Coffee And Paint Drips Blog

Just a Distraction

Rather than paint I got myself involved in jewelry for a couple of days. I needed to distract myself for a while and had wanted to try making knotted bracelets. Many of us in the Greek culture wear a similar style bracelet called Monk’s Knots, supposedly made by monks with black cord, beads, and prayers. 
I’ve seen these in fancy stores made with semi-precious stones and other high end beads. I figure, why not try my hand at it? With some inexpensive materials I had at hand, here is my knotted bracelet. I used glass beads and hemp cord. Not bad for a first time.

I enjoyed myself that day. The next I was rolling along, doing my thing, errands and what-not and look what happens..

Let’s just say I hate taking my empty bottles to the recycling thingy, because look what can happen while there. Is glass known to bounce and jump? I watched a bottle jump out of my bag and break on the ground at my feet. Next thing I see my hand full of blood. How, why, what I can’t remember! Never saw it happen.

No knotting, no painting, no nothing after that. Ouch.

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Photo for Friday

You just never know what you’re going to find out there in the world. Enjoy the weekend all!

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Thought for Thursday

“Every creature has within him the wild¸ uncontrollable urge to punt.” ~Snoopy

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Hot Day at the Easel

The weather in New York has been really hot. It’s not that unusual, in fact if it’s going to be hot here it better be hot in July. I don’t want to hear anything from the people who like the cold weather. If anyone complains about the heat I remind them that if they wait we will have snow soon enough. And it would be too soon for me. Guaranteed.

With my babysitting over, and the heat outside reaching the real feel temperature of 110F, I planned on staying in with the air conditioning on and painting. Since I’ve been pushing myself to work from photographs lately, I looked through some of the latest and decided to keep going with the sunflowers.

Twenty minutes at a time was my plan. I thought I would work on this for the allotted time and stop. I sketched in the composition and went in with paint as you can see here.

Another twenty minutes later and I’m at this not quite done stage. I tried to walk away from painting rather than look at it with a critical eye. I see way too much in photos so this is hard work for me.

Sunflowers on the Table (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
12×16 Watercolor on Lanaquarelle paper

This is the finished painting. I have thoughts on this that I will not air out loud. I will leave the critique to you readers. Sometimes I think I should stop painting all together at the first twenty minutes, but that’s just my opinion.

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Kind of Like Where’s Waldo

Anyone into a little fun on this still hot Monday? Want to take a guess where I was on Sunday with my family? Go ahead and leave your guesses in the comments. Don’t worry, there’s no quiz on the answers. 
And, if you’re like me, you might be too lazy to leave a comment. I’ll understand. Look at the photos anyway, but don’t ask any questions about the bagpipe people. I have no idea what that was about.
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Photos for Friday-Veggie Haul

A lot of renovations are happening at our service station business as you can see by these photos. Out with the old pumps, tank, etc., and in with the new equipment. Let’s see..total time from break down to completion will be 8 weeks. Yes, into September. 
Maybe it’s time for a vacation? Can we afford to leave with all this going on? I’ll have to think about it. In the mean time, take a look at my latest veggie haul. Isn’t it just beautiful? Makes me want to paint, and that’s a good thing. Pretty delicious too. Stay cool everybody!
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Thought for Thursday

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”~E.B.White

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Quick Watercolor While Busy

Lone Shell (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
7×11 Watercolor Canson paper

Busy will be my buzz word for this coming week. I am babysitting my little mushy while Son#1 and Gorgeous are away on vacation. Yay for us, we get to see our grand baby morning, noon and night. I’m not sure if any painting will be happening while we entertain our charge.

I have plenty to do to prepare like fill the refrigerator with food and do laundry. I want to be as free as possible. Somehow in my busy frenzy yesterday afternoon I had the thought to do a quick watercolor painting of a piece of shell I threw in my bag from the beach last weekend. Twenty minutes and done.

You know how it is when you get an itch you just gotta scratch! If my paints were not readily available maybe this would not have worked out, but they were and I did it.  Lucky me!

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The Ocean and the View

What else do you do at the beach besides enjoy the great weather, the salty air and the cool ocean? Well, I’m sorry right up front if I offend anyone, but the beach is great for “people watching.” People do all manner of thing while at the beach and have no qualms about any of it.
I don’t know for sure, but it seems they think they are at home all alone. Are they oblivious to the fact that hundreds of eyes are looking up from beach chairs, blankets, towels, all in the general direction of the ocean? Yet these people stand up and do their “thing” in that vista. Maybe that’s the idea? Go figure.
Leave it to me to whip out my camera. These pics are not the racy part, these people were going at it for longer than necessary. Can’t they put on their own sun lotion? I mean, these are adults! Ok, do my back, but leave me to my own pretty private areas, thanks. No. These guys got lotion on parts that bordered on exhibitionism, standing no less. Oy.
Um can you get lotion in that spot under my bottom?

Why don’t I stand up so everyone can see my tattoos too.
How many pics could I take? It was getting really hard to look out to the waves with these people here. And the tatoos! And the belly rings! And the piercings! Yes, a lot to see out there on the beach.
After a long hard day of watching all the going’s-on we headed back home. But before we did we decided to have dinner at the town of Pt. Lookout Clam Bar. Very casual, order at the window and they call your number for you to pick up. 

Pt. Lookout Clam Bar order window line

The seating area and the beautiful blue sky
The place was busy with beach goers as well as residents. Cars cannot park on the streets near the restaurant areas so there is valet parking which was hopping, but we easily found a nice table and got our dinners quickly. 

Steamers, fish and icy beer
See how casual this place is? Paper plates, plastic forks, you go get your own tartar sauces and such, but every bite was delicious and fresh. I shared the fisherman’s platter with my mom, Son#2 had steamers, and The Mr. went for grilled monkfish. And the beers were icy cold. What else can you ask for?
On the way home we hit traffic. What else is new in New York? It was stop and go, creep along traffic. So a guy from the car next to us jumps out of it and runs to the grassy, reed filled shoulder. Everyone in their own car is watching where he is going. He was a passenger, not a driver thank goodness. What does he do? He was using the shoulder as a men’s room! In plain sight! He didn’t even hide in the reeds! 
He had to be drunk, who does that? Well I leaned over and started beeping the horn, others are throwing their hands up in astonishment, the whole traffic is watching him and looking at the other cars, he’s laughing like it’s nothing. In all this hoohah I forgot I had a camera. Well, maybe it was better off I didn’t take this dopey guy’s picture.

The bay view on the road back to Long Island
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Photo for Friday on Saturday, Again

Pt. Lookout Beach, NY

I met a friend at the beach and talked so much I had no time to paint, but it was still nice. So nice that I forgot to take pictures of the actual beach until I returned to my car to go home. Lovely view from the parking lot, right?

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