Mad about lemurs

A fairly quick drawing of a Brown Lemur. During my creative slump, someone said to me that I should think about what I like and draw those things that make me happy. Well, lemurs are pretty high up the list. I've always had a 'thing' about Madagascar since I first came across it in an atlas and knew I had to go there.














This is one of my favourite photos - me with a Black lemur on Nosy Komba, a tiny island of the northwest coast of Madagascar (Nosy, pronounced 'nossy', means island). Black lemurs are my favourites and this one is male, the females are brown with white tufts around their ears. So it was a really special moment (I still remember how soft and grippy those little fingers felt!) and to top it all, the person taking the photo was my future husband, but I had no idea at the time! Lemurs are supposed to be our distant cousins and I think I can definitely see a family resemblance with the nose! I must be related to my other favourite animals too - chocolate brown Burmese cats and Dachshunds!

It unusual for me to do a 'fairly quick' drawing of anything with fur, but with this one I managed to create most of it with suggestion and shading but I've added details here and there and around the edges to give it an illusion (I hope) of having more detail than it actually has. On the back, I worked in some shading with a chocolate brown (can you tell I love brown?) and found that a waxy black Luminance pencil brushed over on its side gives it an illusion of having a really thick fuzzy coat.

A lick and a promise

Amazing what a lick of paint can do. This is the house now




















and this is it before, from a post dated June 2006, when we first moved in.




















There's not much we can do about that concrete balcony but it does at least look better for being cleaned (and having some plants, including my Forest Flame!). Strangely, there is a lot of concrete used in many houses and buildings in Geneva.


The kitchen could probably do with being replaced but apart from that we've got very little left on our 'to do' list. The whole of the interior was painted cream, replacing dark and depressing mustards and clashing yellows and pinks, the baths were replaced with showers, the grass (which was full of dog poo and probably a health hazard!) quickly replaced by a patio along with the stained steps outside the back door, and all the bulky, boring, dark green firs replaced with more variety and colour. It feels so much lighter and fresher, inside and out. Next week we'll be getting a new porch fitted at the front (keep the winter draughts away, hopefully) and delivery of a new dining table and chairs. It took no less than 3 years to find something we liked and in fact for the last year we'd more or less given up. There are so few furniture shops here we wondered where on earth people find anything for their homes. It's either contemporary/minimalist/expensive or very old fashioned/expensive. We found some suitable bar stools for a new counter in the kitchen in IKEA (on the other side of the lake) and we've been gravitating towards the kitchen since then! That inspired us to go on the hunt again and see if we could finally get the dining room sorted too. Come to think of it, this year there are only 1 or 2 rooms that haven't been changed in some way so it really feels great to get it all sorted.


Along with my new desk, I've added 3 more bookshelves (IKEA is great for those!) so now I have all my quilting and art books together. Still no room for the quilting magazines languishing in the bomb shelter though. Soon there should be no excuses for not drawing and in fact I should have posted a new drawing by now except it all went 'Pete Tong' and had to be scrapped! The last few portraits were of faces I found interesting but it's the faces of people I connect with in some way that I find the most difficult - Paul and Alex being the most difficult of all - and this one is definitely one for the list now. I'll try again and maybe it will be up in a couple of days. Oh well, you win some you lose some!

A cool drink?

I was a little surprised to see this in my local supermarket. My idea of a drugs overdose would be a strong cup of coffee, so I haven't a clue whether cannabis is illegal or not here! It did make me wonder though, what is a 'fantastic natural feeling' supposed to be?

Bits and bobs

I should be posting more often or I wouldn't have to create a jumble of a post like this one, but the summer holidays always catch me out - when I think I'll get loads of drawing done, I end up doing even less. This (above) is what I saw when I woke up yesterday morning and looked out the window. It looked to me like a Christmas tree with it's baubles floating away! The temperatures in Geneva were really high this summer but last week there was a sudden change and loads of rain. This week we have showers but it's much more pleasant now as there is still warmth in the sun but the air is fresher. There is no doubt though, summer is over and winter is on it's way.











Sometimes I think my posts are really boring for people to read but I try to remember that I'm writing for myself too! For instance, this is an old drawing but I went to the opticians this week and tried to remember when I last went. Ah, that old drawing - I drew it exactly two years ago so my blog helps me remember things I would normally forget! Glasses may be a thing of the past now; I went to the place for laser eye surgery centre in Geneva this week which just happens to be within walking distance of our house. It took two years to pluck up the courage to make the appointment and I'm glad I did. I found out that my eyes are not that bad - a borderline case for surgery -so I'm going to go for contact lenses instead. I was really impressed with the ophthalmologist, I learned much more about my eyes and my prescription in that free consultation than I have from trying to quiz all the opticians I'd seen previously. (He could have 'sold' me the surgery but instead very clearly explained why borderline cases, especially with long sightedness, are more difficult to treat correctly.) The last pair of glasses I got for reading, above right, I'm sure are not quite right as they've been giving me eye strain. Hence, the decision to (literally) cut out the need for them completely and be done with the hassle. It was a huge relief to know it wasn't necessary. I tried out some contacts and walked around for half an hour with them in and they felt great. With glasses I feel like I'm looking at life from behind a window and I have tendency to bump into things!
















And speaking of bumping into things, here is something Mark disturbed when he was gardening - a Death's-Head Hawkmoth! He had his head in the hedge (with his hat on!) sorting out a broken irrigation hose and felt something on his ear. It walked up under the rim and when he took it off he was surprised to see this huge thing. (Not as surprised as I would have been, that's for sure!)















I had heard of these things but I had no idea of just how big they are! He was hissing and spewing a white liquid, obviously very miffed he'd been disturbed but he didn't fly off (thank goodness, or I would have legged it!) so Mark brought him over for his photo shoot and then popped him back in the hedge.

I'm not struggling with inspiration, as before, but we've been busy sorting the house out. We've finally got rid of the last of the awful colours the previous owners left us with as we've had the painters in. They painted the laundry room and bomb shelter in the previously dark and dingy basement, which I didn't want to tackle ( I painted all the interior walls but those, a couple of years ago) but the main reason they were here was to paint the exterior. After the shower debacle, I was dreading any more workmen in the house, but they did it all so quickly and efficiently, it was virtually painless! The dusty, nasty, pale pink has gone and the house is now a bright and clean cream. It feels like we've just moved in to a new house so it's inspired us to do a few things inside that we've been putting off. Regular readers might remember me writing off 2009 in February, but things have changed considerably since then. It sounds strange, but having the house done has sort of put a line underneath that. Those worries are behind us, and house now feels like 'ours' finally. So, no new drawings. But contrary to advice about how you must sketch every day or the world will implode, it hasn't and I'm not worrying about it, just happy to enjoy how things are ticking along at the moment!