TGIF

Friday Night - Beach Night Evenings on the beach are the best. The weather is usually always balmy with a light breeze. Even when it rains we just squeeze closer over the big umbrella that covers our table. We go to our favorite kiosk "Satéhut" which is just down our street two blocks. There is a huge wide promenade along the beach with kiosk's along the way. Ice cold beer, or a Brasilian drink, Caipringa. It is made with pure sugar cane alcohol, fresh squeezed limes and lots of lime slices and sugar. They are very good, but two is the limit. They are potent. While we sit and listen to music and converse, vendors come to our table to sell anything and everything from cigarette to hammocks. We have made friends with a lot of the vendors, so they will stop to chat. Francisco sells carved wood items. He was excited because he and his wife were expecting. When the baby was born he couldn't wait to tell us and show us pictures of the baby. His wife is deaf, which poses some problems when he is working. They have to make arrangements for afamily member to be there when Francisco is working. Vendors on the beach ar some of the hardest working people I know of. From around 9 or 10 in the morning they are walking the beach. If you have walked any distance in the sun and hot sand then you know how hard it can be. They are carrying their wares in huge bags, leather flip flops, "flips", clothing, food, and people like Francisco who carrys a huge bag full of carved wood and they are still working at night. I have much empathy for how hard they work. And it seems they always have a smile for you. Francisco

"Daniel"

"Our collection of Flips"

Hope you enjoy your Friday night. I will leave you with a painting of "Jake's Room

"Jake's Room"

Wednesday, Soup Day

Growing up , Wednesday was always Soup Day. Didn't matter what the weather was like, except for Chile. It always had to be a cold snowy day or dark rainy day for Chile

"Soups On"

Several years ago I started a series I call "Blue Horse" for greeting cards. I decided Blue Horse needed a friend, and about a year ago I added Butch(the barn cat).

"Blue Horse and Butch (the barn cat) Getting Acquainted"

"Blue Horse and Butch (the barn cat) A Little to the Left, Please"

I don't seem to have any firm nitch where my art is concerned. But, I guess that is okay. In the long run what really matters to me at this time in my life is that I have paper, paint, brushes and a great passion to put them to use. I like to make little boxes out of water color paper to give away to friends or family members. Below are a couple of them.

Just Another Day in Paradise

"You Touched Me...and I Grew"

I submitted these little purple flowers to http://www.watercolorpassion.com/ where every quarter Maury Kettel who started the site over 10 years ago and manages it posts a subject for painting. I submitted my first painting over a year ago. If you like watercolor art it is a fun site to peruse. If you are a watercolor artist you can join in by simply submitting your painting of the subject for that quarter. There are so many wonderful sites to inspire you as an artist, or teach you new techniques and to challenge you to work outside the box. I have also met artists who have become wonderful friends.

"Sleeping Cat"

I love cats. I have 5 house kitties. I used to feed all the stray cats in our neighborhood and one winter a mother racoon and 4 of her babies discovered the cat food, and I couldn't turn them away. They were voracious eaters and kept me broke buying the food.

"Monday, Monday. . ."

"Monday Morning"

Gosh, here it is Monday again. I slacked over the weekend and read a book and watched a couple of DVD's. Decadent behavior. I'm starting a new paianting and I'm going to experiment with it. If it turns out okay, I will post it - it not we'll all forget I said I was going to do a new painting! Righ? I have no formal art background, so I take the long way around to reach an effect that other artists reach in a heartbeat, because they learned the shortcuts. The internet has opened a wonderful world of learning to me - as it has I know to others who are interested in learning about this or that. Like most things it can be for good or for bad. Like loving chocolate, but how good is it for you? Hmmmm? Now and then I like to experiment with my digital camera in Print Shop. I liked what the fish eye produced with these 2 photos. The fish eye was somewhat lost in the second photo because of scaling it down in size "Melissa Escaping the Surf" My soon to be granddaughter Melissa, age 9, loves being in the water. She barely leaves it to get something to eat or drink. This picture was taken at Beach Park about an hour south of where I live. It is a huge Disney-like water park right on the beach. You can either go into the water park which boasts the highest water slide in the world or you can just relax at a kiosk on the beach, drink that ice cold beer and listen to live music "Days End" The Atlantic is a beautiful deep blue and bathtub warm. I must need be by the ocean, but I really don't want to be in the ocean. I don't know what kind of creepy crawly things are lurking on the floor. Too much imagination, I suppose.

"When We Were Young"

"Storm Coming"

During the summer, which is now, on Friday and Saturday nights the air is filled with music from three different concert locations. Two on the beach and one at the military recreational complex up the hill behind me. It must be because the streets all run into the beach and are lined with apartments and hotels and such, that we hear the concerts as though we were right there. We are like in "building canyons". I tell you this because each concert begins at 11 p.m. with the loudest fireworks you've ever heard. It is traditional for concerts and other public events to begin this way. The loud booms are not only heard but felt inside you clear to your toes. I've grown accustomed. . .but in the beginning my heart stopped. It is so loud it blows your socks off. The concerts last 'til 3 sometimes 4 in the a.m.

When I moved to Brasil, I had to make a lot of hard choices about what I could take with me and what I had to leave behind in storage. My thoughts were that I would be able to buy my art supplies when I got settled so I left them behind in storage. Well, that was a terrible mistake. There is an office supply store that sells student grade watercolor paper (some of the time). The store carries a good supply for oil painters, but not watercolorists. The store carried 3 different sizes of water color brushes. None, of course, the size I wanted. The only paint available was Pentel, also student grade colors. Had I known how frustrating this would be, I would have left clothes behind in order to have room for my art supplies. Watercolor paintings are almost unknown here where I live. Oils are quite popular and many artists sell their paintings in the open air market on the beach.

"Mexican Corn Grinder"

On the one hand I've hadto make adjustments and make do for certain things. Art supplies are high on my wish list. I'd give my kingdom for Jiff Extra Creamy peanut butter. There is no sour cream and no green chilis. Absolutely every other kind of chilis, but not a good fat thick Anaheim or a good jalapeno. However, there are so many things here to delight me and make my life easy. For instance, I can have just about anything delivered right to my door, from aspirn from the farmacia to a hammer from the hardware store to groceries from the supermarket. In fact, I can call in my list of groceries, a store employee with shop for me and then it will be delivered. I love to hear the vendors singing and calling their wares. Living here has also been extraordinarily good for my health. I walk almost every day, to the store, the beach or on other shopping errands. If something is too far away, we take a taxi which is incredibly reasonable.

In The Beginning. . .

To begin with I live 2 short blocks from the beach. I begin my day with a cup of tea and a view of the beautiful cerulean Atlantic ocean. This is the view from the corner of my balcony. Three years ago I moved from the state of Idaho in the U.S. north of the equator to the state of Ceara in Brasil, south of the equator. A great leap in distance and an even greater leap in lifestyle.

I live appoximately 2° south of the equator so as you can probably imagine it's very warm. The average year round temp is 86° F. Brasil has hundreds and hundreds of miles of beaches. They are beautiful and pristine. I walk down the street 2 blocks to our favorite kiosk on the beach and this is what we see. Brasilians drink beer ice cold. If it isn't ice cold then they don't want it. Coconuts abound here. The palm trees are mostly coconut palms. Ice cold coconut milk is served in the unhusked coconut just about anywhere you go, whether on the beach or to an uptown restaurant. Shrimp and lobsters are sold by vendors who come around with a basket full of them. There is an open air art and craft market on the beach just out of view of this picture. It opens every day at 4 p.m and closes around 12 a.m year round. For any one who has set up a booth at a art fair, they will have the same sympathy for these vendors who have to set up their booth and take it down every single day of the year. I will post some pictures of the market in a later post.

I have discovered so many new and interesting fruits and vegetable. On the right are Cashews. I had no idea cashew nuts started out as a fruit. The nub on the top is the nut we all love to eat. The fruit has a uniquie flavor and makes good juice. I have family and friends who live in the states and many of them are inundated with freezing temps, snow and ice. I have no envy for them. Even though we are in our summer and temps are around 86-88 degrees we have a breeze that blows 24/7 year round. It is cool in the shade and bearable in the sun.

"Beached"

Brasilian fishermen use Jangadas which are African in origin. I painted this before ever coming to Brasil and was very surprised when I discovered they were used here. They are build somewht differently, but are still called Jangads.