Slight hiatus…

Well it’s been a wee while since I posted. I was away from home for a couple of months – daughter’s wedding in Santorini, Greece then off to Portugal to walk a little of the Camino de Santiago from Lisbon. I only walked 10 days of the camino and had the news that my best friend had been diagnosed with lung cancer so I flew back and spent time looking after him and sitting with him while he had his chemotherapy.

I completed my 75 day ink sketch challenge but haven’t finished photographing the pages yet – hopefully over the impending Christmas holidays I can get that done. While looking after my friend I was also given the task of looking after another friend’s art studio, gallery and gift shop so I used my time wisely and started my work for Drawing 1, Assignment 1 which I will write up very soon and add photos. Once I returned home I completed the drawing for the assignment and I’m just waiting to hear back from the OCA about a change of tutor and as soon as I do so I will submit the work.

Today I spent some time making up Christmas cards and for both my daughters i’ve made a card using one of my sketches from Santorini – not particularly Christmassy but it will bring back lots of happy memories of our family time there during September at the wedding. As I looked at the sketch I could almost feel the heat of the afternoon and the glare of the reflected sunlight off the white buildings. Coming from a photographic background it surprised me that a sketch could provoke such feelings in me – i’m used to having that feeling invoked, to a certain degree, when looking through photographs of past travels but it seems somehow special that I physically created the image on a blank sheet of paper and now, looking at it takes me straight back to the half hour that I sat on the hard marble floor in the heat, drawing and painting.

Hebridean Imaging Yvonne Benting art photography western isles outer hebrides uist
Gardenia Hotel, Santorini, Greece