This blog post is brought to you by my brand new dip pen. Straight from Sydney, New South Wales. The pen that is. The post is from a bit farther north.
When I was a kid I made and used feather pens, but I had never used a dip pen and it's quite a surprisingly pleasant experience. You see, before using it, I thought it was going to be frustrating because it would constantly run out of ink. But it actually holds quite a bit in the nib! The biggest issues are making sure I don't have a big blob of ink right after dipping it and keeping the ink from smudging because it's gone on thicker and heavier than I'm used to and either doesn't dry as fast or doesn't stay fastened to the paper as well because it's going on too thick. I guess that's why people used to have blotters, huh?
I love seeing the patchwork of land below when you are taking off and landing. The book is for once I'm buried in clouds...or when I'm stuck in an isle seat. The Firebird was a very pleasant read, by the way. It's a ESP/psychic historical novel. I'm not usually into historical novels (in fact, I think you can safely say I hate them), but I enjoyed the back and forth between the historical plot (which I actually did read) and the present-day plot (which I also read, of course). Part of the present-day plot is set in the world of art galleries and the international art trade as well, so it reminded me of another recent travel-read: The Art Thief.
I've been to Sydney a couple times now and I have always enjoyed it. It's a bustling place with lots to see and do.
But all the things I love about Sydney: the sights, the sounds, the imagination, the people, the ideas it sparks in my head...all of those things are also the things that can make Sydney a bit overwhelming.
Perhaps because I've now been there several times and wasn't feeling pressured to "make the most of my time," this was a trip with a wonderful balance to it. Lots of new sights, lots of experiences...but lots of downtime as well. Time to collect new ideas while still being able to work on my projects. Time to stow all the things I was seeing, smelling, tasting, and hearing into my mental file-cabinet.
Oh, and if you are ever at Darling Harbour, do stop to watch the jelly fish. If it's sunny, wear your sunnies (your sunglasses) because they'll help cut through the surface glare. You'll see fish too.
I would like to interrupt to add that the Art Gallery of New South Wales got multiple visits and that I finally went to the Maritime Museum. I didn't spent nearly enough time there, but I did go through one of the submarines (did you know I wanted to be a submariner at one point in my childhood?) and they had an exhibit of Antarctic photography that was incredible. Oh, and I might have spotted the Tardis and a Dalek elsewhere in Sydney! :-) It was of a close-encounter, but I wasn't exterminated so life is still good. (For those of you who aren't fans of the Dr. Who TV show, they had a mini-Dr. Who exhibition at the ABC building and the Tardis is the space-and-time traveling blue police box from the series and the Dalek are powerful bad guys that go around saying "Exterminate" in robotic voices while trying to remove entire civilizations from existence.)
That's it for the dip pen experiment photos. I'll finish the trip off with a couple random bits from my camera, sketchbook, and studio wall.
Did I say "a LOT of food" in that last sketchbook page? I think that's an understatement. Chinatown has a billion restaurants. Okay. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. Thousands. Thousands has to be about right. On Friday nights there is a street festival full of food stalls on Dixon Street. That makes the total about 1020 places to eat.
There are several food courts tucked away in Chinatown. This food court had an excellent Japanese restaurant (take my word for it) and an excellent Indonesian restaurant (but don't take my word for that one...can you say "super-duper spicy"?!)
If you ever eat here, get the takoyaki (round balls of a pancakey-dough with octopus in the middle) and the crispy ebi (prawns). Yummy!
This Sydney foodie picture is up on my art studio wall. It's in a "pause" while I see how I feel about it. I suppose I could call it done at this point, but the original plan was to make it twice this size, with six more food images at the bottom. Starting in the top left corner: lotus (which I'd eaten before but not for a long time), the sheets of beef mentioned in the sketchbook page above--I didn't have a photo of the actual food (but who needs a photo when you have pastels?), and, finally, a man tossing the dough to make roti (Malaysian bread...think a mix of naan bread and puff pastry).
In the bottom row, there's a press for making sugar cane juice, ice cream bars getting dipped in pans of chocolate (we didn't try because the line literally went to the other side of the shopping mall), and a close up of a Chinese green veggie (name forgotten).
That brings us to the end of the adventure: the Sydney airport.
When I was a kid I made and used feather pens, but I had never used a dip pen and it's quite a surprisingly pleasant experience. You see, before using it, I thought it was going to be frustrating because it would constantly run out of ink. But it actually holds quite a bit in the nib! The biggest issues are making sure I don't have a big blob of ink right after dipping it and keeping the ink from smudging because it's gone on thicker and heavier than I'm used to and either doesn't dry as fast or doesn't stay fastened to the paper as well because it's going on too thick. I guess that's why people used to have blotters, huh?
Check out my dip pen in action:
But all the things I love about Sydney: the sights, the sounds, the imagination, the people, the ideas it sparks in my head...all of those things are also the things that can make Sydney a bit overwhelming.
Perhaps because I've now been there several times and wasn't feeling pressured to "make the most of my time," this was a trip with a wonderful balance to it. Lots of new sights, lots of experiences...but lots of downtime as well. Time to collect new ideas while still being able to work on my projects. Time to stow all the things I was seeing, smelling, tasting, and hearing into my mental file-cabinet.
Oh, and if you are ever at Darling Harbour, do stop to watch the jelly fish. If it's sunny, wear your sunnies (your sunglasses) because they'll help cut through the surface glare. You'll see fish too.
I would like to interrupt to add that the Art Gallery of New South Wales got multiple visits and that I finally went to the Maritime Museum. I didn't spent nearly enough time there, but I did go through one of the submarines (did you know I wanted to be a submariner at one point in my childhood?) and they had an exhibit of Antarctic photography that was incredible. Oh, and I might have spotted the Tardis and a Dalek elsewhere in Sydney! :-) It was of a close-encounter, but I wasn't exterminated so life is still good. (For those of you who aren't fans of the Dr. Who TV show, they had a mini-Dr. Who exhibition at the ABC building and the Tardis is the space-and-time traveling blue police box from the series and the Dalek are powerful bad guys that go around saying "Exterminate" in robotic voices while trying to remove entire civilizations from existence.)
That's it for the dip pen experiment photos. I'll finish the trip off with a couple random bits from my camera, sketchbook, and studio wall.
Did I say "a LOT of food" in that last sketchbook page? I think that's an understatement. Chinatown has a billion restaurants. Okay. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. Thousands. Thousands has to be about right. On Friday nights there is a street festival full of food stalls on Dixon Street. That makes the total about 1020 places to eat.
There are several food courts tucked away in Chinatown. This food court had an excellent Japanese restaurant (take my word for it) and an excellent Indonesian restaurant (but don't take my word for that one...can you say "super-duper spicy"?!)
If you ever eat here, get the takoyaki (round balls of a pancakey-dough with octopus in the middle) and the crispy ebi (prawns). Yummy!
This Sydney foodie picture is up on my art studio wall. It's in a "pause" while I see how I feel about it. I suppose I could call it done at this point, but the original plan was to make it twice this size, with six more food images at the bottom. Starting in the top left corner: lotus (which I'd eaten before but not for a long time), the sheets of beef mentioned in the sketchbook page above--I didn't have a photo of the actual food (but who needs a photo when you have pastels?), and, finally, a man tossing the dough to make roti (Malaysian bread...think a mix of naan bread and puff pastry).
In the bottom row, there's a press for making sugar cane juice, ice cream bars getting dipped in pans of chocolate (we didn't try because the line literally went to the other side of the shopping mall), and a close up of a Chinese green veggie (name forgotten).
That brings us to the end of the adventure: the Sydney airport.
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