Nice motor!

It's been a busy week here but whilst out and about Paul took some photos from the car. This is a Chevvy, above, with some creative, personal modifications. Or, according to Paul, it looks as if the bumpers have been cut out of cardboard boxes and spray painted in silver! Still, the owner probably thinks it's a babe magnet...









And here is what really interests Paul - Tata buses from India. Bet you've never heard of them. He hadn't either until we went to Mauritius and saw some real rust buckets. Paul couldn't believe it when we came home and saw that Kuwait is full of them. The 'build quality' is very interesting!










A lovely profile shot. Amazing what teenage boys are interested in....











This is just one of many shots I take of wrecks along the road. Not that interesting except when we took a closer look at the photo, Mark noticed the signs in the background. That can't be a hundred metres to the next one can it?! The signs are actually on (not before) the slip road too!

Just Ginger

Fred and Ginger are the two little kittens that were abandoned by their mother and lived behind a flowerpot at the back of the house opposite our door. A little more about them here and here . Fred disappeared quite suddenly at Christmas. Since he was so close to me and knew he could come here for food, I think he was either run over or hurt in a fight. I just hoped he had moved away and found his own territory but I don't really think that's what happened.

After they were with us in the garden for a while, they were chased off by a tom and lived across the road in the garden, watching us from the wall opposite our gate. I fed them often but not enough that they had to rely on me. I noticed as Fred grew, Ginger hardly changed . I realised that, as he ate, she only licked the food and had a couple of mouthfuls. I tried cat food - she loved it and started to grow. Then just before Christmas she hurt her leg quite badly. I thought after Christmas Day, I'd try to find a vet and have her put down. I didn't see her for about a week and then she suddenly appeared and had an appetite. Fred disappeared then. He was the cheeky frontman, she would follow behind. So she got a little braver and came on her own. The little shy cat, turned out to be a little star.

She had a heart of gold, never showing any aggression. It was obvious that she really wasn't seeing me for the food, she wanted love. She started jumping on her back and front feet as if she was jumping through a hoop - doing party tricks to persuade me to take her in. I sat with her in the afternoons trying to coax her into eating something, but lately she only wanted milk. I knew she wouldn't last long and thought about that vet again.

Two days ago, she was on the wall in the morning as usual with a couple of other cats (she was now one of the gang). She didn't come to see me in the afternoon when I came back from shopping. Yesterday, she wasn't on the wall and I knew something was wrong. I went out with Alex last night and called her. There is no sign of her this morning.

I used to have a cat. That was Ziggy in the Christmas message. She lived in pampered luxury and was quite possibly the most bad tempered cat on the planet. I didn't feel as bad as this when she died. I miss Ginger terribly. I keep looking over at the wall and hoping she will make a fool of me. But I know she would be too sweet to do that.

Snappy snaps

A few snaps from last week (and a filler post on my blog since I haven't been drawing!) As the Emir died last week, Kuwait now has a 40 day mourning period. Abu Dhabi and Dubai announced theirs a while back and I wondered what evidence there would be of a country in mourning. Well, I haven't really seen much except that the flags are flying at half mast and the shops that used to have 'muzak' are now silent (what a relief!) Also, some cars have put tributes and blessings in their back windows - this was the nicest one I've seen.












No, it's not Princess Di at the Taj Mahal, it's Fiz at the folly. Just so you can see how nice that corniche is. One of the many follys and sitting areas. I often think this would be lovely to draw but then again, maybe all those lines and shadows would drive me mad! BTW, why doesn't Photoshop have a 'hairbrush' or 'liposuction' function?












I had to take this. It was in a very swanky area, letting the neighbourhood down.

Drawing finished!

Phew! It was all so easy yesterday! I looked at it this morning and realised there was quite a bit to do. Picked up my pencil and the phone rang - morning lost with kids visiting! Later on, I started putting in the details on the right side of the front trainer and saw that my intial sketch was wrong so I did a bit of rubbing out as the laces wouldn't have matched the pattern. Then I noticed there was quite a bit more detail in the soles - crumbs! Who designs these things? Must be a detail freak! (Even worse than me!) I started getting panicky - too left brained now! I settled down after sorting that out and put in a few little shading details and it looked quite good but to be honest, I think those laces look crappy! Like blobby spagetti! But they are too thin in this small drawing to do much about so they have been left as they are. When it looked as if it was just about finished I scanned it so you can see the difference the shadow makes.

This is the finished drawing. After scanning the one above, I thought I could show you how those shadows make the drawing. In almost all the challenges I've done, the shadow has made the difference. So what happens - I make a complete mess of it! I tried to give it a hard shadow and almost lost the shape of the sole. I left the sole lighter with the intention of bringing it out of the darker shadow but it was a disaster. The pencil was too dark right at the edge to rub out so I 'pulled' the shadow out to make it look like diffused light. Never had that happen before. Still, I was relieved it didn't turn out too bad and I find it interesting to look at these two scans - I like the clarity of the first and how the shadow softens the whole drawing in the second.

This drawing took a bit longer and had more details than most of the challenge ones. It didn't occur to me until I posted the first installment that it might all go horribly wrong and that I should have finished it first and blogged about it afterwards! Slightly scary but I have also got over a little fear of mine - that once people see how I do it they will say 'oh is that it?' or 'anyone can do that, it's easy!' I will certainly do it again, I've found it very interesting. It would be nice to go back and see the history behind some of my drawings (I've forgotten now, some are not even dated). Would anyone else like to try this? Let me know if you do, I'd love to see!

Drawing in progress part 2

Progress of sorts, because I didn't get to finish it today as hoped. Mark and I went out for a long walk and I started feeling tired in the early evening so the only large block of time I got to draw was in the afternoon. (BTW, the Emir of Kuwait died today and as everyone has the next 3 days off, they all decided to go walking along the corniche with us! I've never seen it so busy!)

Back to the point! In all my drawings, I cover all the paper with pencil. I'll only leave the white of the paper show for extreme highlights like the light in the eyes, a shine on metal or the tip of the nose. So this step is one that I always do - I lay down a 'wash' of pencil. It helps to blend everything into. Blending into a white page shows an edge, no matter how fine. Trouble is, for me, it takes a while to loosen up to start with and that's when I need to do this! I scanned this after one layer and before smoothing out the tone.

After scanning, I realised that all this analysing is stopping me from getting into the right frame of mind. It reminded me of trying to describe all the actions of driving a car whilst driving - you don't really think about it as you do it, a sort of instinct takes over. So I put on some music and felt much better!

The light was very clear today, different to the light yesterday evening, and the from the light from the spotlights in the bedroom (a typical house in the Gulf in that we have about 12-16 spots on every room! Throws a lot of shadows!) So this highlighted some more textures and shadows which I can add. I need all the help I can with that trainer at the back, I'm not happy with it at all. I'm using a 3B pencil as all the colours in the trainers are similar tones and I want to darken and exaggerate the edges.

With the music on, time flew by and dinner beckoned. I'm too tired to finish so I'll put it on the blog anyway. Here I've started to look at small details that will bring the drawing to life - small shadows around the stitching, under the laces, and I see more things I hadn't noticed before! I took away a little edge from the back of the right trainer to bring it forward. I still think there isn't enough definition to separate the two trainers. At the stage I left it, the laces need working on and the left side of the right trainer has still to be done.

Drawing in progress

I regret I didn't scan my Balinese figure before shading it so I thought I would scan the various stages of my next drawing and see what happens. So far it has been a bit of a revelation to me too - I didn't realise how much I tweak things after the initial sketch, though I suppose every drawing will be different.

The first stage (left) is scanned at the point I felt 'that's it' I had got the outline I wanted. Scanned before I cleaned it up. By that I mean the lines are not all that clear, there is a lot of detail and it's a bit confusing. I started this last night and spent much of that time just looking at the trainers and trying to arrange them in such a way that I thought would be interesting. The truth is, a lot of that time was spent putting off the moment of actually starting to draw as I could see this was going to be very detailed with those laces! I left it overnight so that I could look at it more objectively in the morning.

Here the sketch has been cleaned up a bit so that I can see the general patterns of lines and shapes and how they connect. The trainer at the back is still sketchy as I don't like the shape of the toe. It looks too short and the perspective looks wrong despite me checking in a drawing plane. This is how it looks in reality but it doesn't work in the drawing. I fill in the dark treads of the soles as I love these shapes and start on the darkest parts inside the shoe just to simplify (it felt a little overwhelming) I'm not sure where this is going with the values but I will block in some shapes and adjust as I continue cross referencing. I'm not 'in the zone' at all and other more important things are happening - two teenagers emerge from their caves looking for food!

Later on the light is starting to fade but it brings out some of the textures. I've changed the toe of the trainer at the back - to heck with reality! I'm really starting to enjoy this and start thinking about the trainers and when Alex and I went out looking for them. We couldn't find any in Kuwait and things were getting desperate when we were in London, about to go to Iceland (in July). We found these in Black's in Clapham Junction (Sarf London!) I love the colours - very earthy.
Finally have to turn on the light and give up - but the light looks better so I'm on a roll. Until dinner time, half an hour later! It takes me half an hour standing in the kitchen to switch off (or is that switch on) and stop wondering what on earth I'm doing there. Funny, now that I describe it, that I never noticed all this before! Will try and finish it tomorrow.

Kuwait - alternative views

I'm falling behind with my photos. I still have many to put on the blog even though when I started blogging I thought I'd never have enough to keep going! Another water dispenser, above. I've only seen one of these. I had time this morning to look at the other photos on the Flickr site that I linked to yesterday. He has a set of general views of Kuwait that will give you a good overview of the place.

He took a shot of the towers from the same spot I did a couple of weeks ago. I'd better post it so it doesn't look like I copied him! Actually, all his photos look better than mine... sigh. But I see he hasn't noticed the water dispensers!

I found another excellent site a little while ago written by Daniel Schereck from a tourist's point of view (takes a long time to open on dial-up though). He captures the place perfectly for someone only here for a short time. Lot's of cats and rubbish too! I think all our impressions are similar - except for the better photos and writing! Well worth a look if you are interested. While I'm at it, this is another site that covers all aspects of Kuwait in a very simple, clear way. I should read it more often!

Update: For Annabel and others - you can see all my water dispenser photos here.

Roger Waters

I shouldn't believe everything I read in the papers. Wasn't Roger Waters supposed to be the baddie in Pink Floyd? As I was getting ready to go out, I happened to hear something that Mark was watching on TV. It was Roger Waters being interviewed for BBC's Hardtalk Extra. He said he often got asked by fans why he writes such dark songs. He said 'I wanted to ask, Are you insane?! You think artists get to choose what work they do? It's something that's there and there's a need to express it. Do you think Francis Bacon...?' Trails off laughing.

He came across as an interesting, intelligent, articulate, thoughtful individual. Not at all as he's been portrayed in the British press. Guess I shouldn't be surprised!

Going for a spin

Mark and I went out walking again this morning. The weather was overcast and trying to rain. We walked along a section of the corniche close to the beach road and I saw drivers braking for a rather large puddle. I said to Mark ' there will probably be an accident there soon' and no sooner had I said it, a car locked his brakes and did two 360 degree turns amid loud screeching noises and ended up in a hedge in the central reservation. Do you want to know why I really want to leave Kuwait? The chances of having an accident here don't bear thinking about and if you are 'lucky' enough to survive - and other drivers feel like letting the ambulance through - you will find out what the standard of medical care is like here. I don't know which eventuality scares me more. Have a look at the carnage on the roads here. Most of these happened on the 30, the motorway that I've mentioned before.

BTW, the driver, a man with three young boys in the back, reversed out of the hedge, off the curb and drove off.

I've been tagged...

Linda got her revenge :) !

4 jobs you've had.

This one I'm going to avoid because I don't want to be remembered for those. I think the most important job in the world is bringing up your children to be loved, responsible and tolerant. (My two make the job easy!)

4 movies you watch over and over. There are plenty but I almost know the words off by heart to all of these!

Some Like It Hot
High Society
Ocean's Twelve
Chicken Run

4 places you've lived. Apart from here (Kuwait) and London where I grew up -

Ireland (Cork and Dublin)
Aberdeen, Scotland
Bergen, Norway
Dubai

4 TV shows you've loved to watch. Really difficult this one. I don't watch TV here but these are ones I had to watch at the time they came out.

The Monkees (their biggest fan when I was about 6!)
Masterchef
Miami Vice
After that I don't know... any quiz show or detective series. I'll think of something after I post this probably.

4 places you've been on vacation. Crumbs, how to choose? There are loads including-

Guardia San Framondi, Southern Italy - to a friend's hometown where I got the travel bug.
Seychelles/Mauritius (one holiday!)
Botswana (hated being on safari, horrible group!)
Australia, twice

4 websites you visit every day. I visit the BBC and a few blogs every day. (I'm having to cut down on my visits to the others, there are so many good ones).All the must reads are in my links. Other frequently read websites are -

Telegraph (cartoons and opinion)
Astrodienst (natal charts and horoscopes)
Star IQ (astrological analysis of current events)
Aquarium Age (weekly analysis and horoscopes)

4 favourite foods. If migraine were no object!-

Roast potatoes (have to be cooked with the meat!)
Roast chicken
Crispy bacon
Anything cooked/baked/sauteed with loads of booze!

4 places you would rather be.

Nowhere. Love being at home alone or at home with family.

4 albums you can't live without. I need a new CD now and again or I get bored but if I had to choose what to take on a desert island -

Hejira, Joni Mitchell (actually I could listen to this and nothing else!)
Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni Mitchell (very special to me!)
Older, George Michael
Anything (apart from the first one) by Nickelback (what can I say?!)

EDM # 49 Draw your fridge

Seeing other people's fridges has been really interesting! My kitchen is very small so this was the only angle I could get apart from a straight on view from the door. The fridge does reveal something about us too because there isn't much in it now. We are trying to use up everything before we leave. (Still no news, and yes, I will keep posting as much as possible!) On the outside I have lots of fabric fridge magnets. I've lost all of my favourite magnets on the tiled floor so these were ideal. I have a nasty cheap calender because I left it too late to buy a good one. There is a drawing of Paul's that he did at school - he says it's rubbish, I think it's fab! There are two postcards from Ireland. Two recipes, one for Sticky Toffee pudding and another for something chocolatey. Two lists for shopping that Paul writes witty comments on! No school stuff as the boys have finished school here. It looks very bare. Oh, and the basket on the top is there because there's no space for it anywhere else!

Qualifies as a drawing a day though, even if it is just a sketch! 2B pencil.

Knives out...

There were some sheep still alive in Kuwait after yesterday. Three of them. At the end of the street. I know because they deliberately didn't die until the moment I drove past them this morning. I'll spare you the details.

While I was out, I picked up a Hello! magazine (gasp, shock horror, I know!) but it was something meaningless to take my mind off it. That may have made me feel worse. I needed a cup of tea and a Curly Wurly to recover from all that glamour! But one thing did grab me, in a spread about the fashion designer Roberto Cavalli. Behind him in one shot was a portrait of him done by Julian Schnabel. It was just amazing and painted on plates. I had to Google him and find out more. I didn't find the portrait but I did come across some really scathing criticism. Schnabel was obviously a big name in the late seventies and early eighties because of his work on plates. That portrait stopped me in my tracks so I could understand that. There was a photo at a film premiere. A list of his work included two album covers. In other words he is a bit of a celebrity.

I was drawing my fridge this afternoon and thinking about how boring it might be to others. I hear so much criticism of realistic drawing/painting and I've even had a couple of hints thrown in my direction about being anal. But when I put pencil to paper, that is what comes out. My drawings all look like mine, I don't fret about 'finding my voice', there it is. (Quilting is a whole other story). So...let's say I loosen up. I work bigger. I find unusual ways of working and push the envelope. I become known. I cause a stir. I mingle with celebs. I become a celebrity artist. My name is linked with a new art movement. And my work gets torn to shreds by the critics...There is something wrong here... I just know it.

Worse for wear

Regular readers may remember this old married couple and my comment about him looking the worse for wear. Well, this explains it!

TG It's Finished!

At last, the second drawing I've not enjoyed doing is now finished. That's two in one week, pretty good for me! I really like the shape of this. It's a wooden souvenir brought back from Bali a few years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy it but it may be because when I completed the outline I thought it made a lovely line drawing. I should have scanned it then but I thought I'd shade it and maybe like it better - wrong! From then on, it just got more and more tedious.

I had a bit of difficulty with the values in the face. It may be because I'm so used to drawing faces that I couldn't stop thinking of the face as real. So I wanted to make the eyebrows darker, the eyes more lifelike, the hair darker etc. Part of my brain kept overriding what I was seeing!

Anyway, it's finished! HB and B pencils.

Stuffed lamb

I'm the first to admit that I'm woefully ignorant of Arabic culture. This blog is like a 'Kuwait for Dummies' because I deal with people as I find them, I tell it as I see it, I haven't read the handbook. Actually I find that slightly insulting - that you can know all about a country and it's people from reading a 'guide' book. Imagine dealing with a foreigner in your country who thinks they know all about you from a book! It's also very difficult to find the right moment to ask someone 'listen, I've heard this, is it true?' I prefer to look for similarities rather than differences anyway!

So to the point, it's Eid this week. Eid is to sheep what Thanksgiving and Christmas is to turkeys. A sheep is slaughtered to celebrate the festival with family and friends. It's just that with all the little chicken and sheep pens outside almost every house, I thought they would slaughter a sheep from the backyard. I looked out the window yesterday to see a truck load of sheep being delivered! Well, I never read about that in any book. But this morning, the truck came to our house! Oh no! I'm really squeamish and a couple of years ago one was obviously slaughtered in the back garden but I had assumed it was a neighbour's. Last year one was hung from a bar from a car port just across the road. So I decided I'm not going out today! But there was Ginger looking hungry so I popped down to feed her. (Actually, she just looked sweet but that will do!) The driver was downstairs so I asked him about this -











The sheep were delivered and 2 were stuffed into the boot/trunk of this car parked outside our gate. (This was about half an hour before). He said oh no, they are not there now, there were 3 of them delivered and they are just being 'cut' now in the back garden. Oh gawd! What a hypocrite I am because I eat meat. It's just that being brought up in the West we don't have to think about this as we browse the meat counters. Still, there are plenty of supermarkets here so the ritual itself must be an important factor.

Whilst this is a part of Arabic culture, what I witnessed a few days ago by the bin is not. I'm told I was too cryptic so the creatures I referred to were chickens. With the very real threat of bird flu, this incident got me thinking about how one country's rules and regulations can affect us all.

Pencils at the ready

Ken asked me about the materials I use so I shall now reveal how boring and unsophisticated I am! I'm afraid my eyes glaze over and my brain goes blank when I read about art supplies - I need to see photos. So I'm inviting the EDMers to take photos of their supplies and show them on their blogs - pretty please and thankyouverymuch.













This is the Winsor and Newton pad that I have used for most of the challenge drawings. The sticker says it is an A4 case bound sketch book, 160 pages, 100gsm. Before this, and for years, I used to do my portraits on A3 Daler Rowney 130gsm cartridge pads.













Around about 1997, I decided to give up trying to work larger to do smaller drawings more often and came across this lovely little pad. I wanted everything it to be perfect (there, I said it!), to pass on to my children, blah blah blah. Big mistake. Lovely paper though and it has a slightly creamy colour that I used to like for portraits. It's a Daler Rowney, hard cover, 150gsm acid free cartridge paper.











There aren't any really exciting art supply shops here, they tend to stock the same old things every year. A new shop opened a couple of years ago and has quite a good selection although still a bit limited. I really like the Winsor and Newton pad (top photo) but the paper is a bit thin but then this suddenly appeared - now my favourite pad - it's a Winsor and Newton 'Wire-O Sketch Book', 150gsm - almost the same but heavier. The paper is perfect! Give me a soft pencil and I'm in heaven! (Should I seek help?) Oh, nearly forgot -pencils. My favourites have always been the Berol Venus (top picture, right). They are not easy to find so I also use Faber Castells (Catell 9000). The reason I like the Berol Venus pencils is that they have the least amount of grit - really bad for the concentration, having to keep sharpening - and compared to the Rexel Derwents, they are a warmer grey which I prefer for portraits (although that could be a figment of my imagination!) I haven't found any erasers I like better than the Staedtler Mars Plastic (top). I cut them up to make sharp clean points and to take away any unwanted smudges around the edges.

I've included a 6" ruler in the photos to show the size of the drawings. I've beaten myself up for years thinking I should work larger but apart from the fact that this is not natural for me, I think it's unimportant now we can scan and enlarge. (So far, no-one has come to arrest me!)

Anyone still awake? Hello?

That bin again...

I never thought I'd be writing about the rubbish bin across the road again. I'm not sure how much I should really say and this is going to be a bit cryptic but a couple of days ago the maid threw out some dead 'creatures'. Hmm OK. Yesterday there were a number of dead creatures. But amongst them there were a couple that were still alive. One was obviously dying but one was still very active although it looked shocked. The gardener and I went for a (not too close) look and saw that some of them, as well as being diseased, had been damaged (goodness knows why or how) and the bin contained even more. The end result is I did everything I could and came up against a brick wall. The bin men came and went and I saw that the last little one had died this morning beside the bin. The papers say if you see anything like this to report it immediately. I found out that in practice there is one nice little guideline put in place which means they need do nothing at all.

Happy Bunny

I wasn't a happy bunny yesterday. It's not like me and if I'm not careful I can end up getting a migraine and I sometimes think my whole life revolves around avoiding those dreadful things - so quick action was needed. What can I draw? Well, a happy bunny of course! After I had read a few of the EDMers blogs, one of the most popular resolutions is to do a drawing a day. I know I can't manage one every day but I resolved to get the drawing finished and I managed to kill two birds with one stone - I did this quick little drawing in that precious drawing book I mentioned before. Hopefully I've broken the curse! I started it in 1997 and it contained all of 3 drawings before I started the hand (in the last post). Perfection is certainly paralysing. I suspect, like alcoholism, it's not something that is cured but needs constant guarding against.

I'm happier having gone 'no mail' on one particular art quilter's chat group. I thought with all the top names in quilting there would be a certain standard there but it reminded me of a bun fight. On closer inspection it's much worse than that. (To be fair, it's probably a few giving the many a bad name). I hope it's not representative of the state of the quilt art world today.

Marina Mall and crescent

Since the last post was about The Chocolate Bar in Marina crescent I thought I'd post a couple of photos of it. The truth is I haven't had much time to blog and I haven't the energy to write much about it! To be brief, I thought when this mall first opened, it was wonderful - so modern and fresh, unlike anything else in Kuwait. I picked up a free magazine there a couple of days ago and was surprised by how many articles there were confirming my views. It has changed how Kuwaitis and ex-pats see the country. Walk along the newly paved corniche and you will see families picnicing, playing games, rollerblading, walking dogs and all sorts of activities that they didn't have a (nice) space for before. The mall has lots of small cafes where people meet, the shops are actually open all day (some malls still close from 1pm till 5) and they are shops you actually want to shop in! The crescent overlooks the marina and could be Dubai or Monaco - well maybe a slight exaggeration! - but it is lovely to look out on as you sip a hot chocolate! As we were walking there this week, the thought occured to me that we might be mad to leave but also I think I'm lucky to have witnessed this change. The whole country heaved a collective sigh of relief in February when some terrorists were rounded up. There were about 5 shoot-outs in various places close to us and many ex-pats were ready to leave depending on how this turned out. Everything went calm and I think it confirmed what many thought, that Kuwait is a safe place to live, and life is going to be a lot better from now on.






The wonders of technology! I can take 3 photos and the genie in my machine can put them together like this. Wish it could take my words and change them into literature!

New Year's Resolutions

To quote Homer Simpson ' trying is the first step to failure' so I don't make any New Year's resolutions. But if I did, I would go for something I knew I could keep like ' I resolve to eat more chocolate in 2006'. I made a start today after Mark and I went out for a walk. We were in danger of losing too many calories so we headed to The Chocolate Bar in Marina Crescent. I had a plain hot chocolate (white, milk or dark?) and he had a chocolate milkshake from a really extensive chocolate menu. (Has anyone heard of The Chocolate Bar, is it from the US?)

I wish I could have brought that menu home to drool over, it looked so yummy! Here are 3 quotes from it that made me smile. 'There is more to life than chocolate but not right now', 'Too much chocolate is just about right' and my favourite 'I could give up chocolate but I'm not a quitter'!