I used to go to Bali every year and stay in Ubud. I haven’t been for a few years and I’m longing to go again. I have huge numbers of silver earrings that I bought over the years. I used to buy for the girls at work too – many of them would give me $50 to spend for them. You could get a lot for $50. Silver earrings used to be about $5 to $8, from memory. I made a long-term friend of a Balinese woman, Wayan, in a silver shop, who said to me ‘you dealer?’
So I had quite a collection to choose from. I have brooches also, that I used to wear on the corporate wardrobe. None of them ever get worn now, not the earrings or the brooches. I hadn’t sketched these ones before. They have some sort of crystal in the middle and they are quite large. I used a Derwent Dark Wash pencil to get the main lines in. Then I reserved the highlights with a clear Sakura Glaze pen. I continued with the drawing, then got out the waterbrush. An unexpected effect of using the Sakura Glaze pen, is that as you look at the finished sketch on the page, the Glaze areas catch the light and shine, just as the silver does.
Today, as I write this we are having a major storm with strong winds. There are trees down all over the place and people having difficulty getting home. It was already pretty much dark at 4pm. Being in Bali, strolling down the Monkey Forest Road as it is getting dark, smelling the woodsmoke, looking forward to a bintang besar sounds rather nice tonight. (It’s a large beer).
Such pretty earrings! I know I’m a weirdo, but I do love storms. I don’t like it, however, when they bring destruction and devastation. Sigh…
I also loved hearing of your memories of Bali and your impressions of your artist tools and how they worked on the paper.