6 A.M. Alarm

I was fast asleep when I heard a loud thud. At first I thought was it my neighbor already at work on his house (I have a neighbor building a brand new house). Then there was another, and then another, even louder. And a knock, Knock, KNOCK. I realized it was someone knocking at the door. I stumbled out to find my little 4 year old neighbor wearing only a long tee shirt, wanting to play. So I let him in and we started making origami cranes. But my little brain was still asleep so I asked the boy to let me sleep and come back later. I went back to bed. Later to a 4 year old is maybe 10 minutes. So he came back this time armed with gifts, an orange and a can of coke. We watched a little t.v. (thank god for cartoons). Finally his auntie Zelda called out to have him come home and I was able to go back to bed...

Maku'u Farmers' Market

Every Sunday there is a huge farmer's market in Puna near an area called Hawaiian Paradise Park (or HPP to us) that's really kind of an event. When I go I'll try to buy my fruit and vegetables for the week. I buy the best lettuces from the Krishnas (always organic), bananas from da Banana Boys, and then other vegies and fruit from a variety of Asian and hippie farmers. It's also a kind of flea market and bazaar. You can even get a massage, acupuncture or even your fortune told. And then there's always an increasing variety of cooked foods.

This particular Sunday (just passed) I took two young Japanese women who have been volunteering at Kalani Honua (the eco resort in my neighborhood). Many have been introduced to Puna through volunteer work at Kalani (as well as vacationers or people looking for a spiritual retreat or just some place to work things out).

Painting with Arthur

This week was pretty busy with outside work (computer stuff) but I did get a couple of days in to paint with Arthur. It's also been pretty rainy, another lame excuse for not painting because truth be told I need to do some stuff in the studio as well, especially finishing the dozen or so paintings. Well this week was a week of working on old stuff out in the field. The weather can be a challenge when you're painting outside.

We went out on Friday to paint 'with' the Friday Hot Pond group again. The cutest kids came right by me and my painting and so I had an audience of it seemed like a hundred if only for a minute or so.

We also went back out to Opihikao, I hadn't been out there since last summer. Cars would stop by while I was painting and one even stopped to take pictures, but it turned out they weren't photographing me but the beautiful rainbow behind my painting...

Maui Paintings

I bought a new digi camera yesterday so I could finally upload these photos of my paintings from our Hana Maui trip as I test the camera out... These are smaller than how I normally work in the field due to weight and size constraints of transporting these island to island. I forgot to mention that when I was going out there I had my oil paints confiscated, even after I had called the airlines to see if it was okay to pack them (not in carry-on) and the woman on the phone assured me that it was fine. Luckily on two counts, Arthur generously let me 'borrow' his extra tubes (they didn't confiscate his--I must look more criminal) and the airline did save the tubes for me to pick up when I got back to Hilo.












The last painting is one I did in about 45 minutes, including set up time. We had to go to our own show at the Hana Resort and I didn't have any time to think. I have to say though I kind of like this crude though unfinished direction.

This week in Puna

It's been an extremely productive week for me. Above the graphic work I'm especially happy that I was able to start 5 paintings. It all started with my desire to paint the sunrise. But sunrise happens to be 5:30 AM these days. So the first morning I was out painting by 6:30, too late for the sunrise but early enough to get some nice morning twinkling on the water.



The next few days it was off and on painting with Arthur and Ben (his protegé, whom I didn't photograph because I didn't have my camera with me that day, maybe he's on Arthur's blog). I started another morning painting of the road with the ocean behind the grove of palms.







The week ended perfectly with a day spent at the Hot Ponds with the Puna painters who meet every Friday afternoon to paint together, though strangely none of them are plein air painters. It was great to be painting there because we got to start with a wonderful dip in the geo-thermally heated pool there, before all the crowds so the water was pretty clear. It was my first time to paint there but it definitely won't be the last...

Someday, I hope to to finish these paintings. Hopefully this momentum continues.

Yesterday, a long time ago

I haven't been very good about updating lately. And now so much has happened that I don't know where to begin. So I think I'll just talk about what happened yesterday. I finally joined the Hilo group for another plein air painting session at an area called the Ice Ponds near Banyan Drive and the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. So called because of the freshwater runoff that makes the bay there (it's not really a pond) much colder than say, our little beach in Kehena. It was a lot of the usuals (Amy, Gerald Murai, Lena) and a few new faces, though I must admit I don't attend many of their sessions because I (or we, meaning Arthur and I, we are kind of clumped together because we are in the Puna district--45 minutes from Hilo) live too far to get there in time. As it was, I showed up at 10AM and most of the group was finishing up their paintings. Well, I got a good start in.

So someone brought out watermelon and offered them up to the group. With brush in one hand I took a slice (from Gail, another member of the Arthur Johnsen Gallery). I started to eat as I was painting and subconsciously I must have reverted back to my 5 year old self in Japan because I started to spit out the seeds as I was eating. Granted we were on dirt, but later I thought, gee, did I gross out anyone (maybe those reading here)? Funny how as we grow older we become so conscious of what we do, especially in front of others. I guess that's a good thing. Oh well, it's my country bumpkin (or in Japanese--inaka) side coming out. I secretly enjoyed it.