Sub tropical storm Beryl has arrived !

It happens in the best moments just eating cheese on toast with my good friend Dean, watching the girl next door performing her nightly hoola hooping exercises when the wind started to blow warmly and Dean decided to leave. The house started  shaking and rumbling  to the wind  and the rain and I hoped it would translate on my silly camera, but no you can only imagine ! stair rods of rain  moving slightly sideways, warm air and winds,  sirens and possibilities of power cuts and advising to stay put.
I am rapidly approaching my last day of teaching and my first year  here! I have survived.......
A year of steep learning curves, new language and the best quote from one of my most intelligent funny students who sadly  left before finishing.
Question :  What is a brayer ? (English term a roller)
Answer: A person whose vocal volume exceeds their control over said volume !
I awarded extra points...................

Inspiring Ilustrations from Bull Street Book Sale

 Rain Drop Splash -  Leonard Weisgard 1946

 While Susie Sleeps -  Dagmar Wilson 1953

 While Susie Sleep -  Dagmar Wilson 1953

I was so happy to come home with a box of children's books from the local church book sale. They are updating their library and were selling off some true little gems. Many of the books were from the late 1930's and 1940's, illustrations which feel contemporary with much being seen from Illustrators today looking for a retro feel. What is extraordinary is the limited color palette that works so cleverly to move a story from night to morning using grey, yellow, black and white. I have been trying to get my students to use this limitation in a recent fanzine project and am very excited next week to see what they will deliver.

Farewell Doug we will miss you

 Jacqui Mair, Mohamed Danawi and Marcy Vargo

 Kurt Vargo and the fiddlers

Doug Chayka far right shares a joke with Ryan Sanchez 

A heartfelt round of applause and a standing ovation  went out when Doug Chayka our fabulous colleague entered the restaurant on friday evening  . Sadly he has decided to leave the gang at Morris Hall for another venture in New Jersey with his wife and  baby son. We will all miss his inspiration .  Ever the professional, he arrived just a little late after completing a commission for the New York Times with only ten hours notice. Laughter, cocktails, good food,  and music ........... we really should do this together more often.

Stand off at the Olde Pink House our favourite restaurant.

Stand off at the Olde Pink House our favourite restaurant.

Robot one and robot two at the  Olde Pink House

Imagine the surprise and the commotion  on Tuesday,  we are awoken by at least three phones ringing in sucession with a mechanised voice telling us to remain indoors as there was a gunman on the loose in the downtown area. We are truly in America! The School security alert system kept us updated every half hour until the incident was resolved. A father and his 11-year-old son were held overnight by two gunmen. This morning, one of them took the father in his Jaguar with the father driving. As they were heading east on Broughton, the victim noticed a police officer outside Starbucks. and  yelled at the officer then jumped out of the car. The man, believed to be armed with machine gun, barricaded himself at the Olde Pink House restaurant on Abercorn Street. The intent was money and after three hours of mobile support , robots and dogs,  life resumed its normal pace  with the hostages safe, the two gunmen captured behind bars,  so much more exciting than Morse.

Mike Cross is a clever man to capture this

Mike has bought an automatic  shutter release for his camera and has managed to capture some of the delightful little beauties we have been feeding on our back porch. I feel like my parents now, who suddenly after the age of fifty started gardening and staring  at bird life outside their kitchen window. This little fellow is a common garden finch , there are lots of them, they cost a fortune to feed but I am enchanted by them. We have bought binoculars and may have to look further afield, what has happened to us?! I am using the excuse that they are featuring in my sketchbook and new pieces of work. I have just read over my new resolutions for 2012 and realise I have broken  nearly all of them. One or two I have managed a bit late! walk more : I have taken up a two mile walk three times a week round my park. Be more efficient : hard but trying hard ! smile more: Emily said wear your frown upside down !  I am smiling ! Or am I frowning .............

Everything I notice is in red and white ..........................................

Curtesy of www.emilymaude.com bird in a matchbox

A frozen charlotte doll dug up in Savannah

My  cardboard suitcase from Sri- Lanka

Mike's auction ticket

My favourite shop in Savannah.

 

A grey and rainy Sunday much like Portsmouth I like it ! mooching around the house and not forced out to go and do. Radio Four has been my salvation catching up as I mark work and Mike rushes to the auction in the hope of acquiring a tin toy as a present , sadly we  were outbid. There is an air of end of term blowing in, students are ill and overcome with just the last assignments to make the best they can, I feel it too. I am staring at red and white and I wonder what a bedroom would be like,  just for five minutes.

Quote of the month : "Sorry Professor but photoshop ran out of black". 

Our faces tell all.

Collage in class one

Colllage in class two

I have been staring at these two small collages on my studio wall,  on a daily basis for some few weeks. I made them alongside  my students at the start of the Spring term and noticed how small things  said can affect work, color, cut, mood and facial expression! I realised just how perplexed I had felt in the second collage on a throw away comment, the eyes say it all, the quizzical left eye which does not quite understand, extraordinary how it all reveals itself. I know when I look at this I feel the frustration .