I’ve noticed something about Italian cities.
They don’t have any glass in many of their windows!
I plead ignorance on this, but from what I’ve observed, their are a lot of windows that are just shuttered like the one you see here. This one apparently with shutters on the inside.
I wish my neighborhood was like this. Just fling open big ol’ shutters each morning with no worries about somebody invading your home. Come to think of it, I could probably do that here. The media has me thinking I can’t due to the constant reporting of home invasions and other alarming crimes.
But alas, I don’t have any big ol’ windows that are just shuttered. And my house isn’t an antique like this one. So I’ll just raise the glass sashes and “be American”.
If you get a wild streak and want to own some Idle Minutes art,
this one is up for auction at eBay
My father-in-law, Hubert, is 84 and still keeps a garden each year. This year he has about 140 tomato plants.
He gives them away to friends and family. Yes…he gives them away. He has “a list”.
This is our first take for the season…a basket of the best home growns you can get. One of ‘em makes about two ‘mater sandwiches, sometimes three. They’re big.
Hubert really toils over his tomato garden. He is very proud of his work and he should be. He’s had a garden for many, many years. And as such, has kept many people happy each summer with his generosity. People like Hubert are hard to find these days.
I thought they made a nice sketch and a nice testimonial toward being good to others.
My dear wife likes to pinch off blossoms from the Azaleas and put them on the kitchen table in a little blossom bowl. I thought they made a nice subject for a sketch.
Once again, nature proves to be complicated. There are so many leaves, petals, shadows and such in that little bunch of blossoms in that little blossom bowl…it’ll make your eyes play tricks on you trying to keep up with where you are in the sketch.
So the lesson is to simplify so you can learn about how these blossom thingies are constructed.
The more you sketch, the better you become at capturing shapes and details…and simplifying. Note that “capturing” is different from “copying”. Capturing is actually better.
Even so, there are days like today, where you simply don’t do a well as you’d like. That’s the beauty of it though.
You still sketch.
You still learn.
You still enjoy.
And it doesn’t really matter if you’re “off” because you’re not trying to impress anybody. You’re just sketching for the rewards of it.
That is the goal after all. In the big picture, a year from now, you can see and review your good days and your bad days and learn from that too.
Alrighty then. As promised, here is an Iris bloom from my dear wife’s flower garden. I included the notes I wrote in the sketchbook on this one.
I have to tell you, these buds and blooms have a lot of details that my eyes are simply too old to see unless I get really close. They have more detail than is reasonable to sketch so one has to judiciously leave some of it out.
That’s called “Artistic License”.
So, I learned once again just how complicated nature really is. Everything is way, way complicated…amazingly so.
There is so much to see. Sketching forces one to really study things they perhaps never would have bothered with otherwise . Look what I would have missed eh?
“Stop and sketch the Roses…or Iris…or Lugnut, or Unicycle, or Uncle Bob’s nose while he’s sleeping. It’s all fascinating once you start to study it.”
While letting the dog out for her morning constitution I noticed my dear wife’s flower garden was home to about fifteen new iris blooms. There were a number of buds about to pop open as well.
Last year I got a sketch of the seed pods…this year the flowers and hey, maybe seed pods again.
Tomorrow I’ll tackle one of the blooms. All I had time for today was a quick sketch of a bud with a pencil. Then I painted over it with watercolor.
This is a new sketchbook I’m starting so I guess the theme will have to be nature stuff.
We’ll see how long I can stay on the subject before I go off on some other tangent.
“Hey baby. S-s-sorry to bother ya-you at work but I just ha-had to tell ya how m-much I love my new NASCAR ri-ridin’ mower. I picked it up tuh-today. An this official NASCAR pit boss wuh-wireless h-headset you bought me to go with it is gr-great! I’m ta-talkin’ to ya wi-with it right na-now while I’m mo-mowin’! Ain’t that suh-somethin’!”
“Wha zat? Yeah yeah, I got on my NASCAR shirt! Course I do! Yeah I got on the ye-yeller one so I won’t get h-hit out by the road…and my Ch-Chevy hat ta-too. I ta-tell ya I ain’t never enjoyed mowin’ the ya-yard ’till na-now. I shore do la-luuuuvv you b-baby…”
“Wha zat? C-course I luv you m-more than NA-NASCAR!”
“Wha zat? Yeah…we’ll go luh-look at the nuh-new Camaros th-this weeke-end. Huh? Well…yeeeah…I guess we’ll git ya-you a new ‘un.”
“Li-listen, I g-gotta go now, I wanna cuh-call Earl wh-while I’m mowin’…he’ll be sooooo juh-jealous! Bye-bye. Ka-kissy kissy to ya-you too sha-sugar.”
Click.
“Duh-Dang!…I knew they was a re-reason she ba-bought me this huh-headset. She wants a new da-dang Camaro!! Man, it d-don’t EVER st-stop! Spend, sp-spend, spend…Gotta call Earl.”
Beep…rinnnnng…rinnnnng…
“Hey? E-Earl? Zat Choo? He heeeeee heee! Guh-guess what I’m a da-doin? Naaaaw! Guh-Guess agin…”
Being a native son of Georgia, I was raised around pine trees and azaleas. The azalea was the de facto standard shrub when I was a kid.
Everybody used them, and they still do, but now they are usually up against the house more often than not. That’s because developers here always clear-cut a chunk of land before building a new neighborhood. So the “landscaping” usually ends up next to the houses with most of the lawns manicured and cordoned off by driveways. There are neat straight hedges and very specific “areas” for landscaping and flower beds.
Occasionally though, you can find little jewels as you drive down the roads.
Such was the case today as I traveled on a side street that crosses between two major thoroughfares several miles apart. An older home on a few acres had a wooded area buffering it from the road.
Many years ago, the owners decided some azaleas would look nice amidst the big pines there. Today, it is a strikingly peaceful scene in an otherwise fast-paced suburb.
I saw it first at 45mph and was so surprised by it I decided to give it another run with my camera hanging out of my window. I got a reasonably good shot and painted it up on a postcard this evening.
When I was a kid, we would visit my uncle Dink and Aunt Winnie in the country. Mom and Dad, Dink, Winnie, Grandma Idel, and Grandpa Gordon would sit out under the huge pines in the front yard, in those cheap folding chairs with the nylon webbing…and talk about things.
I would lay in the grass and look up at those tall pines with the sun filtering through. Azaleas were here and there…always near the pines.
This scene reminded me of that.
