I just finished this latest painted sketch. This one intimidated me because it’s a shrine, a holy place, a sacred place, but I wanted to try to capture the quiet, the calm, the reverence of the many shrines everywhere we go in the city. On many days there are flowers left, soft drinks, snacks. It is said the spirits are fond of sugary things, and people want to please them. Piles of flowers, garlands, lights – all kinds of things are left to honor the spirits. None of these things are ever touched. I guess someone finally clears things out, but that happens when people don’t see it. This is one style of shrine. The other major one is a “house,” usually meant to thank the spirits for allowing the person to build a house or open a shop on a piece of land, and the house is meant to make up for that. I’ll try to find a good image of that sometime soon.
This is another one I finished today.
“Mr. Natural” is the first in the series of Harvey’s long time favorite cartoon characters that I’m painting and will add to his “Happy Wall” tomorrow when we go visit.
“Mr. Natural (Fred Natural) is a comic book character created and drawn by 1960s counterculture and underground comix artist Robert Crumb. First appearing in Yarrowstalks (1967), the character gained a following during the emergence of underground comix in the 1960s and 1970s, and has been extensively merchandised in various products.”
This is one of the mailbox decorations we made when we lived in Arkansas. Anyway, I’m hoping that Harvey will get a kick out of putting these up on his wall and give him some happy memories.
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Brian came up to my table at the front window at the cafe early today, saying he was ready to go home. When we got home, he steered me to the pick up area where there was some type of ‘goody’ waiting. It turne out to be the to-die-for delicious cream-filled, no-name “thingie” that we love. We snarfed it down handily. Then he tuned my guitar, and we talked about the fact that it seemed a little unusual that this guitar needs to be tuned every day. He then showed me another way to do the “C” chord that might help with my finger-stretching and flesh-on-the-box problem. I’ll try it after dinner.
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I love Mr. Natural, and had never heard/seen him before, Linda! Wow! I’ll add him to my list of “try this” sketch models of yours. I am betting Harvey will love him too!! Sure hoping so!
Oh, so Brian plays guitar too? Wow, what does this boy of yours NOT do? Ha! That’s awesome. something you can share. And yes, I wondered if you tuned your guitar yourself. Richard tunes his every few days to maybe once a week. I know nothing about that.
I do participate regularly on a music blog and we recently discussed the passing of John Sykes, who was a pretty big in guitar circles in the 70s and 80s, and played with a couple well known rock bands. But I think I remember you like folk guitar music? Anyway, to say that I love to listen to guitar and sitar.
And that brings me full circle back to the shrines. I love that with Ganesha the elephant-like god/goddess in the sketch. I have a wonderful photo of a Ganesha artwork from an Indian friend and have tried to recreate it many times. I have not succeeded YET so I love YOUR sketch! I may give that a go at some point, but it’s very intricate my friend! Kudos to you on that! YAY!!
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Harvey really liked Mr. Natural. Me, not so much. I’m interested to hear what you think. I hope he likes my painted sketch and that it brings back good memories for him. We’ll find out tomorrow. Yes, Brian plays the guitar plus some other instruments. His love is trying to write music using his electronic equipment. He doesn’t do it so much anymore because he’s busy with work, meditation, and the like, and is also trying to design a simple computer game he wants to put out there. I can tune my guitar manually (I still remember that) but do a better job using a YouTube video. Maybe these are new strings – if I remember correctly, they stretched unbelieveably for a while and then settled down. We’ll see. Still working on my three chords… I will look up John Sykes. I always like to listen to guitar, and I find a sitar fascinating. Thanks for the encouragement about my shrine sketch. Yes, it is easily the most difficult sketch I have done. I only find trying to draw real people more difficult. We’ll both keep sketching and see what comes up!
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This is so interesting, Linda! Yes, I’ll let you know if I get to watch any of the old Mr. Natural shows, thinking some may be on YouTube.
And I love hearing that Brian plays other instruments, is also writing songs (or was), and that you love the sitar too. George Harrison is my favorite sitar player (from The Beatles).
I agree and hear you about trying to sketch real people. I’ve also been amazed at how life-like some artists can draw people and animals, from their faces and hands in particular. But I’ll simply focus on the sketches you do and picking out the simpler ones for me to try, at least for now.
Thank you again, so much, for your friendship and all this art appreciation you’re giving me!
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I had a boss who was head of advertising for the Independent Petroleum Magazine (I was his secretary and went to the conventions) who could sit down and draw people with pastel pencils that were so life-like you expected them to turn their heads and look at you, blink, smile – amazing. I’m so glad we met. You and I are sisters/cheerleaders for each other.
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