summertime

From an email to a friend this morning:

As for us, it’s off to Cowichan Lake tomorrow so I’ll be doing an uber shopping today. The garden is as immaculate as it ever gets (though I forgot to get frames for my three tomato plants so they’ve pretty much taken over the front bed) so I’m prepped otherwise. I was looking at the lawn after Carl mowed it yesterday, wondering why people pull out all the stops to keep theirs green at this time of year. Ours is a uniform yellow now, as it should be, and I like it that way. If it’s not growing there’s no maintenance! And what a huge waste of water to keep it growing. We have 1/3 acre and it would be a losing battle anyway.

I have an artist friend in Baltimore who I fell out with a couple of years ago (we don’t talk politics or religion any more :) but re-established contact with earlier this year and he sent me a package yesterday of 36 new Prismacolor pencils, a Maoist worker’s cap and one of his watercolours. It was like Christmas. He’s a big guy with a large, white beard and recently, while shopping, a little girl waved to him and said “Hi Santa!” so I’m thinking he really IS Santa. (Who knew he spent his summers in Maryland?) Anyway, this is a tiny drawing, 3” x 3”, and my first attempt to play with my new pencils after it took five songs on my MP3 player to sharpen them all. I wanted to do something more traditional. I drew it in failing light, while watching my 300 millionth rerun of Law and Order, so didn’t notice I’d ‘missed a few spots’ until I scanned it. I’m taking my pencils with me and hoping to do a few plein air drawings while holidaying on the lake.

Will there be picnics and ice cream while we're there? Here's hoping:

Ice Scream
artist unknown