Creative Tuesdays: FISH Ahoy!

Fish Ahoy!

While drawing this up, I thought about Nantucket/Cade Cod style marine folk art and how great that could be to use for this theme. Also, using a limited colour palette, helped me give a subtle yet patriotic nod to July 4th which is when I did a lot of the work, finishing off the fish and details today.

As often is the case, I took some liberty with objects, like this boat, just using various images as a base board for inspiration, and of course, none of these fish are based on anything real either, but you get the idea. In my book, artistic license is what makes doing the work more creative in the first place anyway!

Pushing myself further, I wanted to create something that didn't use any lines for outlines (like I usually do) but relying on the objects' colours themselves for definition. Whilst Alex and a friend sewed up cloth bunting tonight, I decided to add a navel version of it here too. :)

Yes, this was all quite fun and, actually, I might have even hummed a few lines of Gilligan's Island whilst at it. How about you?

Creative Tuesdays: Time for Tea

"Lords of Tea"

For the last week, I was thinking it would be great to actually show some men drinking tea, and not the landed gentry type might one commonly associate with high tea or such. No, I wanted to depict archetypes of men from American classical culture, to show that real men can enjoy tea as much as anyone. OK, so, admittedly, these aren't your normal sweatshirt wearing sports-buff types, but you will find vague references to even a grandfatherly Santa Clause, Abraham Lincolnish kind of lumberjack/Amish farmer, and a beatnik Professorial type intellectual! You see, Stateside at least, taking time for tea has been far too relegated to little old lady tea parties and such, but, like coffee, it's something to be enjoyed by anyone, alone or even better, among friends! It is the great equalizer of sorts, sophisticated yet understated. To me, its enjoyment defies your classic norm in a most appealing, mellow manner.

My hope is that if I should ever get to retire one day when old and grey, that I could find some kinfolk with whom to engage in stimulating conversation, play the occasional game of chess and perhaps even share portions of the paper with each other at our local coffee/tea shop. As it is, I actually know one retired architect who truly loves tea and might, lo and behold, possess even a better gift of witty banter than I! I know, I know... you must be thinking, that just can't be, right?! Heh. :) Well, regardless, we certainly can laugh and, along with tea, that's good medicine! :D

BTW, I owe this piece of art to my work computer having problems and IT having to sit down to tinker around with it all afternoon. Wanting to remain productive and guessing there might be some down-time, I took the opportunity to start sketching out this idea. Glad I did.

And, finally, speaking of tea time, we had our summer tea a little while ago. If you're at all interested and might enjoy seeing photos of our delightfully fun offerings, you can read more on our couple's blog. :)