Bali. Surprisingly, my willpower is winning and I haven't had one...yet...

Winter Studies

We are too far north for the recent snowstorms, so there is not much snow left here on the coast of Maine. The landscape is shades of browns and grays along with cold blue water and the temperatures are even colder, especially with the wind. On a walk, I snapped a few photos and came home to paint.

Winter study #1

Winter Study #2

Winter Study #3

A week in Paris

Winter in Paris

I'm off to Paris for a week, so I will be sketching around the city while Jerry attends a World Seafood Summit. Being January, the weather looks to be not unlike Maine—cold, rainy and even a bit of snow. There may be a lot of cafe sketching, but it's Paris!

The above sketch was done late last night from a photo I found on the internet before I packed my paints and sketchbooks.

Au Revior

Mail Me Art 2

The cold and snow of winter in Maine has kept me inside so I decided to enter the Mail Me Art Two project with an envelope I found laying around in the office. Rangda, the "Black Magic Woman" of Balinese mythology was my subject with her outrageous costume, long tangled hair and those great hands. It's going in the mail today.

Jacqueline upside down

I recently visited Joanne's Journey into Art and read her post about working upside down and saw her amazing watercolor painted with the reference image upside down. I had also seen the talented Andrea Joseph do this exercise. My curiosity finally got the best of me. So last night as the rain pelted against the windows I sat in front of the fire and tried it. I turned an old black and white photo of my mom circa the 1940's and quickly sketched with a pencil on a cream colored textured paper. It actually looks like her (and a little like Betty Crocker). Great fun exercise that I will continue to explore.

Little town in the mountains

We took a hike in the mountains of Bedugul Bali and had to walk through this little cluster of houses to get to the trail. A traditional Balinese neighborhood close to the village overlooking the lake. We heard that the house on the point was for sale—real cheap and Jerry got it in his mind that we should buy it—What?

Of course, once we did the research we found that you had to buy a larger parcel of land than originally stated. The land was all terraced and planted with vegetables, accessible by a stone stairway that leads to the lake. As we were looking out over the lake a woman came by with a huge basket on her head and dumped it down the stairs. We then found out that that is where the entire neighborhood dumped their garbage and if we wanted that to stop we would have to deal with officials and find an alternative dumping ground. We have subsequently moved on...

New Bali cat update

Before we left, my newest Bali cat recovered from her operation and finished her meds. She started to feel like her old self which meant her wild side showed. She would spend much of the day as close to us as possible, but that meant our other cat was at risk. I realized that she would have to go back to the Bonsai Cafe where she has lived most of her life. She has food, shelter and lots of human contact, but now she will not have litter after litter of unwanted kittens.

Her last night at the villa, I let her sleep curled up at my feet. In the morning, she got a can of Friskies, I put her back in the totebag and in the basket for the 3 mile bicycle ride back to the Bonsai Cafe. At the cafe, I let her out and she scampered off never looking back. She is back where I first found her, sleeping on one of the chairs at the cafe, curled up in the eaves of the thatched roof or having some food from the kitchen or at one of the tables on the beach. I will check on her when I go back.

A dark and stormy night

It started to snow last night and continued through most of today. The city is now blanketed with 12 inches of fresh snow. Last night, I sat at the dining room table in front of the fire watching the snow and messing around with pens, paint and crayons.

I don't love snow or actually this painting much. Both are a bit of a mess!

It's cold here

We are back in Maine and on top of serious jet-lag we are seriously cold! It was 6° the other morning. I am having a bit of a time trying to find my creative muse in my new surroundings. My palette of colors for sketching is quite different here. Gone are all the rich greens and bright warm tropical colors and back to wintery blues, browns and grays.

From our deck we can see the sun come up over the Casco Bay, so I can sneak in a bit of orange. This is a very quick sketch looking east yesterday morning.

EDM #253 Draw your socks. Now that we are back in Maine I have dug out the hats, gloves and boots. Digging through the sock drawer I found these fleece socks. I curled up in front of the fire with Sophie and sketched these.

Sampai jumpa Bali

I put out my last offerings this morning. I doubled up on the incense enjoying the floral smell that fills the air in Bali. I have devised a way to make daily offerings in the US with a little help from my Bali friends. So, very soon my offerings will be perched on a snow bank.

Sampai jumpa Bali

Bali—"Island of the gods"

We were taking a hike with a friend in Bedugul, Bali and we stopped at four temples nestled in the mountains, connected by a trail, deep in the jungle. I pondered and then asked "how many temples do you think there are in Bali?" Of course, the answer in hundreds of thousands. Bali has more temples than houses as every house shrine is actually a temple. From large sacred temples to the smallest temples or shrines they are everywhere. It is why Bali is called "island of the gods".

This walled-in temple is at the end of our street at the mouth of an estuary. A little rundown and overgrown, but quite beautiful in the early morning light. Everyday I see people placing offerings at the statue in the center under the umbrellas.

This small temple is at the base of a waterfall in Bedugul. In amongst dense vegetation there is a small statue with two old weathered umbrellas.

Canang sari

A few weeks ago we had our priest/friend Pak Astika and his wife Made come to the villa to perform a purification ceremony to banish the evil spirits that were hanging around. This was done with offerings which are a small square palm leaf basket filled with flowers and other goodies, a stick of incense is then lighted to allow the offerings to float up to the gods.

I needed to get the five elements for the ceremony—fire (incense), water (new), flowers, fruit and rice. So off I went to see my friend Suni at "So Clean Laundry". She does 35 offerings a day so I knew she would be able to help. She went to the local market and the next day I picked up incense (everyday and special) and the lovely smelling special full moon flowers. The rest I had. That night Astika and Made presented 7 offerings at strategic (most holy and/or important) points around the villa.

Statue outside our bedroom in the garden with the canang sari (offering).

Since then I have been doing four offerings a day. I get on my bike and ride to see my new friend Ilu who makes and sells the canang sari. I enjoy the act of placing them, lighting the incense and thinking about the spiritual aspect of thanking the forces of the invisible world for their gifts to our human society. It is peaceful.

One Cat, Two Cat, Old Cat, New Cat—Part 1

Kuging manja (spoiled cat). My first Bali cat brought to the villa last April by our friend Uul to take care of our mouse problem. I had her spayed two days later when a herd of tomcats were pacing the walls checking out the cute new young girl in town. A bit of a “cranky fur pants” she has her moments of being loving and sweet, but it’s on her terms.

Kucing baru (new cat). I found this cat at a Bonsai Café on the beach. With all four paws she was standing on the edge of a garbage can eating. She came by our table later for handouts. I asked who she belonged to and everyone shrugged their shoulders and said “the café”. I fretted about her for several days. Two days ago I jumped on my bike road three miles to the beach, put her in a totebag and then in the basket on my bike and road back three miles to the vet to have her spayed. She is upstairs recovering, eating canned food and drinking Evian water. She is very sweet and loves attention. Because of her scrappy life, her fur is a bit of a mess and she doesn’t have all her teeth.

She needs a name.

Kucing malas (lazy cat). We named our tiny mouser Tikus, but we now call her Howard. She has this Howard Hughes cleaning phobia. Spending an inordinate amount of time cleaning after a day of sleeping. So far she has caught one mouse and was quite pleased with herself so she just fell asleep at the scene of the kill basking in her glory.

Kucing Baru (new cat). Managed to climb up into the ceiling rafters, over the AC unit and slide down the wall onto Jerry’s desk and computer. So much for recovering from surgery and isolating hissing cats. Now they stare at each other through the glass doors. She has put on weight, her fur is getting smooth and she is settling in to her new life—JACKPOT!

One Cat, Two Cat, Old Cat, New Cat—Part 2

Kucing manja (spoiled cat). Before a day of sleeping and cleaning she insisted that Maria, our housekeeper, hold her while she swept.

Kucing Baru (new cat). Unbeknownst to Howard she slept on the couch in the living room this afternoon.