Ein Hod

A few weeks ago myself, my husband and a mutual friend went to Ein Hod, an artist's village in northern Israel. It's a quaint place with little galleries, a couple of museums and some other establishments. The Haifa fire which burned quite a bit of the surrounding rural area late 2010 also affected parts of Ein Hod. You could see the lines of trees and other areas that were charred. A lot of it has grown back though. Spring is a yearly reminder of rejuvenation.

Before exploring much of anything we stopped to have Israeli breakfast at a little cafe. We were the only customers for the morning with the exception of a few people sitting outside enjoying the sun, waiting for nothing in particular. They played old jazz songs, a solid genre to chill out to with cups of cappuccinos. 

Ein Hod Cafe

Everything seemed fairly slow while we were there. The shopkeeper of a bookstore said that of course there aren't that many people, that's why they're called a village! He seemed to enjoy his middle of the week lull. More people showed up in the galleries and in the streets as the day drew on. We left early that afternoon content that, for a period of time, we were able to remove ourselves from the familiar reaches of Haifa.

Results from one of the exercises in The Creative License. The assignment was to draw the contour of some objects on a shelf while keeping your eyes on the subject and not so much the paper. Filled in the details afterward.

X Marks the Spot

Since I found the They Draw & Travel website, I started brainstorming ideas about elements I would want to include in an illustrated map. Last night I downloaded a trial version of Illustrator in the hopes that I may be able to play around with it a bit for this purpose. I've travelled a little bit but one of my more recent trips took me west to the lovely state of Oregon. There's an attractive quality to the West, perhaps a type of natural beauty which isn't always apparent in my immediate surroundings.  Stay tuned for the final results, or at least my final attempts in the near future.