A series of anecdotes with or without any connection to the running of a restaurant.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

A picture is worth a thousand words...

This is the first picture I created on Painter in July just with the mouse. Then I got a tablet.
A cheap tablet that's just died on me.
While I await the arrival of my new Wacom tablet, I have to get back to drawing using the mouse, unless it too dies from over-experimentation!

This "Paysage" is an idyllic dream panorama.
It reminds me of our childhood farm in spring.


We did not have a twinkling stream at the bottom of the field.
But there was a well from which we drew our drinking water using a metal pulley, a rope and a tin bucket.
Next to the well was a grassed area as flat as a bowling green. My sisters, my brother and I used it as our play/picnic area.
Sundays in spring were spent playing with hula hoops, board games, skipping ropes or just doing our home work in the afternoon sunshine.

An almond tree and two fig trees stood between the green and my mother's vegetable patch. She once planted seeds that came out of a paper bag with a picture of a shiny bunch of red vegetables. She had called them radishes.

I watched them grow till the day she let me dig them out, wash them and bite into my first radish.
Nowadays their peppery taste on my tongue conjures up laughter, screams, water fights and my late mother's smile.

When I started this post I honestly never thought I would be plunging back into my idyllic childhood...
I am pleased I did!

Is there an image you can think of that brings happy memories flooding back?



...

17 Comments:

Blogger valerie walsh said...

oh me too! how lovely cream! and you claim you are not an artist! I love this picture and i'm not just saying that. It has all the elements that appeal to me, and the story is perfect. If I was the teacher I would give you an A+ and a gold star.

16/11/05 2:20 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

any picture of any palmtree makes me happy! good vibes

i love the greens like on your pic- so peacefull.... makes me want to grab a kawasaki wave runner and romp around the pond!!!!

16/11/05 5:16 AM  
Blogger neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

You did that using only a mouse? I envy, I envy.

Oh, what an idyllic place to grow up. I grew up in a village by the main road. To find the pasture we had to go down the back street.

I remember the old ball field our school took us too...big green field and BREEZE! I can just go to a place like that, sit and be happy.

16/11/05 11:32 AM  
Blogger Cream said...

Val, if you were my teacher, I would be your model pupil! Thanks!

Ale, palm trees conjure up tropical islands, Miami or the Sahara! Just get your bike out and hit the road!

GG, children these days can only dream childhoods like ours!
It was only that green in the spring. In summer it was parched and yellow, red and brown in autumn and often white in winter.
I bet you didn't think Algeria gets snow every year!

16/11/05 12:20 PM  
Blogger andrea said...

Do you ever go back to Algeria now? The neighbourhood of my childhood is no longer a sleepy fishing village/ferry terminal -- it is now a suburb for the ultra-wealthy. Sigh... Thanks for a glimpse of your childhood because it took me back to my own. Lovely little illustration.

16/11/05 3:01 PM  
Blogger Cream said...

Andrea, I go just about every year to visit my dad and sisters.
The farm we had is now unrecognisable. It is an funny amalgam of badly built houses and shops. I can't even find my bearings when I get driven past it! Shame!

Is this progress?

16/11/05 5:49 PM  
Blogger neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Snow?? Algeria? Everywhere or just certain places like Australia?

17/11/05 12:16 AM  
Blogger Cream said...

I mean it, GG!
There were days we couldn't go to school because of the snow! And Papa had a set of snow chains for the winter.
I have a photo of me in wellies, a duffle coat and deerstalker hat. Karen has it stuck in a photo-montage!

17/11/05 12:39 AM  
Blogger iluvnyc said...

whoa..... you're not kidding, huh??? you created it with mouse????????

but hey.. i really gotta say.. IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! for a sec, before i read your post, i tawt it was oil painting...

17/11/05 2:15 AM  
Blogger Cream said...

Iluvnyc, yes a real mouse! I dipped its feet in green paint, placed it inside a cheese cloche and let it muck about on a virgin sheet of drawing paper.
Really, it was before I got my now-defunct tablet! Can't wait for the new one!

Penny, when Karen tells me off for something silly, I stand straight, with my right arm outstretched like a traffic warden and I say: "Stop...in the naaaame of love before you break my heart..."
She just laughs and forgets what she was telling me off for!
Works every time!

17/11/05 10:32 AM  
Blogger Mike said...

Nice. Not what I'd expect Algeria to look like. Where's all the sand and camels? You must have been up near the sea...

17/11/05 10:23 PM  
Blogger Cream said...

Viking,
Algeria is vast! Most of the population lives on the Mediterranean coast.
I've never myself been to the Sahara let alone near a camel!

After, all I came to Britain to study Naval Architecture!!!
Ships of the desert???

17/11/05 10:39 PM  
Blogger Julie Oakley said...

This is beautiful - and what a wonderful evocation of your childhood.

You know I always get excited to hear about the wonderful trees and plants people have growing around them, you've reminded me of a wonderful garden we had when I was a child.

18/11/05 9:35 PM  
Blogger Janet said...

I'm in awe....your first attempt...and with a mouse..... You also paint such wonderful images with your words.

18/11/05 10:40 PM  
Blogger Cream said...

Julie, I really loved my childhood and because of that, I take everything as face value. No prejudice clouds my judgement, if ever judgement there ever is!

Janet, Thank you for visiting. I love your Mother's photo and your simple message for her birthday!

19/11/05 12:46 AM  
Blogger Caribbean Colors Belize said...

Your illustration is really lovely

19/11/05 3:24 AM  
Blogger Cream said...

Thanks, Lee! One has to start somewhere...

19/11/05 9:13 AM  

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