Fuji-san Slideshow

Enveloped

Pardon my French. Letter to Rene Magritte.


The second envelope painted watching the first episode of Red Shoe Diaries, messy lives.

The woman's beauty stops at the surface.



The Sea of Cortez where the beauty of ocean never stops.

2009 Sketchbook

Some pages from a 4 x 6 Pro Art sketchbook begun December 2008 with my one inch ceramic Santa and his little house that he stays in during the off season. The paper isn't the best for watercolor and the Uniball pen does bleed through a bit, but the size and texture is comfortable and I can sketch while standing or on the run.

The lone pyramid is the on in the opening of CSI Las Vegas. I did a few reference sketches at the library instead of bringing home the books. Now they have more of a travel feel to them. The tiny pyramid glimpsed through the doorway reminds me of the way Hokusai framed some of his views of Mt. Fuji. I think the wall of cobras is from Luxor. The small ceramic fertility statue reminds me of a primitive Barbie doll. Coffee from Border's Books at Long Beach's Pike, built on the grave of the old infamous Pike Amusement Park. It's hard to imagine that downtown Long Beach was a seedy Red Light district 25 years ago when the city started to implement their master plan to give our city a glamor make over in the 1980's and again this decade.

Long Beach dates back to 1890's when the red trolley car made it a glamorous weekend getaway from Los Angeles and Pasadena. The city had rail tracks along Ocean Blvd. Amusement ventures, elaborate bathing palaces were down by the ocean replaced by the marina, Shoreline Village, the Aquarium of the Pacific, lots of new eateries and entertainment. athe current metro rail goes north to downtown Los Angeles and connects to other rail lines. The city was devastated in the 1909 earthquake so most of the older buildings date back to the 1920's. I'm sorry we lost all the grand old theatre palaces along Ocean and Pine during the 1980's renaissance demolition and building boom. Sometimes it's healthier to replant with new rather than try to save the crumbling dinosaurs.

The red Fernand Leger sketch at top is my continuing fascination to study Cubism. Leger is my favorite cubist painter. Here is a sketch done in Belmont Shores, about 3 or 4 miles east of downtown Long Beach.

Tea Time

Tea time. Watercolor and sumi ink. Vintage silk doll made in Japan. Didn't need a potholder but couldn't resist the appliquéd fabric shapes. The petite bowl turned out to be antique lacquer which began to crack when I floated a passion flower in water. In its former life, the bowl probably had a flattened doll's head, a silk tassel. The bowl is painted with a kimono design. My favorite thrift shoppe in Old Town Petaluma would sometimes got Japanese bits and pieces from the 40's, most likely brought home by men in the military.

Egypt Sketchbook Part 4

The top photo is the temple at Luxor (Thebes). This front section was built by Ramses II 1213 BC. The two earlier sections behind this were built by Tutankhamen and Amen-Hotep, 1327 and 1352 BC.

Imagining Egypt, A Living Portrait of the Time of the Pharaohs by Mark Millmore. Millmore creates computer illustrations of temples, structures and artifacts as they may have appeared when new and freshly painted. It is nice to see the structure complete, the missing obelisk returned from the country that pilfered it although it does look lovely in Paris where it seems at home and admired. Several obelisks have appeared in movies, recently in Angels and Demons.

The second photo shows Millmore's reconstruction of the Hypostyle hall inside the Temple of Isis that was on the island of Philae. Due to the construction of the Aswan dam bult in the 1960's, the Egyptian government and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), performed a massive joint effort, surrounded the island with a dam, labeled, removed and reassembled each stone on the island of Agilka Island. An impressive 10 year engineering rescue project as was the rescue of other beautiful temples. 2007 is the copyright date on his book.

The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb is in Egyptologist Elizabeth Peters' mystery The Tomb of the Golden Bird, a nice brief description of what it may have been like to be an archaelogist at one of the most exciting moments.

Egypt Sketchbook Part 3

The wedjat eyes of Horus, the falcon god, all knowing.



I started this sketchbook in March. Spent time reading about Egypt before all the faces came together as a people instead of individual statues and sarcophagi.

Ancient life had a seasonal rhythm around the rising of the Nile, flooding of the fields, preparing for the crops that will feed a people for the coming year. The pharoah looked ahead, put aside food for a drought year, employed men in construction of burial sites and temples during the flood season when men could not tend the farms. Perhaps they were better planners than the world, 4000 years later.

Egyptian Sketchbook Part 2

Egyptian facebook.
Pakap, overseer of cultivated lands and scribes.
Tjayasetimu, 900 BC, singer of god's wife.
Padiamente, 700 BC, attendent and doorkeeper of the god Re at Thebes.
To the left is more of my antique necklace.

Heart scarab from the 18th dynasty. The heart was considered to be the seat of intelligence. It was the only organ left intact during the mummification process. All other organs were placed in four jars covered with god animal heads. The brain, considered mere stuffing for the skull, was removed and discarded through the sinus, replaced with sawdust.

Amenwahsu, overseer of granary. The image of the deceased is often shown holding baskets of grain or implements of harvest.

The god Horus, a falcon or hawk, his eye is a frequent symbol, "making whole", having regenerative powers. Wedjat Eyes appear on coffins, walls, as an amulet.