Visual memories of Turkey

"Nature is not something that can be seen by the eye alone-it lies also within the soul, in pictures seen by the inner eye..." Edvard Munch

Memory sketch of Winnie, Zeno and Michael at the old Monastery 

Memory drawing of a dinner in Ayvalik with Winnie and Zeno

Self portrait in Ayvalik with large ice cream cone.

Memory and imagination

I am using a drawing I already did and making this up to create a frieze of figures  that looks stage like

a drawing of a figure amongst a group of gnarly and knotty tree trunks.
I saw something like this in Ayvalik when I passed an old wooden house that was falling apart

More memory sketches from Ayvalik

Aysegul walking her bicycle in Ayvalik.

Aysegul with her bicycle in Ayvalik.

Memory drawing enjoying the scribble

This is a memory drawing I did of Todd photographing a flower on a winding road at Assos.

Christmas Day

Poinsettia Cookie

Chocolate Chip Scone & Poinsettia Cookie



Yesterday I went to Boudin's bakery and found a fresh batch of Poinsettia  cookies had been baked.  I could not resist getting a few, but I had to see how a watercolor would turn out.  Here are the results of my visit to Boudin's bakery.
Merry Christmas to all have a great day get a lot of fresh air and sunshine and eat some damn good food!

Sketches from Ayvalik

Another memory drawing from the Ayvalik swimming session.  While I was drawing the figures standing at the back of the boat a woman sat down near me and I did this profile sketch of her.  

John's high dive in Ayvalik

There are many times when I see something I want to remember, but don't have a camera ready to use.
During my trip to Turkey this happened a lot so I did memory drawings.  Usually at some point toward the end of the day I would go someplace out of the way and alone with pencil and paper and focus on some events of the day and quickly sketch them down.
I remember when John did his high dive I was in the water at the side of the boat.  I remember the cheers and clapping when John did his dive in very good form.  The drawing has its own logic that helps me remember this event.

Making a painting from a memory drawing.

Drawing from memory 

Pastel image from drawing above.  I plan to make more paintings from memory drawings , but in the future I will use oil paint.

Eddie's Hammer

Happy birthday Eddie spaghetti!

Bugs Bunny and Company

Sometimes I paint the ridiculous or maybe its good fun.
This was fun to paint total fluff .

Still life painting with fish and fries.

A visual record of a meal I ate in Istanbul.

DogLady Christmas Portrait 2011

My first painting attempt after my surgery.

Hamburger

Alpella & Maestro

I painted this from a photo I took of an Alpella candy bar using watercolor and pencil.

This is a pencil drawing from my Turkey sketchbook.  I made this drawing on May 20, 2011 in Istanbul after seeing the Chora Church Museum.  I remember embarking on the city walls & neighborhoods walk in my Rick Steves book and I stopped in a tiny corner store to get a bottle of water.  My eyes locked on the word maestro and I bought two maestro candy bars and walked to the large city walls and sketched this at the city walls.  After I did the drawing I opened the rapper and the bar had melted, but the candy bar still tasted real good.  During the rest of my Turkey trip I kept looking for Maestro candy bars, but never saw any just that little tiny store was the only place I saw them.

More Turkish Desserts

This is a souvenir of Izmir a visual record of a really fine dessert eaten.
This record is made using pencil and watercolor.

A watercolor, pencil and pastel study of dessert from Istanbul.
This image is from a photo I took last May 2011.

Portraits of my Grandmother and Mother

This is a ink drawing of my Grandmother Nee.   I did this from a photo I took of her in 1979.   At the time I had seen a exhibition of Picasso and Braque cubist paintings and I put a early Braque cubist landscape in the background.  When Braque painted his landscape my grandmother was 15 in 1909.

This is a gouache painting of my mother when she was about a year old or so.

Jackie

November 25, 1963 the end of "Camelot" when JFK was buried.
To me Jackie always had a beaming sun inside her.

Dad at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua

To the best of my knowledge my father never went to Italy, but he did in my painting.
I painted my father twice once looking out at the viewer and on the left holding a water hose  spraying a small garden.

Dad at San Juan Bautista

Painting of my father watering the plants around a cross in front of the spanish mission at San Juan Bautista.
Dad loved to smoke cigarettes and water the lawn after work.

Homestead

This is a digital oil painting of my father in a undeveloped part of Cape Coral Florida.  When my dad had his house built in this area there were very few houses just flat land.

A Turkish Dessert

Dessert at the Idakoy Ranch House painted in watercolor and pastel

Landscape at Assos

I remember being stunned when I first looked out over the water at the Greek island of Lesvos.  The beauty of the space and the distance between the land masses made me feel how grand the scale of this landscape is.  There was a mist around the Island that looked like the Island was floating on a cloud.  The weather was hot and dry up at what is left of the Temple of Athena at Assos.

The DogLady with Jugman and Self Portrait

This is an oil painting executed around January 1997.

Portraits of A. Hitchcock and R W Fassbinder

Digital pen drawing of Alfred Hitchcock.  One of the first images I made  using a computer I had to draw this with a mouse before I got my wacom tablet.

Digital drawing of the great German film maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder.  I used a digital  crayon and pen with a smudge tool to soften the edges of crayon strokes.

Two Portraits

This is a portrait of Ginger Baker painted in Acrylic paint

Portrait of Pete Townshend painted in Watercolor

Three images of the DogLady

Pencil drawing of the DogLady with Jugman and Snailman.
This drawing was made in August 2011when I got the idea to
set the DogLady in Turkey with other characters.

Painted in 1999

Watercolor painted in October 2011

Three images on the development of the DogLady

The DogLady with the Jugman

This watercolor was painted around 1998 and I was trying to figure out what would work with the DogLady.  The Jugman is a replica of an ancient Aztec water container and to me both work well together.  I don't consider this a good painting to me its rather clumsy and the composition is off.

Pies

Pies on a table

Still Life with the DogLady

This painting is about 15 years old and one of my first attempts at using the DogLady with other still life objects.  In this painting I was attempting to see what would work together and as time went on the water jug and the DogLady were kept together.  Also I was beginning a thinking process where the DogLady was involved in a story line with other objects.

Photograph of The DogLady

The DogLady is a figurine I have had for many years made and given to me by Vanessa Crymes.  In posts to come there will be images of the DogLady, but this post will give you an idea where she the DogLady comes from and from the picture that she is real and her size.  In drawings to come the DogLady will travel to Assos and will meet Ataturk and Sinan also she will visit the underground caves beneath Venice.

First blog

My first blog post ever and I don't know what I am doing.  I like this image a sunny day in Assos Turkey up on high at the Temple of Athena looking south at the Greek island of Lesvos.