Do take a seat...

There is some wonderful old furniture all over Kuwait. I'm probably a bit odd but I've always found the concept of furniture funny so I find the really tatty stuff very amusing! I get the strangest look from people when I'm taking photos of water dispensers so I'll be locked up if anyone sees me taking armchairs!



I'm not sure but maybe this tent is used by the builders of the house behind.



I like these two! They look like an old married couple, her with her black dress and pearls and him the worse for wear. (OK, I'm definitely a bit odd!)

Custard apple

H and B pencils. I enjoyed drawing the bananas so I was tempted by this apple...It's a custard apple from Egypt but I Googled it and found there are many types and they are grown all over the world. I loved all the shapes and they way they all connect but once I had done the outline and begun shading, the novelty wore off fast! The problem was that it has no shine so I couldn't exploit that, and in the creases, where there might be shadows to exaggerate, it was a lighter colour (the valleys are cream coloured and the ridges green). So I did what I'm best at and kept doing a little bit here and there and putting off finishing the thing. It all got a bit overworked in the end!

By the time I did finish it, it was too ripe to eat so I bought another to try and I won't be eating or drawing any more custard apples. They taste like a cross between a mango and a bar of soap! But then, I'm not really a fan of fruit, unless like raspberries, they are buried under a mound of sugar, cream and meringues!

Oh, and by the way, one member of my family who hasn't said this before said 'what on earth are you drawing that for?' So that's all of them now!

Busy, busy, busy!

There comes a time when a blogger has a rant and I'm going to have one now so look away if you wish!

One of those words that gets me going is 'busy'. Well, who isn't busy these days but do we have to keep saying it? I had a friend a few years back who, every time I spoke to her would tell me how busy she was. Sorry I haven't rung/e-mailed/seen you, I've been busy. If I called her she would have her answer phone on and I'm pretty sure this was to let you know she wasn't in and too busy out and about doing something much more important with her time -well, that's what I was supposed to think! (Maybe it's just me, but if they have time to paint their toenails and never wear the same thing twice, I tend to be a tad suspicious!) It occurred to me after a while that she was just saying 'I don't value you enough to take a moment to keep our friendship going'.

It's a funny thing about ex-pat women - we are mostly here because of our husband's job. In my opinion we are amongst the luckiest people to experience life in other parts of the world, make interesting friends and have time to spend as we wish. There are literally billions of people living in miserable or unbearable conditions but some of the most miserable must be ex-pats.

If you have loads of time to spare, the very last thing you must admit to is having time! So every day you've got to go to the gym, do breakfast, get manicures/pedicures/facials/hair done, go to coffee mornings (all the better if it's for charity) and try and make 'contacts'. If you have children they must be taken to horse riding, tennis lessons, swimming lessons,music lessons, ballet, and everything else you can put their names down for (unless you have already put them into boarding school). You must have a maid and you must complain about how awfully hard it is to find a good one (cue sharing of horror stories and lots of nodding heads). Your husband must be indispensable to his company who don't realize his worth but he will get lots of perks like good housing allowances, a four by four with all the latest add ons (do you know how important those are? I didn't until I went to Dubai!) and business class tickets for you all to return to your wonderful house (or one of them) back home every summer ( oh! the problems our tenants give us!)

You don't sit around in the evening either, watching the telly or spending quality time with your children, oh no! You leave them in the capable hands of your maid who waters your dried plants and go to the swankiest restaurants for dinner or some important function with other important people.

I was once 'dropped' by one of the mums at school ( in Dubai) because I said during the course of conversation that it was nice to see a face I knew. She was fairly new and I bumped into her at the sailing club. It took me a while to figure out what had happened. It was that I had admitted I had no 'contacts' and was therefore of no use! Still, it was amusing to see her pretending not to see me every single day - Alex and her son were friends in the same class!

This week's Everyday Matters drawing challenge is to draw something you are thankful for. I know I should be thankful for a lot of things but I have found that if you have to think of what you might draw it really focuses the mind. I mention this because I've really enjoyed thinking about it and to pass this on to anyone reading who is not part of the group. Try it!

I've been driving all over the place this week so I haven't done as much drawing as I wanted to, but I've been thinking about the challenge and how lucky I am with so many things, big and small that I am thankful for. Of course, if you live in a marble palace in Dubai with an Aston Martin in the drive you may find this one really tough!

The glamour of ex-pat life...

I'm an ex-pat dahlink! Ex-pats swan around shopping malls, do lunch, strut their stuff at the beach club in Chanel bikinis and Manolos...don't they??

That's the thought that crossed my mind when I got a slow puncture this morning. Just as we were arriving at the school there was a strange noise and I got out to pull a huge nail from my tyre. Mark is away and I had no idea what to do so I went home and asked my landlady. Luckily her son turned up for a visit and gave me directions to a place just up the road. As I was talking to him I asked him to look at some documents I need to renew but are all in Arabic. To cut a long story short his help saved me a couple of hundred quid! Who would have thunk - the puncture turned out to be a stroke of luck!




I took the car up to the fifth ring road. We live at the end of it and you might be able to see from the photo that it's being dug up to make a new tunnel and intersection to replace the roundabout at the end - which we call Death Roundabout. (Here you don't stop when you approach a roundabout, those on it have to stop for you as far as I can make out!) Chaos and delays rule until it is finished but it was interesting sitting here watching the world go by. I normally see these little garages as I fly by in the car so sitting there on a dusty, rickety bench watching the mechanic going about his business with the chaos and noise all around made me think about how far removed we are from things when we are cocooned in a car.



Those tyres on the right have been wrapped in coloured tape. Do you know, I think they are decoration! Isn't that sweet!

More Wobbly Bits

A close up of the stitching and raw edged fabric centres although they are not all that apparent.




This is a much brighter yellow so the two aren't meant to go together. Yesterday I cut the centres to open them out. I really want to get some texture into this one as well but I don't like the rectangles as much as the squares to work with. I haven't any definite ideas of how I want this to look eventually but I think I want the flaps to open only slightly - that could be a problem. I also don't know whether I want to fill the centres with stitching or beads or just leave them. In the photo they appear quite bare so I'll try out some ideas. The quilting poses some problems too because the satin stitching extends into the border area and when I quilt it these will become raised which is an effect I don't want. I think there is enough going on with the stitching and the fabric so I will probably quilt it with matching thread. Decisions, decisions!

Wobbly Bits

This is a mini quilt I started in the summer but once I got to this stage it stopped talking to me! I took a photo of it to post on the blog but as I was doing that, I started to get some ideas. Isn't that strange? There must be something in the saying Just Do It! I was thinking of putting it together and forgetting about it. The reason I wanted to post it was to get over the need to always show things that I'm happy with. It's a variation on a theme. Here is the second, called Wobbly Bits.




The first one I made was too dull (I was going for muted!) and I covered it with seeding and called it Gone to Seed. Then this morning I got an e-mail asking me how I made Wobbly Bits. With the first one, I cut out the grid from fabric that I had ironed onto fusible web. The problem was that it made hand stitching difficult and there were tiny gaps in the corners that the satin stitching had to cover. With Wobbly Bits I drew the grid on tracing paper, put this on top of the top fabric and background, straight stitched the grid, removed the paper and carefully cut away the top fabric leaving a couple of millimetres of fabric around the stitching. This left an grid of alternate yellow (background) and orange/brown squares. I satin stitched the edges, tapering them out by stitching and altering the stitch width at the same time.

The centres are cut out of the two fabrics with Fray Check on the edges and attached with beads. I wanted them to curl away from the quilt. I quilted it with a decorative stitch (no. 100 on the Aurora) using matching thread and the mirror image button.

Quick sketch

A quick sketch of a Canon 350D that belongs to Paul's friend. He came over on Thursday and I asked him to bring the camera so I could get a good look at it - we have the 300D! It didn't occur to me to draw it until it was almost time for him to go so that gave me no time for fussing over the details! The 350 is smaller and all-black and they have a super dooper lens with a stabiliser. Having seen it, I think I prefer the feel of ours, it has a nicer, softer grip - and I like chunky cameras! I used to be a Nikon girl (my Dad was a Leica man) but this Canon has made digital photography fun again. We used to have a Casio but the delayed shutter was very annoying. I've asked Santa for a wide angle lens this year...

EDM # 24 Draw a piece of fruit

B pencil. I keep the bananas for Mark's lunch in a fruit bowl by the kettle so I'm often looking at them and thinking how I'd like to draw them 'some day'. Yesterday, I grabbed them and did just that! I particularly liked the lines from this angle but I wasn't sure if I could make it work. Now that I've finished, I wonder if I ever really looked at bananas before! After I draw something I look at it in a completely new way and I can really 'see' it. It's like when you have children and you wonder what your life was like before! What was I seeing before? I keep thinking my style is wrong, I should try and simplify, work with pens or paint but working in this way with pencil I take my time and explore the subject. Somehow I don't think I would do this in another medium.

I was reading 'Drawing From Within' today and in it the author tells us not to keep seeking out techniques, not to find out 'how' but to explore the 'why'. I've stopped making quilts because all the books I've read and the classes I've taken only explore techniques. It was becoming an end in itself and not helping me at all. Now that I've picked up my pencil again after 3 years, I feel I'm returning to the 'why'. I hope I can go back to quilting to explore colour but without all the unnecessary baggage I had before.

Rain rain go away!

There may have been worse storms in Kuwait but I have never been out in one this bad! Paul took this photo in the back of the car on the way to school this morning. It was pitch black but there was so much lightning it looked like strobe lighting. There are puddles the size of lakes on the roads. I'm sticking to the middle lane here as people either drive super slow or way too fast - blazing a trial with fountains either side of their cars. (And yes, I am driving with my visor down. You just never know when that sun might pop out!)

I was going to put my car in for service today but I think it would be safer to leave that for next week. Yesterday, coming home, I passed 5 wrecked cars in the road just in our block! One Mercedes in the central reservation, the result of an earlier smash, and two separate incidents that had only just happened. This morning there was one with two cars. As I type, I can hear police sirens but also drips from my windows! It's hot and sunny for such a long time here, I've forgotten how old and leaky this house is! I'd better get the towels out and mop up. Perhaps I'd better do the car first...Paul said "Mum, there's some water dripping from up there", pointing to that silly little compartment you are supposed to keep your sunglasses in, to the right of my head. On the way back, just to double check ( I hardly ever use it), I pulled back the sun roof thingy and sure enough the roof was up! Oops!

EDM # 40 Folds

This week's challenge is to draw some folds in fabric. I knew I'd find something in Alex's room, probably on the floor! When Alex steps out of his jeans, he leaves them in the middle of the room just like this, as if he has vanished into thin air! I liked the label too - loose fit - it seemed very appropriate.

I shaded this with a B pencil as the HB's are beginning to feel hard. It felt lovely as if it was a stick of charcoal, and shading is so quick with it. The only thing I don't like is that it smudges so easily but even that is nice to smudge the shading with my finger.

Now I'm going back again to a couple of drawings that I'm not enjoying (unless next weeks challenge is more tempting!). It's been interesting doing these challenges and finding out which subjects I like and dislike. I've surprised even myself!

Garlic

A little drawing that came about because I was procrastinating instead of finishing another one. HB pencil.

Create a buzz in a Hummer

Seriously, I'm going to need one of these for my shopping when I win the lottery!

Up with the birds

This is the view we had from the bedroom window yesterday morning! It's those little cats again looking healthy and well fed. The birds created quite a commotion!















It only took a couple of seconds for it to climb up but it wasn't so confident about coming down!












Here's the lookout below! He's by far the most vocal of the two but he looks as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

I wasn't so quick with the camera this morning and I missed a good shot of a kestrel looking down from the top of the neighbour's house . Those poor birds!

Coffee and dates

Not another wreck! There must be something in the air this week. I spotted this on the way back from shopping. It's Eid now so everyone is in holiday mood. This is the road along the coast and it's very busy at night. Traffic slows to a crawl with all the cars 'cruising the strip'.

They say when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping so I did just that yesterday. It wasn't until I got to the mall that I realised, oops it's Thursday and will be absolutely packed. As I walked in the doors towards the escalators, a group of young men were coming towards me on my left and two young women came out of the ladies room on my right. I was Miss Piggy in the middle! The two women were absolutely stunning - one in flowing white and the other in flowing turquoise, looking like supermodels and not so much walking as strutting in slow motion! Arab women are beautiful enough without trying but when they do...! I had forgotten that Marina Mall, our newest and swankiest mall, is now the pick up joint of Kuwait. People come to see and be seen and to sit under the large atrium in the middle sipping their coffees watching the world go by.

One thing I had noticed recently is that I don't see the discarded cassette tapes along the roads. I first saw this in Dubai when we lived there. Young people get around the strict rules by recording tapes with details about themselves and throwing them into young ladies cars. They then pull out the tape and fling it into the road! At least they used to, because I read an article about how the advent of Blue Tooth technology had put an end to this practice! I should pay more attention next time I'm in Marina mall!



I took a photo of this on the way back too. Gold reflective windows! I think the architect should be shot!

EDM # 39 Toothbrush

Ah, a nice easy one for a change ! And at last, a white background. Thanks to advice from Karen and Michael, I scanned this instead of trying to photograph it. I hope those who have commented previously won't mind if I go through my posts and change out those grey images.

This was drawn with an HB pencil. Not much to waffle about except yuk! I don't like minty toothpaste. Mint is only good with dark chocolate!

News and views

The day started with a bit of news - Paul's photo is in the Arab Times along with a few classmates to highlight a project they have taken part in. It's called the Global Virtual Classroom and pupils around the world take part to learn about each others' cultures and build a website to showcase what they have learned. Paul and his friends have had a lot of fun with this and have made friends with pupils in the USA and Canada. He takes a good photo too although I might be a bit biased! Folding his arms and looking at the camera sideways on, I'm sure he'd make a great knitwear model or new James Bond!

And the views?












What can I say? It was tempting fate to publish my Wreck of the Week! Like London buses, you wait ages for one to arrive and 3 come along at once - or 4 in this case! I can only guess what happened but one of the other rubberneckers, sorry, bystanders, thought the hydraulic lift must have lifted as he was driving. I had two teenage boys with me (Paul and his friend) who thought this was great so they called on their friend in a building just behind to join us!











I'm not sure how they are going to make this bridge safe! A crane had arrived by now but the cars on our side of the road were slowing down to look. (We had parked in a street and went to look, standing by an open area between the bridge and a bus stop). And by the way this is the infamous 30 motorway again! I had a feeling that another accident might happen and sure enough there was a loud smash and grey smoke. I looked round to see this...










Three cars twirling like iceskaters on a rink. The boys were just walking towards me and saw the whole thing. Fortunately everyone involved got out of their cars unhurt. There was a traffic jam as far as the eye could see over the road and now the traffic behind this three car pile up came to a halt. There were bystanders taking shots with cameras and mobile phones. People had walked up on the bridge to take shots (they may have been the press) and cars were parking in the hard shoulders to get a better look (including one who reversed back to the anger of the police on the other side).











And what do you know, a friend (mum of one of the boys) was driving by and came over to say hello! Just another day in Kuwait!

Update : there are now 3 cranes keeping the bridge up and the road is backed up for miles!

EDM # 7 Draw a bottle or jar from the kitchen

I wanted to draw some glass but ended up doing this instead because I liked the Arabic writing on it - it looks more exotic than it really is! It says Sue Bee, the large letters say Honey and I think the small ones below it says Clover.
















And a photo of a mosque for no apparent reason.

Wreck of the Week

I thought this might become a regular feature of my blog but I haven't seen many wrecks since September. Just around the corner from us is a car park where the wrecks are brought. This one was left on the pavement because



the car park was full. One of the regular features in the Arab Times is an obituary notice with the words 'sudden and tragic demise'. Car accident is my guess. There is a list of obituaries for Kuwaitis that gives details of the different addresses where the males and females can go to give condolences and also the age of the deceased which is another big clue as to how many people get killed on Kuwaiti roads. Yesterday, the announcer on the radio said "drive safely and don't use your children as air-bags". Baby seats haven't caught on here.

BTW, if you need a photo of a car for a blind contour drawing these are copyright free!