In the Clouds

I imagine that cloud formation is dependent, in part, on the geography of an area, and since I've been here I've noticed that there's usually something interesting going on in the sky, open spaces and an intermingling of different types of clouds. Maybe this fascination will whittle down over time but I'm enjoying it for the moment.

These two sketches of places in the neighborhood were from photo references, prompted by a bit of cloud gazing.    

A Murder of Crows

Hooded crows were a mainstay of the gardens in Haifa.  They often walked up and down the grass, stalking around as if taking a survey of their property. I did this composite of crows some time ago from references I found online. I've been in a bit of a bird kick recently (I guess it never really stops for me) so I decided to post them here. 

Cheers!

A Conference of Birds

The other day I had a chance to finally see a bit of Adelaide proper. Although Adelaide is a decent size, about 1.2 million, a lot of the population seems to be spread out, which makes it more difficult to visualize.  The definition of what's considered the metropolitan area is a bit liberal, with its suburbs covering a lot of area.  However, the downtown area is understandably denser.  We arrived around lunch and everyone was out doing their shopping or other errands during their break.

After taking a little tour, my excitement elevated slightly from exposure to more urban living, Chad and I ended up having at sit at one of the parks near the University of Adelaide. A small group of people camped out some distance away started feeding some of the ducks nearby.  I was surprised by the response that happened shortly thereafter.  Seagulls swooped in, moorhens crossed the bank, noisy miners fought with the magpies, crested pigeons waddled by, a pair of black swans floated downstream, and a number of other birds gathered, waiting to see if they would be a lucky recipient of the bread.  The sketch I did make doesn't quite illustrate how many were there but trust me, there were plenty.

Once it seemed like there was no more food coming their way, they came our direction, hopeful that we too would be generous.  Didn't have anything to offer but took photos instead.  My favourites usually are the ones with either long legs or big feet in proportion with their body. Here are just a few of our guests.

Black swan

Dusky moorhen

Australian magpie

Eurasian coot

Up from Under

It's been a week since I've landed in Australia. Early last Saturday morning I contemplated my arrival at the airport in Melbourne, before my flight to Adelaide, over a Krispy Kreme doughnut and a cappuccino. Any time I arrive at a new a place and I'm just gathering my bearings, the days merge one into the other, the particular name of which becomes unimportant.  Time instead gets organized around specific activities, or a lack thereof.  Fortunately, jet lag was barely an issue, and I felt acclimated to the new location within a few days.

Of course there are some things that are different.  Two things I reminded myself of today were 1.) if I'm going to make a purchase, I'm not going to get one of those environment enriching plastic bags. Bring your own reusable one. 2.) Meal sizes are a little bit different from the U.S.  Some would say that they're more reasonable. If you're going to order a small meal at McDonalds, rest assured it'll be the size of a Happy Meal. There's also the steering wheel on the other side of the car and the ol' season switcheroo. All superficial but noticeable differences to a new arrival from the States. Deeper observations to come later.

What other fun things will I learn from this continent/island/nation? I haven't reignited a regular sketching habit yet but in the road to productivity this Sunday, I worked out how to use one of the scanners in the house. I can see that the scanner is is more suitable for drawings than the document scanner I used in Haifa.  Below are a few sketches, two pages from my travels this time around, the other a quick one of some of the backyard.

Waiting at the airport

View from a window at Incheon International Airport

 

Pencil sketch of the backyard

Until Next Time

I made it through one 10 hour flight and am waiting for another in Seoul, Korea. My husband and I left Israel yesterday evening. Never really knowing what to expect, it seemed that in the end we had one of the easier exits from Ben Gurion Airport.  Aside from battling a Korean tour group, the lines were short and no fuss. You can believe that you had a decent experience when one of the "worst" things that happened was discovering that the McDonalds was replaced with a Burger Ranch. Let's hope I didn't speak too soon.

Right now the airport in Seoul is quiet.  My husband will be staying in Korea for a few days to visit his brother while I go straight on to Australia.

These past few months in Haifa have gone by so quickly. I've managed to start a habit of sketching on location and hopefully a better appreciation of my surroundings, and I am looking to continue it in the land down unda! Once I work out the scanner situation (or temporarily resort to taking snapshots again) I'll be posting again.  In the meantime, better start sketching.

Ciao.

In Living Colour

Chalk pastels done from photo reference. The colors are obviously brighter than the original scene. Not really sure what kind of result I was looking for, but I just wanted to do something with color for a change.

I await my Thursday evening flight with anticipation. While flights in and of themselves are typically non-eventful (one always hopes) there's still something about airport culture that I find intriguing.  I start wondering where people are going and why. Do they feel lonely, trapped, liberated or nothing in particular? I guess I'm just a people watcher.

Junayn Gardens

The days are getting busier as the month wears on. The end of next week I trade Israel for Australia, so my schedule is blowing up just a bit. In between everything else is packing and updating my resume. This weekend I went to the Junayn Gardens, one of the places Baha'u'llah would frequent, which was in the 19th century property acquired by the Bahai's and used for farming. The land used to extend much further but at the moment there's a lot of development going on around the property. Besides that I don't know too much about this place.


I figured I would have trouble scanning the drawing so I took a photo of it instead -- pre fixing up and erasing.

Oh, I recently ordered and received the book The Art of Urban Sketching.  I've read most of it so far. It makes a nice reference!

Weekend wrap up

 Bahji

This past weekend I had both Friday and Saturday off, what a novelty. Since my husband and I are leaving Haifa soon, our schedules are quickly filling up, more than when we left the first time last year. I'm glad to have a second chance at connecting with people who I may not even had gotten to know very well before. Yesterday we went to Bahji, which was nice. I'll miss those peaceful moments.

One of the things I like doing is taking note of any new birds I come across in my routine. When we were walking back to the Bahji Visitors' Centre, we came across some bird tracks in the sand.

Not much further away were the same ones but tiny!

Well, it is spring, isn't it? On our way back out to the road a pair of Spur-winged Lapwings swooped at us after we got too close trying to take their photo. It quickly occurred to us that they must have built their nest on the mulch covered traffic island. Funny that they chose there of all places. 

Work in Progress

On Thursdays we have an hour and a half lunch period versus the usual hour. I wanted to get out a little  so I ate lunch quickly and walked a bit up the mountain to try to get in a quick sketch. Couldn't finish everything I wanted so I'll have to go back sometime soon to complete it. Will post final product once it's done :)

Just down the street

Went out early afternoon on Saturday. Didn't go much further than going down the street, but I at least wanted to take advantage of the weather and keep up the intended goal of doing one longer drawing per week. After awhile the sun got too intense for me, and I lost the motivation to do anything else in depth. I was probably out for about an hour or so before going back home. Drawn first in pencil and then inked later.

There's some people out there with pretty awesome stuff. They keep me inspired and push me to expand my abilities -- hopefully without debilitating comparison. Some people draw on location for the sake of capturing a moment, much like keeping a regular diary or taking a photograph. Others are committed to a form of reportage, visually creating eyewitness accounts of events.  Here is but a sample of the things out there: 

Veronica Lawlor

Rolf Schroeter

Don Low

Inma Serrano

Ekaterina Khozatskaya

Wil Freeborn