Lotus flower paper cut.

I like this paper-cutting business. I like carving a rubber stamp even more, so it seems that every time I draw something it also has to be made into a stamp since I have discovered the technique.

I was recently looking at some artists' blogs and I admire the precision with which some of them work. For us amateurs 'quick and easy' seems to be the way, but although I am not really precise when I draw and paint, and am often disappointed by a smear from the back of my hand, or graphite smudges all over my page because I forget my hand rubs over the drawing, I am not interested in 'quick and easy'. If you are doing something for your enjoyment, why want to get it over with?

Still, the lotus flower was quick and easy to draw, cut out and I had read somewhere that you can enhance the edges of a cut-out with a color pencil. Well, that didn't work very well for me, so I had to color the whole paper-cut with a watercolor pencil. I just dotted the second page with the same design and voila. Quick and easy. 

Geen oliebollen maar tamales.

When I first moved out here I knew what burritos were, or at least I thought I did but I had no idea what tamales were. Those little packages of corn leaves, tied carefully at both ends that hold masa (corn meal slaked with lime) and filled with bits of beef, little strips of potato and an olive. There are as many variations as there are mothers and grandmothers, who make tamales in great batches for the holidays. I hand painted 18 plates, like the one you see above, all with different designs inspired by south western petroglyphs, when I first got here. In spite of the tamales, I miss my mother's oliebollen and appelflappen on new year's eve. 

Il Papiro, Firenze.

My journal from Florence is now, since I discovered it again, a great source of empty pages for me, that need to be filled. I have sometimes kept a journal but I never read them again. By the look of things, I don't think anyone will write my biography, and need notes to guide them. When I travel I do carry a notebook and sometimes jot down experiences, but more as a guide to my photos than anything else. 

I was recently asked if a blog was like a journal, but I don't see it that way. I write my blog for family and friends who often asked about my life in the United States. Funnily enough, I don't think many look at it, but now I have come to enjoy keeping a blog whether it gets looked at or not. Perhaps it has become a journal after all.

2010, long awaited.

 

Such stillness on this first morning of the new year. In a journal once bought in Florence and never used, I cut "2010 Born on a Blue Moon", because it was the second full moon in a month on new year's eve. Midnight moved on quietly. A few hisses of fireworks far in the distance and the howling and barking of the coyotes in the hills. There had been warnings on the radio that firing guns into the air is against the law. Very comforting. I wonder if people who do this actually know that what goes up, must come down. On the other hand, what goes down, must come up and so we fervently hope for the economy in 2010.

Sea Anemone.

I have to be careful not to accidently take a sip of the glass of orange water that stands in front of me and which I have used to clean my brush.

Today we had quite a little quake. It lasted a long time and everything that could rattle, rattled. I had read that animals sense an earthquake in advance but Athena clearly does not have that knack. She slept until we started to feel the house shaking and was as surprised as I was. She then sidled up to me, seeking protection, and I had to shoo her out the door because even though our earthquakes are never severe, I thought it might be better to be outside. The  5.8 magnitude earthquake's epicenter was 22 miles southeast of Calexico, in the Baja.

Mastercarve rubber stamp.

 

I had this big block of Mastercarve just waiting to be sliced into. I used a soft pencil and drew the design on paper, turned it over and, using a bone folder, transferred the drawing onto the Mastercarve. With a Speedball lino cutter I cut away the parts I did not want to print. It was surprisingly easy and the slicing and cutting very therapeutic and relaxing. With a very old ColorBox pigment stamp pad, which still worked very well (must be 10 years old), I quickly printed up some correspondence cards which I am now off to write and get into the letterbox before the mail lady comes by. Sharing is more than half the pleasure of making things.

I have 'ColorBox - various colors' on my shopping list for when I go into town this week because I know I will be making more stamps.

Hydrus.

Pen drawing using Dr. Ph. Martin's Hydrus watercolor.

Yupo.

Yupo is a synthetic watercolor paper. In fact, it's not paper. It's 100% polypropylene. I haven't done much watercolor painting ever but when I did do it, the wetting and stretching of the paper seemed a lot of work and even then my paintings bubbled. Yupo did what it promised and it was easy to work with and on. Worth a try if you are into watercolors.

Cactus.

Clearly can't get enough of posting large photos.

This weekend I received so many pictures of the snow in Europe that I thought I would show a Christmas picture from the Southwest. We are still at 21 degrees C during the day and oh my goodness, we are going down to 18 degrees on Wednesday.
I like living in a warm part of the world and then again, I don't. There is something about snow this time of the year providing you don't have to drive or walk in it.
Let me remember. No, this is definitely better.

My brother sent me this picture of a tropical bird in his garden in the Netherlands. It is quite amazing to see that whole flocks of these kinds of birds appear to have settled quite happily in wet and presently cold little Holland.

Rosettes.

I have not only been playing with photographs but have almost finished a rosette pillow made out of folded felt circles. This kind of work is called fabric sculpting, which is a really good description. I will be looking for more of this.

Mexico City.

The brightly-painted open-topped trajineras (barges) that trawl Mexico City's mysterious ancient canal system past "floating islands" (chinampas).
Having fun with this and using older pictures.

Monterey California.

I have just found out how to post larger images on my blog. The one below is a picture I took of a shed at the Botanical Gardens in Tucson. The photo above was taken from the pier in Monterey.

Shed.

Life is a serious business.

She laughs when she chases a ball, but other than that I have a very serious model. 

Rome.

It seems like a very long time ago that I worked in Italy. I have had some wonderful opportunities in my career to get to know other places better. You work on your assignment during the day, and in the evening you have to find a restaurant to eat and take your camera along. This was not such a good shot but I have been Photoshopping and added some purple, some pink and a vignette and I like the results. Got to start somewhere to learn. The picture was taken in Rome.

Guinea Fowl.

Nothing better than brewing a pot of tea, putting on some music and just coloring in a drawing. I drew the bird a while back and had been wanting to give it some color. I am working on a rather large project that requires  quite some drying time before I can move on and what better to do in the meantime than get a brush and some acrylics, the pot of tea and coloring away.

A great big melting pot.

 

I dream about this. Ripe, sweet figs.

Last spring I planted my third Mission fig tree and again during the summer I lost the tree. I am determined to try again. Though I must admit, I don't see a lot of fig trees around here, so I might be trying the impossible.

I must have tasted my first fig, picked from a tree in our garden, when I was about 5. That's when it all started and since then I am always looking for fresh figs. When I am unable find them, dried figs, but even better, fig jam will do as a replacement.

One of the best lunches in my life was when we took a boat in Istanbul to see the beautiful old houses on the waterfront of the Bosphorus. Towards midday the ferry docked in a small town of which I have forgotten the name. There we had to wait for several hours to take the same boat back to the city.

I found my way to a long line of women in front of the public toilets and I paid some money for a piece of paper which was very frugally handed out by a woman in a black caftan and scarf. I looked at the 2 sheets of paper that she gingerly had laid in the palm of my hand and hopefully looked up at her. It was clear that it was all I would get.

Walking down the main street we bought bread, grapes, olives, cheese and figs and we found a place on the banks overlooking the water to have our picnic. If you have never eaten fresh Turkish bread then you have missed something. The perfect combination of these simple foods and the luscious, ripe figs have left a lasting impression on me and added to my fig fascination.

When I was visiting my mother in Holland this fall I passed a Turkish grocery store and outside stood a basket with ripe figs. Soon the shop-owner and I were picking out the best and ripest fruits for my dessert that evening.

Holland has become a great big melting pot over the years and when I am there I much enjoy shopping a little at the Indonesian toko for my spices, and at the Turkish or Moroccan grocery stores for the things I cannot find in my area of the U.S.

Flat stitch embroidery.

 

 

 

 

Look what I found! It pays to tidy up the boxes tucked in the back of a cupboard. I made these little posies years ago. Little is the word, because they are each less than 2 inches big, flat stitched on tightly woven cotton seed bags.

I grew up surrounded by women with ever busy hands and so it was natural that I started doing the same at an early age. I learned a bit of everything but became the mistress of nothing. Still, I am glad I had a chance to learn so many different things.

It's so nice to see the returned interest in handmade things. I subscribe to many blogs written by (mainly) women who create by knitting, crocheting, sewing and many other techniques.

In a world where mass production leads the way, originality is hard to find except..................when something is made by hand.

Naturally, I embrace the new trend in handmade things. I have begun to notice that it's okay that something looks handmade. In fact, it should look handmade because it is. None of that perfectionism to emulate a mass produced item. Totally my cup of tea.

 

All these great items can be bought on Etsy, at SeeJaneKnitYarn, Sineminugur, TheRullofFabric, Boojiboo, TeaPartyHats, AshAshToys, Artwallah, Asherjasper and TheSittingTree.

 

Seed Pods.

Seed pods are always a grateful subject whether you are drawing, painting or making photos. Camilo, my gardener had finished the Autumn pruning of the trees in the garden and had put all the seed pods from one particular tree together in a bunch. The tree itself is not amazing in any way and is planted at the side of the house, where it can hardly be seen. It is on the south side where the sun blisters most of the day in the Summer and where a tree is most needed.

Camilo knows I like things like seed pods, broken egg shells, unusual stones, dead insects and other things that we find while working, so he was happy when he gave me the bundle and so was I. I have been using them in different ways but photographing them gave the most pleasing results.

 

Tiny the lizard.

The other day, as I was brushing my teeth, I felt something run over my foot. It was a lizard. Extremely tiny and almost translucent. At first I prepared myself for the hunt, but then thought better of it. It not only required that I look for and actually find my glasses but I don't think they do any harm. They even eat insects, so I just let it be. It will find its way out again.

Then today I remembered I had made a picture of one a while back. It was just as small and also had no coloring. Imagine my amazement when I blew up the photo and saw the above. Tiny lizards are very colorful, except I couldn't see that with or without my glasses.

Tortoise shells.

A chilly wind has been blowing all day. People are actually wearing jackets but they won't die of hypothermia even if they are wearing shorts because the sun is bright in the sky and temperatures not low.

I spent most of the day making table top photos. Working with light and depth of field. I light the subject with two lamps and use a white backboard. Like I say, it keeps me off the streets.

The tortoise shells in the picture are medicine containers that I purchased at different Pow Wows in the Southwest.

Crazy dog.

A gift from my brother. Yes, the same one who sent me the card with little girl and very large dog.

Not very many people here will remark on this little sign at my front entry to the house. "Chien lunatique" as you will probably have gathered means, "Crazy dog" in French and my brother and I got a good laugh out of it.

When Athena was a puppy my brother bought a sign that read, "ATTACK PUPPY", which I had on my gate for a long time.  I don't need it anymore. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Athena and her exuberance.

Athena herself would be the first to say, "What do you mean by exuberant?" "I am always perfectly composed". "Well, almost always".

Sis and Dog.

I have never really been known for my attachment to animals. We always had them when I was growing up, but we lived in the same house in toleration. The dogs and cats were never overly fond of me and neither was I of them. I will not even go into the menagerie we had except that it included rabbits, chickens, a goose and many more different animals over time.

Even if there was a moment of interest from my side, I always ended up being slobbered on or worse, as in the case of Mimi, the marmot, peed on. That was usually the end of a very brief love affair.

Both my brothers are animal people and when I told them that I had taken a dog they raised their eyebrows. When I told them the dog was a Weimaraner, it was the cause of some hilarity.

My brother sent me the above card "Sis and Dog" and he was right. Athena and I, at first sight are perhaps not the perfect match. She is a sleek runner, all muscle and energy, and I, well, let's just say that I am none of that.

I can't think of a decision I made, that was so out of character than taking home that little puppy and yet being so very glad I made it.

Athena is my constant companion, who accompanies me almost everywhere and who give me quick, little lick when she passes me somewhere in the house. She let's me know when I have worked enough and should be walking. She puts up with me, and I with her when she decides to dig her way to Australia or is so giddy with happiness that she forgets she is now too big to jump up and try kiss your face.

It turned out to be a match made in heaven, after all.

p.s. Athena has her own blog. Click on her name to go there.

Wipe-out.

A friend of mine sent me these pictures taken by a surfer. Amazing results. Makes you want to take up surfing. I couldn't find out who the photographer is as there are several surfing photographers out there doing similar things.