Abstractions and memories of a bellicose youth

DearNikki/Dear Sarah--Day 440 of our daily drawing exchange

Hi Nikki,

Third trip to the optometrist, third medication. And guess what, my pharmacy doesn’t have it, so I had to phone around to find it and won’t get it until tomorrow. Got some work done, but can only work for about 45 minutes at a time. I did manage to scrape a cut up credit card through some paint and wipe it on some scraps of watercolour paper, though. Not much effort for quite a lot of effect.

I am also posting a photo of some found art that made me laugh out loud. I love it when people make art in unexpected places. And that the Oak Bay Public Works department is using it. I think the sporran says COO.

Hi Sarah -

oh, I love the found art! Sorry you are still having so much eye trouble!!! Hoping one of these meds finally does the trick!

I deconstructed a huge scrapbook I made after my trip to Europe back in ‘81. Scanned some fading photos and then made two versions of this collage - one with added text in the middle, one without.

The words ‘Bellicose Dangerous You’ were written on the back of the photo of me spear-fishing in Greece. Wound up marrying (briefly) the photographer. English was not his first language - I’d like to think I was not pugnacious? Though the octopus we were hunting at the time may have disagreed.

Not sure I like the horizontal strip in the middle with or without the writing - so… may wait until it’s dry and I’m back and home, and I’ll give that middle bit another go. I was trying to hide/break up the overwhelming rock in the middle, but that may be better accomplished with a different technique. The dolphins and diver are from postcards from the Palace of Knossos on Crete. They made quite an impression at the time - as did my misadventures in Greece in general. It was fun to revisit those memories and salvage what I could from the old scrapbook.

Kids these days have no idea how tricky it was to arrange a rendezvous - no cell phones, no Internet, no way to get a message to someone you might want to meet again…

We could not have imagined what was to come…

Nikki