i scooted back up to carpinteria for a nice mini-art retreat with joyce & sharron. but now i’m back minus my camera. seems i’m always leaving something behind. fortunately i have my trusty nikon d-90 to fill in, unfortunately i am without my scads of blue ocean pics to share. here are a few instagrams i made while up in carpinteria!
there wasn’t a bit of wind and the water was still. the air like silk. i walked on the shoreline each morning feeling the cool water wash over my feet. watched gulls & pelicans diving for fish.
yesterday we were sitting inside with the doors open wide as we played in our visual journals. i looked up and saw black dorsal fins dipping slowly in and out of the water. a slow-moving pod of fishing dolphins very close to shore! we all went out and watched the pod swimming up and down the coast not 15 yards out. so close!
this is sharron’s travel journal. she just returned from a wonderful trip to bellagio italy for a walking/sketching class with jane lafazio that she enjoyed so much. even i, who steer clear of group activities, thought it sounded lovely. she showed me how she added the sketches from class into her journal, which she made at home before she left. i regret that i didn’t take photos of the inside, but next time i will!
kelp i collected on my morning walk. and more of my pages that i IG’ed.
i brought both my big & little visual journal/sketchbooks. nice to switch back & forth.
this morning we reunited at the table facing the water till mid-afternoon when we parted ways and each headed back to our regular lives. if you go to joyce’s IG page HERE, you can see the portrait she did of me this morning. quite fabulous if i do say so myself. very maira kalmanesque!
last night we headed to super rica for some tacos.
my camera and i will be reunited next week when i pass through the area on my way north. yes, i have the gall to head for the coast again so soon. for an entire week this time. made all these getaway plans before i left for amsterdam and so glad i did. how nice to have roadtrips scattered through these last precious weeks of my sabbatical.
Those free journal pages make me think that my next (handbound thanks to TTV!) artjournal will be big! I usually carry a “medium” journal (approx same size as the moleskine sketchbooks for example) and my very first handbound journal is smaller because I wanted to get back into daily drawing (but for now i’m just writing… not a lot of drawing)… But I want a big one, to make big paintings and drawing and write write write!!
Your blog and your pictures are so inspiring, I think I’ll just go through it again for more inspiration 🙂 It’s like a book you read over and over and never get tired of.
So thank you!
Hope you are having a wonderful time, wherever you are!
I’m with Pauline (see comment above.) You know, the dolphins might have their own form of blogging and be saying, “You’ll never guess who we saw the other day – Mary Ann Moss, can ya’ believe it?” Just sayin’ – it’s probably what all those clicks and whistles were.
I think you need to do a class where we learn how to sketch, step by step….not so much the details of HOW to draw, but the details of HOW to start and what to put on a page. I would so love to try this but am not quite sure where/how to begin.
Love! What a great visit…
I’m in Clearwater, FL this week, and today we saw a lone dolphin dipping in and out of the water close to the shoreline and a pelican close to him fishing for his dinner! Awesome. This is a real treat for me as a PA resident. Love that portrait sketch of you. So realistic and fun. You’re a lucky gal MAM.
WORSK New way to spell ‘works’. And you call yourself a school teacher LOL. Looks like a marvelous mini vay-cay.
How far North will you be heading? SF Bay (my neck of the woods?)
Love, love, love, the calm and serene view you had here, and the jouranling is fab!
darla the app is instaweather pro
Dolphins. So amazing Mary Ann. I am lovin’ these quick and no fuss little rendezvous you’ve been embarking on. I think you were quite wise making these plans in advance so they’d be all lined up ‘ducks in a row’ so you could just jump into your trusty steed and head off into the wild blue without having to do any ‘real’ planning, just grab and go. Love the views from you little hideaway by the sea!
Dolphins! That’s cool. And I love artist Mark Hearld, too! Do you know Angie Lewin? Another fav British artist who does amazing block prints. I’m envious of your ocean trips (that sea kelp made me really want to book another VRBO on the coast STAT!). Enjoy, and thank you for sharing with us!
How do you add the I AM Here Carpenteria … to photos?