THANK YOU GUY’S!

first of all, I would like to thank you all for your warm replies and well wishes, believe me,  it is highly appreciated! But don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere and I am still far from cutting off my own ear….yet!  🙂 And I  have to say that I am feeling a bit better at this moment in time and I have come to grips a bit more with the situation I am now! If things stay like this I might even be able to make a quick visit to the Noelanders trophy next weekend. It is the first time in 8 years that I am not in that show with one or two of my own trees, but it will be nice to meet up with my old Bonsai friends again and to enjoy the wonderful trees that will be on display there. The level gets better every year!!  And because every year some of my favourite potters are there as well, I probably go back home with some unique and exiting pots! I am especially looking forward to pick up the Noelanders 10Th year anniversary book, that will be lounged there during that same weekend! In it are all the winners from the past decade, as well as all the trees from last years special 10Th edition. It will be nice to be able to see in this commemorative book how Bonsai has evolved over the last 10 years here in the west of Europe! So as you can tell from the above, I am not leaving my beloved Bonsai or my Bonsai friends completely, I would not know how to do that even if I wanted to. 🙂 I guess it all will have to slow down a few passes from now on. But who knows, it might still all turn around into the right direction again in the future? But it is nice to know that I have some friends out there. thanks again!

In my earlier post, I told you that I bought some pencils and paper to have a go at pencil drawing again. All just to pass some off the long waiting time, while I am recovering from my operation! A few months ago I looked through a shoebox full of old family pictures, that were left to me by my parents when I came across a small old picture of my father. He must have been in his early thirties in this picture, just about the time when he was headwaiter on the famous Holland America lines. He really looked the part in this picture, so I decided to use it for my first attempt in portrait pencil drawing in almost 3 decades. So eventual I almost forced my self to try it, and to be honest, I was a bit insecure and even a bit nervous when I started.  But I must say that I enjoyed it a lot! It is so different from creating Bonsai, it is a completely different mindset. It was funny to notice that I had troubles to stop trying to improve the drawing. In Bonsai you can change what you have don, almost indefinitely. That’s probably why I had problems to be satisfied and to accept what I had made here in just a few hours?! Funny to notice these differences between these two art forms.  Off course I do realise that just like I had to do with Bonsai, I first have to learn the proper techniques to be able to do this difficult art form successfully. But that’s a new challenge I do welcome! So that means a lot of: looking at and studying other artist pencil drawings on the web. And naturally a lot of practice!  But even so, I enjoyed doing it and I am pretty pleased with this first attempted. I hope my Dad likes it to?!