NanaNinja

Today is our last here in Phon Phisai (the 'h's are silent) with Jeremy and his family. Our paintings are finished and drying in the sun. We're off to local restaurant The White House tonight for dinner. So I thought I'd share with you a few miscellaneous aspects of life here including a visit to the Sala Kaew Ku sculpture park in Nong Khai. Nong Khai is the largest town in the region about an hour away from Phon Phisai. The sculptures tell the equivalent of morality stories in the Buddhist and Hindu religions and is dominated by a huge Naga sculpture - 7 headed snake. Waree took us to a Vietnamese coffee shop on the riverfront for a welcome iced coffee. Back in Phon Phisai (pop >100,000) we found some paper to roll our paintings ... read more

There has been lots of fun and anguish. Ian is OK. He can draw. But me. I only pretend. Give me a computer any day. For the first piece we had a look around our local area. Ian chose the house next door which had a great big power pole in the middle of it. But it turned out ok even after he painted over it with violet ink. Mine is from a photo. Of Tuscany from Fiesole looking back towards Florence. I took it in 2018. Strange I think, coming to Thailand to draw and doing a scene from Italy. Jeremy's style is very loose and scribbly. We started off with small thumbnail sketches. I wasn't much good at them either. One was chosen to put on paper. Very good, expensive paper. We're supposed to ... read more

We finally made it through our long flights none the worse for wear, and were very glad to arrive in Phon Phisai, at Jeremy Holton and his wife Waree's house on the banks of the Mekong River. When they're not here they live in Perth, together with their three sons, the youngest of whom is Cody aged 4. We're getting in practice for when we see Alexander again in a couple of weeks, who is also 4. Jeremy teaches a particular drawing technique using oil pastels. Quick thumbnail sketches of scenes, choose one, transfer it to a large piece of paper and colour it with thick layers of oil pastels beginning with light colours. It is supposed to be done quickly without thinking too much and looking for patches of colours. Covering it all over with ... read more

The weather certainly changed as we came north through the Patagonian Fiords, rain, wind, mist, and lower temperatures. Not as low as the Antarctic but it felt much colder with the wind chill factor. Photos are not very good with all the rain and mist. A few sea days have seen playing games - chess, rummicub and catching up on reading. In one of the fiords we passed a wreck caused by a confusion between right, left, starboard and port. I hope the officers on board the Zaandam, know the difference. A couple of small ports have been interesting, Puerto Chacabuco and Castro. From Puerto Chacabuco we travelled over the Andes, albeit the lowest part of them, to the capital of the region Coyhaique which is on the eastern side of the Andes not in Argentina. ... read more

It wasn't really the end of the world but the end of the Pan American Highway which covers 17,848kms to Alaska. It ends on a dusty dirt road so I hope the rest of it isn't like this. After an 'average' crossing of Drake Passage again, 5-6 m swells and 40-50 knot winds, we called in to a sheltered spot by Cape Horn, which is really an island. A new monument to all the ships that have been wrecked and sailors who have been lost, was erected in 1992. Over 1000 ships have gone down. The worst year was 1905 when, of 130 ships who tried to round the Horn, 53 were lost. The space between the two parts of the monument show the outline of an albatross when viewed from a certain angle. The poem ... read more