Fishermen Along Brazil´s Coast

Fisherman in Bertioga

Aren´t these just the cutest little boats you´ve ever seen? They are quite prevalent along the coast and are used for fishing by the locals, called caiçaras, a mixture of early inhabitants - Indians, slaves and Europeans. The tire on the front keeps the wooden boat from being damaged against the dock. What looks like sacks of potatoes are actually fine nets used for fishing. The  salty morning fog leaves a slick, moist coating on the cabin roof as the lone sailor cares for his boat that rocks gently in the marina.

Bertioga is a less than a 2 hour drive from São Paulo (106 km) . Even though the first Portuguese navigators landed their ships close by in 1530, the area was pretty isolated from tourists until the 1960s when a highway opened up the area.

Even though today many city-slickers have their second home in Bertioga, we can still see simple fishermen making their living as their ancestors did before them.

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Ballet of Color on the Beach

Canga Seller on the Beach

The beach is a festival of color. Besides nature´s show, colorful umbrellas and swimsuits, venders selling their wares are eye-catchers. One that I love to watch pass by is the canga seller.  A canga is a rectangluar light-weight cloth that can be wrapped around the body in 50 different ways as a cover-up over bathing suits. This is all you need to be dressed suitably for most beachside restaurantes. When not being worn it can be stretched out over the sand in lieu of a towel. The more colorful the better! Sellers often carry them tied onto a pole, over the shoulder ( like you see here). The ocean breeze flaps them in the wind creating a ballet of hues.


Just behind the boy who has stopped to chat with is friend, is a cart selling fresh coconuts  and beverages. Its owner dressed in orange, arrives shaking up an ice-cold drink in a red container. The beach is crowded, but no one cares. The more the merrier.


This particular beach along the São Paulo coastline, is known for its musical sand.  You skid your feet along it and it squeaks!

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All paintings posted on my blog are for sale. Interested? Contact me at mdiggs@mdiggs.com for details.

An Afternoon on the Beach

Corn Seller on the Beach

  A favorite snack on the beaches in Brazil  is corn-on-the-cob. In fact, Brazilians are crazy about corn. We have it as bread, ice-cream, juice, pudding and innumerable other desserts.

You also see to her right,  a coconut vender. A machete cuts off the top of an ice-cold coconut and a straw is inserted to enjoy nature´s Gatorade. Afterwards, the coconut is whacked in two, to scrape out the white pulp - yummy. 

As I watched the children line up for corn, it struck me how they  could represent the historical ethnic make-up of Brazilians, which began with Portuguese settlers, native Indians and African slaves.

As the girls wait for their treat, a boy has found a shell to take home for his collection. The littlest girl has left the water and it heading back to get coins to buy her cob. 

It was a lovely, calm afternoon which I tried to capture on canvas.

 http://www.mdiggsart.com/
All paintings posted on my blog are for sale. Interested? Contact me at mdiggs@mdiggs.com for details.

But I Don´t Plan to be an Artist!



Nude sketch by Marilyn Diggs

 As we have seen in the last few blogs, the key to learning to draw is to set up conditions  that cause you to make a mental shift to the RIGHT side of the brain.  By following what you SEE ( lines, angles, shapes, spaces) rather than what the logical LEFT side KNOWS, you improve your drawing.  Betty Edward´s book - Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, will take you through more exercises.


 For instance, I started drawing this nude by scribbling a black oval. Next, I filled in the grey spaces, then the white, taking care not to name what I was drawing. I just dealt with the shapes I was seeing. I did not start with a  line drawing of a nude.


How do we know we are in the right side of the brain?


I used to set up my easel and paint in a nearby park on Wednesdays. On one occassion the day was cold, but that didn´t stop me. Standing on my feet for 5 hours straight, I diligently worked until a drizzle turned to rain that ran all over my  wooden palette. When I stopped, I then realized that I was chilled to the bone and it was indeed impossible to continue mixing paint. I glanced around. No one was in the park anymore. I glanced down at my watch. Unbelievable. What seemed to me to have been a short time on location, had actually been hours.


What happened? When we go into the right side of the brain, we enter into a slightly altered state of awareness.  You might say we feel "transported", or "at one with the work." Our surroundings become secondary.  We begin to grasp relationsips that ordinarily we can´t grasp. We have no awareness of time passage. It is hard to speak to others. We feel alert, yet relaxed ( and who wouldn´t...the over-worked verbal and analytic LEFT side has been resting!).


Have you been there? Probably. Perhaps you have had these experiences when day-dreaming, meditating, jogging, typing at the computer, listening to music or reading.


OK? So what if drawing doesn´t interest you?  Well-known author Daniel H. Pink in his book A Whole New Mind - Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age says," Our ability to activate this right hemisphere capacity has become more urgent as we transition out of the Information Age." In short, creativity is a hot commodity these days! ( By the way, he took Betty Edward´s course.)


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mdiggs@mdiggs.com

Amazing Progress in your Drawings!

Rod Stewart by Arlinda

Pre-instructional drawing by Arlinda

Arlinda was one of my students whose work best shows just how important it is to see like an artist. Compare her BEFORE and AFTER drawings. She faithfully did the exercises that forced her to use her  creative right side of the brain, instead of her logical left side. The results are astounding.

It is all a matter of seeing things differently.

 I hope you did the exercise from my last blog. Which copied signature turned out more like the original? The one you copied upside-down should have, if you went slowly and copied the curves, lines and spaces. Why? When you copy it right-side-up your logical left side of the brain urges you to get it done quickly, and tells you what you already KNOW. ( "Now I´m copying a "S", now "M", now "I"...etc.). When it is upside down, you shouldn´t see letters but rather curves, angles, lines. Bingo...you have forced yourself into the right side of the brain by giving yourself a task that the left side hates to do. You have to quiet the logical side and slowly draw what you  SEE, not what you KNOW.

Want to try more? Get a line drawing of Mickey Mouse, or any simple line drawing, and turn it upside-down. Whatever you do, do not name what you are drawing. Just draw what you see. DO NOT sneak a peek and  turn YOUR drawing ( or the one you are copying) right-side-up until you are finished. Go Slowly.

In the next blog I´ll tell you how you will know if you are in the right side of the brain. ( besides the fact that the drawing will turn out better than if you had tried to copy it right-side up). Happy drawing!

http://www.mdiggsart.com/