May you reach as safe a harbour as this one: Merry Christmas, everyone

[Andre Jute]

Andre Jute: Sampan Harbor, South China Sea, oil on canvas, 2014, 16x12in

Happy holidays, all!

[Danneaux]

Thank you, Andre, and the same to you and the same to us all; lovely sentiments and a corker of a painting.

All the best to everyone this holiday season, in the new year, and beyond!

Dan.

[jags]

Have a great Christmas Andre stay safe my friend .
another super painting


anto.

[geocycle]

All good wishes to everyone, may your sprockets be forever clean and your Brooks perfectly shaped.

[jags]

All good wishes to everyone, may your sprockets be forever clean and your Brooks perfectly shaped.

  i like that .very good.

anto

[John Saxby]

Splendid painting, Andre!

Best wishes to you and your family for the holiday and the coming year, and to all Thornistas.

An old Irish blessing (I'm told), adapted for all who travel on two wheels -

     May the soft breezes caress your cheek,
     And the gentle sun warm your back;
     May the passing rains refresh you,
     And the beckoning road not rise up to meet you.

[I'm signing off for a while:  Will read the collective wisdom & good humour of the Forum only now & again for the next six weeks or so, as we're about to decamp to the SE corner of Queensland to visit our son, daughter-in-law, and our two wee grand-daughters, the youngest only 6 weeks old   :-)   Normal service to resume in mid-Feb.]

[jags]

Enjoy John hope the rain holds off for ya.

anto

[Matt2matt2002]

Best wishes everyone..
May all your rides be as exciting as the first you rode without stabalisers.

[Andre Jute]

     And the beckoning road not rise up to meet you.

Especially that one, now that dentistry is so expensive!

[Andre Jute]

Some background to the painting I'm using as a Christmas card, the purple one at the top of the page. On my blog, R. Doug Wicker, a novelist and photographer, said of it:

Absolutely stunning painting, Andre.  When I saw your photo of it I thought it was a photograph taken through a frost-covered window.  Yeah, it's THAT good.

I replied:

The moment of relief in a memory so frightening it has stayed with me for decades... I was running before a monstrous storm in my City of Germiston, a tough old seabird but only 68 feet long, navigating blind in rain lashing so hard it hurt the skin, unable to see even the bowsprit, heading for this tiny little bay on the map which was our only chance of survival. Every Christmas I think of this tiny incident in a life then chocabloc with incident. It was Christmas Eve and even in the shelter we took a battering; on the open ocean we would have gone down with all hands for sure.

I expected it to be a difficult painting (emotion is neither technique nor achievement), but once I settled on Dioxazine Violet (the technical name for that purple, pigment number PV23), the painting just flowed, almost as if remembered fear is a transmutable skill.

***

You know, Doug, if I had your apparently inexhaustible energy and patience to go find just the right shot, I wouldn't be a painter, I'd be a photographer. I'm a painter only because it gives me such instant, perfect control over the image. By inclination I'm much more of gadgeteer who'd be delighted to be a photographer instead — if only the subjects would present themselves in my studio!

[JWestland]

Happy holidays!

Ah, writing and now painting too Andre

[Swislon]

Season's greetings everyone.
Have a good one!

Steve

[John Saxby]

running before a monstrous storm in my City of Germiston

Andre, Andre, stay put in Germiston, lad, and with feet planted surely on the highveld you'll not have to worry about finding a safe harbour -- but then, we'd never have the benefit of your splendid painting, either.

Look forward to seeing more in the new year--the paintings, that is, you can skip the life-threatening storms.

[Andre Jute]

Happy holidays!

Ah, writing and now painting too Andre

And a cyclist! Only wish the weather was suitable for more cycling. But now it is raining again, besides being cold.

[Danneaux]

But now it is raining again, besides being cold.

Rain gear, Andre! And woolies! 

No, I know...it really isn't as fun in the cold and wet. It's unusually wet here at the moment, with pretty substantial flooding in towns between Oregon's Coast Range and the Pacific. It is apparently turning out to be an El Nino year, influenced by currents coming up from Peru and compounded currently by storms originating in China that then swoop over Hawaii, picking up moisture and making for an "atmospheric river event" commonly called a "Pineapple Express" weather system -- unusually warm, lots of rain, some winds, and little snow at the moment. A safe harbor would be most welcome!

I'm taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate and fine-tune my existing rain gear to get a combo that works better than what I've been using. I'm back to the seatless Gore-Tex 3/4 pants combined with Gore-Tex knee-high booties that sleeve under the abbreviated pants legs. There's gaposis between the jacket I've been using and the seatless pants-back (they ventilate better with the open bottom, and I don't have to sit on something waterproof between the saddle and my cycling shorts or over-tights) but I think I can overcome that by adding a flip-down "tail" to the jacket I prefer.

Anyone else planning a "polar bear" ride on New Year's Day? After dropping to -5°C here in Oregon's southern Willamette Valley this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, it is supposed to climb back up to -1°C Wednesday morning, so should be a good time for the ride.

Merry Christmas, All!

Best,

Dan.