A Journal Page

I started by just putting colours on the page. The next day I started fiddling with an old picture of myself - 1983, sigh - in Photoshop. When I was done I saw that the colours fitted well with my journal page. I fiddled some more with the page - with pen and some more watercolour washes, and glued on the picture.

Then I wrote a few things about that time in my life. I had passed the Foreign Service exam, and was waiting for my security clearance. I knew that I was going to begin a new life, but there was still time to appreciate the old one. It was a happy time for me.

Oh, and there's a not-very-flourishing ficus, from the coffe shop I visited today.

An Experiment

I decided to try several things that were unfamiliar to me all at once. I painted the same picture on an acrylic background, using gouache; watercolours; and watecolour pencil. Not happy with the results, but I've learned a few things. First of all, the colours bead up on the acrylic -- though it happened least with the pencils, because I used a very small amount of water just to dissolve the colours which I had put on dry. Then, I wasn't able to get intensity from the watercolours at all. And the gouache, though it went on darker, somehow turned to mud. I might add that I'm not good at painting flowers in the first place - so that's another part of the experiment. Well, anyway, here they are, my blobby flowers:

Gouache on gold acrylic

Watercolour on gold acrylic

Watercolour pencil on gold acrylic (my acrylic layer was thinner and smoother for this one, which may have helped the pencil to adhere more smoothly)

Loose

You know how sometimes, the harder you work on something, the worse it gets - stiff and lifeless at best? I did that, trying to paint an arrangement of poppies. I did them first in watercolours, then with watercolour pencil. At the end I looked back at my preliminary sketch - just a pencil scribble, over which I had washed a bit of colour - and I liked it best of all:

Moo

I confess that I drew this, not from life, but from a fuzzy old photograph taken by R, which we were going to throw away. It is a Chennai cow, anyway.

My father had several talents of interest to small children: he could wiggle his ears; he had a signet ring - we called it his magic ring - which he could make disappear; but most of all, he was really good at mooing. He was sparing in performing all of these wonders, so that they retained their desirability. But once in awhile we would say, "Make a moo, Daddy!" and he would oblige. It began with a long, deep "MMMMMMMM", and then extended out to "oooooooo", and it was very satisfactory indeed.