Paper and Threads

I feel as if we now live in a world of power strips and plugs that are huge and heavy to recharge our electronic devices.   And when we go to London we need equally large UK plug adaptors in which to plug these huge recharger plugs to allow us to recharge everything while we are visiting.  I too wish we lived in a simpler world - where all of our modern conveniences were interchangeable.  At my daughter's home in London there are separate DVD players for those DVDs bought in the UK and those from the US. 

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One of my goals for 2007 is to draw more human faces and figures.  I sketched the Holbein drawing of Anne Cressacre again and this time added a watercolor wash.  In addition, I started what I hope will be a series of dancers taken from photos in dance magazines and programs from our New York City dance companies.  I think it will be fun to struggle through these exercises - I certainly need many days just drawing hands!

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We are now home from our Holiday visit to London and I have two more journal pages to upload - completing my second London Travel Journal.  This is a portion of a clock at Michael Hoppen Photography on Jubilee Place in Chelsea.  I visit the gallery each trip to see their new exhibits and always take more photos of the clock.  However, I never could really see the hands of the clock because they were overlapped at 3:15.   During this visit Michael Hoppen himself got a yardstick and leaned over the open stairwell to change the time so I could sketch the clock hands.

On New Year's Day we wandered through the crowds assembling for the parade on Whitehall in Westminster and went to visit the War Cabinet Rooms and the new Churchill Museum.  I sketched this on the last page of my journal after we came back to New York from photos that I took of the entrance and of the sentry (mannequin) who is quarding the War Cabinet Room.  The scans could be better, but it was difficult getting the final 2 pages of the journal to stay flat.

I wasn't sure that I was going to enjoy the Cachet Linen Watercolor Journal, but I now have completed two.  I am able to paint on both sides of each page so I have approximately 50 pages in each book.  When my daughter told us they were moving to London for one year, I had no idea that I would be able to maintain a travel sketchbook and have so much fun doing it.  I love looking back through the pages and remembering each day of our visit.  Some of the pages reflect activities in the lives of my grandchildren and each of them spends time looking through the journal for their favorite page - Pooh bath toys for Sydney and 5 cars from the Disney movie CARS for Henry in this volume. 

We have 2 more visits planned before they come back to New York, so I think that I'm hoping to finish a 3rd journal.   I'm so glad that I ordered multiple copies because I haven't seen these in any art store and only on one website.

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I buy soap less than once each year because the soap provided in hotels is so yummy.  And the minute you open one bar, they replace it with a new one making it hard to resist taking the replacement home.  Lemon trees are plentiful on the Amalfi Coast and everything comes in lemon-flavor.  I bought several packages of these small soaps to bring home, but was disappointed that they really don't smell like I expected.  The Peabody Hotels have live ducks that "march" into the lobby and swim in the fountain several times each day - making the duck the logo for the hotel.  I couldn't resist these cute white soap ducks after watching the ducks for several days in the Peabody Orlando.  I have no idea which hotel provided Gilchrist and Soames soap, but I haven't yet opened the  cleansing bar or exfoliating soap. 

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I'm about to enter the British Museum to see the exhibit "The Past From Above" - 100 aerial photos of the major archeologic sites of the world.  In addition to the photos they had artifacts from the British Museum to supplement some of the images.  This photo of me shows my brown leather backpack with sketchbook and map in the back and small digital camera in a black leather pouch on the front.  This has been a successful way for me to be a grandmother and tourist while sketching quickly and taking lots of reference photos.

I was very attracted to these 3 pieces of Moche pottery that were together in a case next to an aerial photo from Peru.  I sent my husband off for 30 minutes to work on a New York Times crossword puzzle from his pocket and sketched as quickly as I could.  I was in such a hurry that I actually sketched it upside down in the journal.  The watercolor was added at home using a reference photo that I took in front of the case.  We returned from London yesterday so this journal page was scanned, not photographed.  It was another great visit and I brought home many reference photos that I hope to use for sketches in my recycled Elizabeth I book.

Posted by Shirley at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)