Honomu, Hawaii

Honomu is a sweet little town near Akaka Falls. The buildings are over a hundred years old and the shop owners have gussied them up with some eyecatching colors. The Woodshop Gallery and Cafe serves a delicious ahi sandwich, and the rest of the food looked good too.

The shops in this drawing sell some beautiful sarongs and such. This kind of drawing is the most fun for me...start in with the pen and see where it goes. Usually wonky..and I like that. You might see more of this town later, because the rest of the strip is equally interesting.

Right up the road you from this town you find Akaka Falls State Park. The park has several falls including this small one:

and two very large ones including the 422 foot tall Akaka Falls:

The path is paved (though there are lots of steps) and the park is definitely worth a visit!

Hilo on Dwellable

Flickr Meet-up

Today I went out with Dennis, whose artwork I've admired on flickr for a long while.

We, and his student Brentton, were going to go on our own little sketchcrawl today, but it was raining pretty hard most of the day.

 We took quite a few photos, and eventually settled down to do a drawing. Well, I did a quick (for me) sketch...Dennis did about 7 or 8 in the same time.

 This is the spot I drew, but from a bit of a different angle.

I used pencil, which I have not used in a long time. Perspective sometimes gives me fits.  Because it was raining so much I tore a few pages out of my sketchbook...that way I could just grab a page with out having the whole book out to get rained on. When I got home, I just hinged it back to the stub I tore it from with a pretty piece of paper and some glue.

A bit of color..

I can't seem to get the color to show right on screen, however. The water is definitely a completely different color...but I don't have the skills to mess with the photo to show you a more accurate version. But you get the idea. Lots of blues and purpley blues..for some reason the violets are getting lost.

This is a gorgeous spot on the Puna coast on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Drawing by the Ocean...

I walked down to the ocean today to check out the plein air painters gathered there. There were quite a few artists gathered. Many seemed to be working in oils and acrylics...fun to watch.

I sat down on a rock and settled down to sketch a bit. I decided on this scene.

 A friend from Christie's labyrinth garden stopped by and gave me a couple of Hawaiian paint brushes. They are seed pods from the Lauhala tree, and I may have to try and use them to paint a bit of this sketch. It started raining pretty hard which sent me on a walk back home. Watercolors and rain...not such a good match.

 Beautiful blues.

I started inking in the basics, and will add some color. More tomorrow...

Puna on Dwellable

Ahalanui Warm Pond

 Today I went swimming at Ahalanui and brought my sketchbook along. This pool is a mixture of spring water warmed by the volcano and ocean water coming in a spillway at one end.  It's usually so warm it feels like a warm bath....

 but today the waves were huge, and

 crashing over the wall putting lots of ocean water into the pool. It made it more like a luke warm bath, but still very pleasant, and it's always good to have a lot of fresh water in the pool.

 I swam and sketched, and swam and sketched...

 until I was pretty well sketched out and waterlogged. Nice day! Now for some dinner!

 

Big Island on Dwellable

Quick

 Pohoiki Warm Pond

Quick is sometimes better. I just wanted to try that little pond again, so I did a quick one tonight, and I like it better. Sometimes you just have to quit thinking so much.

Pohoiki Warm Pond

I almost scrapped this one, but saved it because I started drawing it on site. It's a record of my day, and a pretty nice day at that......any day by the water in the sun has a darn good start. The ocean is just feet away, but this little pond (heated from underground) is tucked up under the ivy and trees.  I get self-conscious when people watch me (they were) and was trying to draw all those rocks without really taking the time to truly see them as they are. Anyway, I wish you could see how beautiful this little spot truly is.

Sunday Morning