This time the pictures are just scenes I like, no particular story or context, other than bits and pieces from St. George's on my wander about before my painting class starts. Enjoy!
It has been rather a full and quite pleasant day. For whatever reasons I was whipped last night and tottered to a sound sleep around 10.30, early for me. This morning started with what sounded like a gang war among the chickenry, but that had the benefit of getting me up and going on time - I might have slept thru otherwise. Scooted out front to wait for the bus - few minutes ahead of the bus a car pulled over and a ride to St. George's was offered, by an older fellow with his great granddaughter. She was 4, visiting from Texas, and remembered enough from her last visit to the island to offer a running commentary on our surroundings as we skimmed past the beaches, golf course, sound, airport and harbor. In his late 60's, he still works - as a welder and on his own terms - and holidays by taking his motorcycle thru the US. His next trip is up the coast into Alaska and as far north as he can go. He has visited 41 of the States, spent some time at Camp Lejeune taking some classes for his military service and has hung out with friends in the Raleigh/Durham area...
They dropped me off in the town square, and I walked out to see the many, many sailing boats in the harbor, far more than I have seen there before. This whole sailing thing is not something I completely understand - a short little sail sounds fun, in fact I may take some sailing lessons while I am here, but these several-week-long trips crossing the Atlantic are an entirely different thing. But - St. George's in particular has a number of small businesses that cater to this apparently pretty heavy traffic, so it is a big deal here.
Emma's class was, as always such fun, and I felt like I made some progress understanding more about the mechanics of working with watercolor. I've a long way to go, but it is pure pleasure. As she - and Trevor - have noted, I handicap myself by being so anxious for control, focusing on the stuff I see (the details, textures, shape and shadow) to the detriment of what I don't (scenery, broad perspectives...) I tend towards the study rather than the impression. I'm more naturally a follower of the exquisitely rendered - and detailed - northern European works from the Renaissance years than the explosions of light and color that watercolor often is. I'm learning to see the tones in a supposedly white wall. It is wonderful.
Everything about Emma is out-sized - she has a fine talent, and is a good, positive, supportive, encouraging teacher, she has a booming voice and big gestures, she has a wonderful heart and generous nature. She has no problem owning up to 'mistakes', or things that didn't work out as she wanted them, but her Pratt background and native talent are so evident.
I'm using some of my photos to work from. I think there is a pretty strong graphic sensibility to these point-and-shoot pictures and obviously it is stuff that attracted my attention in the first place, so when drawings work out nicely I am pleased, and when I can add in the color in ways that 'fit' I am close to tears. Such a blast.
Afterwards I took the bus back in towards town, hoping I'd intercept a #3 bus so I could easily get to the location of this year's Garden Club Home and Garden show, a wonderful place called Mayflower, an old Bermuda cottage that has grown Topsy-style over the generations. It has a tower of sorts with a widow's walk, and (presumably obviously) an excellent view of the ocean off the South Shore. They had plants for sale, musicians, flower arranging demonstrations, a fashion show, drinks and baked goods and sandwiches, and ladies posted in each of the rooms to help explain the very dramatic floral arrangements, provide background information on the rooms, furniture, artwork etal, and, of course, provide the security that nothing gets pocketed and walked away with.
One room had a beautiful long Bermuda cedar dining table and was formally set with all the gee-gaws that involves. I don't recall just what or why that room's docent and I were talking but turns out she lived in Chapel Hill for about 25 years; her husband taught at the university, she still comes back to go to her Chapel Hill dentist...
I swear, I am not trying to find people with North Carolina connections. Honest!
Oh - I didn't intercept the bus, it was clear the schedules wouldn't jigger up well, so I got out in Flatts and walked the 3 kilometers or so along Middle Road (past the Old Devonshire Church, if you are following this on a map at all - Mayflower is just past the intersection of Locust and Middle, near Watlington West.) And then after touring the ten acre grounds I walked further towards town then down to South Road (another kilometer or so) to catch the #1 bus to St. Mark's, which was having a family festival (rummage sale, face painting, snow cones, bounceyhouse, a history-of-the-church play, etc.) I wanted to go because one of my bus-buddys was among the organizers, another acquaintance was the face-painting artist (she is an architect 'by day'), but mostly to see the wonderful stained glass in the church. The east end of the church had come down in a tornado or hurricane strike a dozen or so years ago; Ms. Gardner rebuilt the main window, matching as well as possible the design and the colors from photos people rounded up and the bits of glass found amid the destruction. She also did another window in a side chapel that is more her 'style'. I had read about her work but hadn't seen it other than in the book I have (surprise!), and St. Mark's is situated so beautifully, and has this tall somewhat Gothic tower - I'd wanted to see the interior.
And then I walked home. That was another kilometer or so.
Need I mention the weather was glorious?
What else? Got lots of work done at the office, brought stuff home to try and finish up. Emma had an opening Thursday night at a coffeehouse in town - pen sketches of habitues of the cafe, done on site, then water-colored. The birdhouses were auctioned last night but I didn't go so I don't know how that went. I have started looking at scooters, but without any degree of commitment, I'm not persuaded I need to go there as yet...
OK, enough. Please enjoy the pictures...This is a ridiculously photogenic place, and the weather is presently so good it slays you to be inside, so this stuff is inevitable!
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