Ancient Egypt and the Little Girl

Sitting in the tranquil dimness of my room, listening to the abrupt cicadas and breathing in the soft end-of-summer air, I find myself thinking of my childhood in California. I so often long to return there, but is it a longing for California itself or for the nostalgia of childhood? I think of Monterey Bay’s black lava-like rocks and bobbing otters, the aquarium's colossal, plate-glass room, opening like a giant foyer to the sea’s own mysterious mansion of living rock and giant kelp colonnades; the fog fading into the morning warmth in the old streets and quaint houses at Carmel; Junipero Serra’s sunset-colored missions surrounded by flowering bushes shaking in the breeze; the fantastical double-decker carousel at the Great America amusement park in my hometown, San Jose; the warm, cerulean water at the vibrant beaches where seals bellow to each other and cover the rocks and piers like fat, whiskered sunbathers.


And I think of the Museum.


When I was child, I wanted to be either an archaeologist or a paleontologist. I lost interest in paleontology when I realized that you spend most of your time digging very very slowly, not popping already-assembled Tyrannosaur skeletons from the ground every other day. But my interest in archaeology stayed strong despite my phobic terror of mummies. Mummies be darned, I love Ancient Egypt. I don’t remember when my infatuation started, except that I have a vivid memory of being about seven years old and standing in the Rosicrucian Museum in town and gawking in awe at a section of painted tomb wall from a pyramid’s interior. Sheltered from the fading effects of light for thousands of years, the paints had retained the vivid deep blues in the midnight skies and the rich golds and scarlets on the figures and accents. Looking back, I now realize that they were probably replicas, but the effect on me was the same: I suddenly understood that ancient artists didn’t actually paint in faded colors - their art was as colorful as many of the paintings we create today. How much, I wondered, of ancient life itself was like this - archaic and outdated today, but vibrant and real in its own time? In fact (I thought to myself with a dawning amazement) the people of the ancient world didn’t think of themselves as ancient, but as modern. I wondered what museums they visited when they were alive, and if they were busy swatting flies on hot days just like me.

For a long time after that visit, I dreamed at night of sneaking back there, past the museum’s alarm system and back into that room of sapphires, golds, and burnt umber. Who knew what really happened when everyone turned off the 20th-century light bulbs and left that room alone with just the darkness and cricket songs?

Featured Quote: Autumn

The morning sunshine poured into the library through ten long narrow windows; birds were singing; the autumn air, rich with a faint aroma of November melancholy that stung the imagination pleasantly, filled my antechamber.

The Damned, Algernon Blackwood

Autumn nears us slowly, and though it is only August, the refreshing crispness of the last few days inspires me to post this quote from Blackwood, who brought beauty even to the most ghostly stories.

Whispers from Antiquity

The Maryland State Archives recently tweeted the following:

Dowsett Collection of Sands Family Papers now online: glimpses of #historic #Annapolis family. http://t.co/VruPHad8WV pic.twitter.com/HPZHb8OsjT
— MD State Archives (@MdArchives) July 31, 2013

It's quite a unique collection, thanks to the diverse letters, posters, and memorabilia that the Sands family of Annapolis left behind. Here are some of my favorite images, pulled from the Archives' online e-publication: 

Original invitation to Inaugural Ball for President James Buchanan

"N. Hess' Sons Fine Shoes." If they are as cool as the envelope's graphics, then they must be fine indeed.

I love this stationary from an 1892 letter - it reminds me of Hummel figurines.

Maryland State Fireman's Association. The program features an old-fashioned
horse-drawn fire engine.

Program for Company E, 2nd Regiment of the American Guard, 1896

Tolchester Beach Excursions. I'm in!

Poster: "Southern Rights: Let us Alone!" Great graphics. Eternal issue.

Child's drawing on the back of a letter

Leaf rubbings: beautiful.

Without protection and preservation, our collective memory of our 
past slowly disappears. Plus, if a document is one of those rare 
records of the life of someone who was lower class, enslaved, or 
indentured, it can mean losing the last written trace of them.

Art Project

For the past couple of years, my far-away cousin and I have been trading art projects. So fun! Until today, I was sending the project ideas by email with attachments, but sharing by blog will be even easier, and I won't have to limit my attachments! So, here it is, sweetie:

Freestyle watercolor

Supplies
You can get all of these supplies at Michaels, and most craft stores. I'll tell you what I use in case you're curious, but I'd recommend buying whatever's on sale. :) A good online art supplies store is Cheap Joe's Art Stuff.

• Plastic watercolor palette
• Watercolor paints (I like Winsor & Newton's Cotman watercolors from Michaels, but any will do. You can also get packs of watercolor paints, which are great)
• Big watercolor brush
• Bowl for water. I just use a recycled plastic tub from yogurt or cottage cheese!
• Ruler
• Watercolor paper. I use Aquarelle Arches from France, but Strathmore's really good too, and less expensive.
• Board to tape the paper to (watercolor paper will start buckling when wet, so you need to tape it down). Sometimes I just tape it to the cardboard back of my watercolor pad if it's sturdy enough, but they also sell boards made for artists.
• Masking tape

Prep

Get a medium sized piece of watercolor paper. If you only have large paper, just cut it in half using a ruler and scissors.

Draw a half-inch border around the paper, like the photo below. That way, instead of painting to the edge of your paper, you'll stop around this border, so that you won't lose your painting if you decide to frame it.

Next, use four pieces of masking tape to tape the paper's sides to the board:

Okay, now just fill up your water bowl, grab you watercolor palette, paints, and big watercolor brush, and you're set! I usually cover my table with a vinyl tablecloth for when I spill water and paint.

Here is my watercolor palette - it's a mess, and I love it that way. The result of years and years of use.

Now, use your big brush to slop water all over your watercolor paper, covering every inch within that border you drew.

Next, rub your wet brush on a paint color that you really like. I picked Cerulean Blue, which is a sky blue. Now, dab the brush in a few places on your paper. You're not going to cover the paper in one color, since we'll be adding a lot of different colors to see how they spread and what shapes they make.

With each new color you add, be sure to smoosh your brush around in the water bowl to get rid of the paint from the last color (unless you actually want to blend the two together).

Here's what I ended up doing. I had absolutely no plan, just kept adding colors I liked in different areas. I'll tell you what colors I used, in case there are some you really like that you want to get.

Cerulean Blue (a light, sky blue)

Black* and Naples Yellow (a pale yellow). Look at how the paint is spreading and merging.

Opera (deep pink)

Burnt Umber (brown)

Cobalt Blue (deep blue)

The paint is already doing neat things! The pink and blue look like a waterfall as paint spreads on the wet paper...

And in a place where a drop of clear water fell from my brush on the paper, it looks like a firework or sea urchin.

I'm still adding paint, more of the black, yellow, and brown, plus a few dots of red (Scarlet Lake) on the pink. Again, no plan, just having fun!

All of a sudden I had the urge to add tons of red, having no clue if it would look good or not. One thing's for sure - very fun!

Here is the end result, after it was all dry (You can use a blow drier to hurry it up, by the way.) You never know what watercolor's going to do when it dries. It can look totally different than it did when wet!

Wow, so different! 

You can even see the sharp edges on the top and bottom where I accidentally missed when wetting the paper. Cool!

When I'm planning a painting, I usually decide on a few colors I want to feature. But in this case, the idea is to just have fun and use whatever colors strike you. This painting actually looks a lot like my palette - a joyful mess. :)

That long, diagonal splotch in the middle is where water pooled. Usually I get the edge of a paper towel and soak it up, but I wanted to see what would happen. Kind of looks like a solar system.

Our next project will be similar, but we're going to add even more imagination to it. Have fun giving this a try! This should help you learn more about how watercolors act, which is interesting and always surprising.



*I made black by blending blue and brown, specifically Cobalt Blue and Burnt Umber from my Windsor Newton watercolors.