Watercolor #5

Work in progress which shows the little set up I used here

Portrait

Watercolors #3 & #4

Watercolor #3

Watercolor #4

Two more watercolors in the series using Guitar brand watercolors.  The pigments are very saturated and rich when used undiluted out of the tube.

Encounter

Squash Head

Revisiting Assos

Number 1

Number 2

On the Road in Turkey

Turn off from main road.

The sign points the way to a Mosque 

Ayvalik

Quick sketch from my Turkey sketchbook

I drew this from a photo I took of this gnarly landscape with an old stone structure.

Roman ruin at Sardis

Watercolors of my small Japanese figures

Watercolor #2

Watercolor #1

For christmas a friend gave me a set of Guitar brand watercolors.  She had given me a set of small Japanese figures years earlier now I am combining the two and making a series of images based on her gifts, here are the first two paintings.

Assos harbor

A view of the buildings at Assos harbor drawn from the jetty. 

Wonderful surreal chairs in Assos Hotel

The Nazlihan Hotel at Assos harbor is a great location to spend a few days.  The lobby of the Hotel has some wonderful animal like chairs that I believe are made of wicker.  When I was there I remember thinking are those chairs comfortable to sit on?
I never sat in one so maybe I will never know, but the surreal look caught my eye.

Pencil drawings from my Turkey sketchbook

Pencil sketch of steep hill at Assos

Pencil drawing of a street in a small village near the Idakoy Ranch House

In Istanbul

Dutch Windmill at end of Golden Gate Park

Dutch Windmill and Beach Chalet

Conservatory of Flowers

I like the energy and disjointed quality of this sketch

Lands End

Watercolor of the Cliff House at Lands End

Small Mackerel

New Year's Day

I pray that all have a happy and healthy year ahead.

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.