The Promise

When I bought Springsteen's The Darkness on the Edge of Town I was about 12. Born in the USA had just come out, I was in love with his sound and wanted to hear more. I actually bought the album from my pocket money at my parents' book club, and could not wait to get home and play it.
Darkness was quite a different album. Dark (duhh!) gloomy, rough. Not something an early teen would normally listen to. But I loved it, even if I had no idea what Candy was doing inviting so many boys to her room... ;) Gradually I learned English listening to Springsteen albums, dictionary in hand to figure out line by line what he meant.

Today, Tye bought me a copy of The Promise - 21 newly released recordings from the Darkness session. It's all those songs that didn't make it to the album, or slightly different versions of songs that did make it. It's so strange, to hear familiar lines used in other songs, or combined with ones that I haven't heard before. It's like they're brand new and I'm 12 years old again, trying to figure out what it all means.

And Clarence's sax still makes me cry.

Life

And then, Tye's Nan passed away. And there was the arranging of the funeral that was to be held about an hours drive away from where we live, and the emptying of her home, and all the emotions that come with dealing with things like that.

And then there were health problems. Nothing too serious, but serious enough to go see my GP. And then there was the being oh-so tired, partly due to new meds, partly due to all the emotions coming out.

And then... there was new life. Two brand new nephews, born this Monday. Meet Alfie in blue and Finley in yellow:

They are still in hospital, they were born via c-section and Finley is jaundiced, but that's all being taken care of. Hopefully they should be home this weekend.

And hopefully, my creative spark will come back and I'll finally do something other than gessoing pages only to leave them white because I just don't have the 'oompf' to do anything else...

Illustrated Journal (3)

Let's play catch up..







More drawings can be found here.

Postcard Challenge - Belgium

So...

Tye got ill, and then I got ill... Not ill-ill, but we had a really bad cold/close to flu that kept us in bed for days coughing up our lungs and hurting all over...
Art was not exactly on my mind.

And then when I started to feel better, and I did a couple of drawings in my Illustrated Journal, I still didn't feel up to the Postcard Challenge. And then when I did, I felt as if I had to catch up, and that stopped me from even going there at all... I know, silly me.

So this week, I finally decided to not even think of China, Brazil and France and just carry on going with Belgium!




"Michael,
I don't think I've ever been as active as I have been staying in Belgium's smallest city of Durbuy.
Kayaking down the river Ourthe was amazing, we had a blast horseback riding, I challenged myself rock climbing and we went mountainbiking.
We visited the caves of Hoton and the Hara Krisna castle of La Petite Somme. But the best thing: chips with sour mayo!
Nat. X"


Durbuy really is a lovely little city, I remember going on holiday there when I was about 8, and going back to that same area a few times. We stayed in a bungalow exactly like this one, and I remember evening walks organised by the park people, down the mountain into the little town, having a drink in a cafe with my dad and the dog.

I remember the Caves of Hotton, that used to have a boat ride at the end of it and they'd always say 'cover your childrens' ears' before firing off a canon that was SO loud, but when you got to the end of it it was a toy-size one. I remember seeing fireflies which I thought were magical, and seeing Hara Krisna walking around in town.

It was the first place I kept a glue book, of my dad's Belgian beer labels, and food labels and dried flowers.

But most of all: Belgian chips are the world's best, and their sour-tasting mayo is amazing! We would always take a few tubs back home with us after every holiday in Belgium.

Postcard Challenge - Card 2

Text:
"My Natalie,

They wanted me to go and see the bull fighting but I told them no.
I could not go and watch that and then come home and look you in the eye, knowing what I had seen. Not even for research or however they decided to call it.
I went to see Flamengo dancers instead, so I got my bit of culture for this trip.

Yours, M. "

Illustrated Journal (2)

So I did a few more pages, drawing every single day and loving it.
It's funny to notice that you never really looked at a banana until the moment you started drawing one.

Two blind contour drawings that.. well.. I did tidy up a little bit:



My poor backscratcher that I had to stick back together with ductape. Can't live without it...

Crackers with cheese and chunky bits of cucumber:


Now I already posted this yesterday, but I wanted to tell you the story that goes with this drawing:

It was the day before Tye's birthday, which sadly he had to work so we decided to celebrate it a day early, and we went out for dinner with the inlaws.
The dinners were brought to the table and I took a quick picture of my plate, thinking I would draw it later. The waitress gave me a funny look, and my mum-in-law told me while we were eating that the bar staff and the waitress were standing behind the bar, looking at us. A minute or so after that, the chef even opened his kitchen door...

I think they thought I was a mystery client or something, ordering food to critique it later. I wonder what they would've said if I had actually got my sketchbook and paints out there and then......

Review: Fountain pen Revolution and Serwex pen

Just before Christmas, there was a Tweet floating around about almost-free fountain pens. As I knew Father Christmas was getting me ink, and I wanted to try out drawing in fountain pen and ink, I of course very interested.

All I had to do was 'like' the Facebook page for Fountain Pen Revolution Facebook page and they would ship a pen for $2.50!

I sent them an email to make sure this amazing deal would be available to people in the UK too, and within half an hour I got a lovely reply back from Kevin Thiemann- he was more than happy to ship to the UK! So I kept my fingers crossed for smooth shipping and waited patiently for the sillocone grease and syringes I had ordered on Ebay so I could fill the fountain pen without having to worry about it leaking.



The Serwex Special 101 arrived pre-greased, which was very nice of them, and I had no problem filling it, but for some reason, it was difficult to get the ink to flow after not using the pen for even as little as a few minutes.

I mentioned this to Leslie and she explained to me how some pens have 'breathing holes' in the cap. Sure enough, my pen had one too. This can cause the nib to dry out, making it more difficult for the ink to start flowing when you first start to write or draw. Her tip: put some wax in it.

It worked! I now have no problems getting the ink to flow, even if I haven't used the pen for a couple of hours.


Here's the first two page spread I did using the Serwex fountain pen:



Even though it took me a while to fall in love with my Serwex fountain pen, I do love it now and have used it for all my drawings since. And Fountain Pen Revolution gets my vote too. They are an American family-run business in India, The shipping was incredibly quick, communication was perfect (so important when you have a few questions and a company actually replies!) and their website says ' Join the revolution and declare independence from overpriced fountain pens!' Can't go wrong there! ;)

Please make sure you check out their Facebook page as they keep coming up with great deals you don't want to miss out on.