Playa Costa Verde, Holguin, Cuba 2011

Dearest Alex,

My New Year's present this year was a trip to Playa Costa Verde organized by my parents.  It has been several years now that we've restarted our family vacations, and I've had a marvelous time each time.  However, not one of the times before can compare to the gorgeous weather and the magnificent resort we visited this year.

According to our beach neighbors there is even a more magnificent resort near our resort, a five star resort, but I loved our resort, because our section of the shared beach led to a coral reef (unfortunately dead) surrounded by tropical fish.  For the first time in my life (without having to pay 50 pesos and go on an excursion) I got to swim with tropical fish!  I only wish I had one of those underwater cameras, so I could have captured some of them.  My favourite fish was a very territorial fish, striped like a bee--it had a bluish body, but yellow and black stripes.  The one I saw was tiny, and it was adorable how it would attack other of its kind and keep them away from its tiny section, were it swam mainly in circles.  If you know what kind of fish this is, please let me know.

I have not had an underwater camera, but I did have my out-of-water camera that I got last year.  I'm not a photographer, but according to someone studying photography this camera has impressive functions.  I know little more about photography than changing presented menu options and clicking the button.  So, my photos may not be as impressive, as someone with knowledge could have made them, but I'm including a few of them, so you could get the feel of the beautiful atmosphere I was fortunate enough to visit.

Now it's time to talk about my resolution to sketch on this trip.

I did it.

I've done some sketching, but of course not nearly as much as I should have.  I find I never sketch enough as I should.  The weather was just too beautiful, and the water too inviting.

This first set of sketches were done at Pearson International Airport, while my sister and I waited for our flight (we arrived in Cuba two days before our parents).

These sketches are no more than an inch or so in size.  Tiny gestures, because I have a horrible tendency to get bogged down by details and forget the big gesture.  Therefore, I decided to make them as tiny as possible, and just concentrate on the shape of the gesture.

I can tell my sketching is rusty, because I'm using far too many nitpicking lines.

This next two page spread (I'm using moleskin watercolour paper sketchbook by the way and pilot G4 black pen) is obviously done on the beach.  My drawings are also looser and I like them more than the previous page.   The upper right corner of the first page was done near the lobby bar, where I had the best cappuccinos in my life!

I painted that setting sun, hoping to create more such sketches the following few days at different time periods.  However, I made some friends and my parents came, so I spent more of my time talking than sketching.

More sketching on the beach.  I love the strutting man.  The guy just stood there staring at the ocean flexing his muscles.  That little plant I took great pains with is a smaller version of that photographed tree in the upper section of this blog.  I needed a pencil or a pencil crayon to give more definition to the rocks and sand, but the tonality is there.  I thought I would finish the rocks off when I got home to North York, but now that I'm in Canada and have way too much work hanging over my head as it is, I think I'll let this sketch slide.

After all, that is what sketching is; a moment in time captured on paper.  Going back and fiddling with the sketch a week or more later ruins the spontaneity of the drawing (in this case painting).

These are the last few sketches.  That guy on the left had a very strangely shaped body and I've tried to capture it, but he kept moving and walking behind the tree-umbrella-things.    I like the little boy in the towel.  It is a back view, but you get the sense of a kid just out of the water shaking his head.

And that is it.

That's all the sketching I've done.

Back at home I've continued my work on AIMH, and I've updated my website: www.artofmili.ca to include commissioned art for the first time.  I call it Custom-Art.  Who knows, maybe someone will stumble upon it and ask me to do a portrait?  I miss painting portraits.

Update you later!

M