Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 28

Week 28: Winter

Cartoon in black Sharpie on watercolour paper, with highlights in watercolour, white opaque Signo ink and white Puffy paint, collaged onto crushed white cartridge paper.

Update:

Week 28: Winter II

Salted watercolour collage with black ballpoint and Sharpie detailing.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 27

Live from Michigan, USA! I've only ever been here in the snow before, but it's summer, of course! The snowman on the right with the "Star Trek" phaser is based on the one made by my penpal, Olivia, and I during out first meeting in January 1984. The little one is based on the one outside our restaurant window in December 2012. The squirrel victim is depicted because - squirrel! Drawn with oil pastels on two backgrounds.

Week 26: Snow

I was thrilled to unite these two long-gone snowpeople, separated by decades, but definitely kindred spirits. Just noticing that the photo of this piece loses some subtlety in the hand phaser, and yet improves the tones on the squirrel. I'm fascinated how oil pastels work, and how they scan/photograph, when the colours are layered - and loving the unpredictability.

Update:
Prismatic origami paper snowflakes on a black card background.

Week 27: Snow II

More sights of Ann Arbor

The plan for today was yet another away mission, roaming around the sights of Ann Arbor and enjoying the falling snow. But what's that the Andorian Sock Monkey has picked up on the main viewscreen? A Borg vessel? We must investigate!

Day 6 photos:

Snowflake!

Snowman window art, Arcade Barbers, in Ann Arbor

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Streets of Ann Arbor, and Michigan Theater

Dawn Treader Books, Ann Arbor

Literary luminaries on this mural by Richard Wolk, painted 28 years ago, near the corner of
East Liberty & South State Streets. With Woody Allen, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Hese (Hermann Hesse),
Franz Kafka and Anais Nin. It was recently restored by the original artist.

Ann Arbor's beautiful State Theatre

A good day's haul of goodies.
Reed and I unwittingly started a feeding frenzy with reduced-price Hallmark "Star Trek" ornaments!

A White Boxing Day

And the snow kept falling! I really should give a plug for the lightweight New Zealand Merino long underwear, which was perfect for lumbering around in the snow of the streets of Ann Arbor, while staying comfortably warm.

Day 4 photos:

Ian and Olivia: in the snow!

We were satisfied to wander the paths of County Farm Park, and to ignore the Straddle jump.

Squirrel nest!

Nature trail squirrel

Remember the wings of Day 3's homemade Christmas angels? Milkweed pods, growing wild!

Snowfall in Ann Arbor's CBD.

Reed and Olivia in the Vault of Midnight!

Squirrel attempts to enter Jeffrey Pickell's amazing Kaleidoscope Books & Collectibles!

Kaleidoscope Books - and my haul! Thanks so much Jeffrey! What a great shop!

Either the vats through the glass are a microbrewery, or I found JJ Abrams' Engineering set
for the new "Star Trek" sequel. Enjoying Arbor Brewing Company's Milestone Cask Porter beer.

Snowfall in Olivia's street.

A White Christmas, made to order

A White Christmas with my penpal, Olivia Lynn Bottum! This week's humidity and 40+ degrees C (aka 105 degrees F) temperatures have been enough to remind me I'm very definitely in the Southern Hemisphere this December! Thank you to all my wonderful Blogger readers and, increasingly, my Facebook Friends. Thanks for sharing your (and my) moments of triumph, joy, hilarity, irony, frustration and sadness throughout 2013. This is a great (still-newish), supportive and growing community. You make me laugh, commiserate and think deeply every day!

After the continuation of the dusting of snow from the afternoon of December 24, Christmas Day in Ann Arbor, Michigan, delighted me in that every time I looked out a window or door, lovely, feathery snow was falling. I think it fell for about three days non-stop. Delightful, and as if it were made to order.

Day 3 photos:

An Andorian sock monkey enjoys the snow while it lasts.

Olivia's Peruvian-themed Christmas tree, complete with... Peruvian Barbie.

A meeting of two traditional desserts: American pumpkin pie shares a plate with an Aussie Christmas pudding.

The vacuum packed plum pudding, from Itha's Puddings & Gourmet Foods, Sydney, traveled with me in my hand luggage and is from a 100-year old English recipe from the maker's own family.

The sock monkey cavorting with the angels. The Christmas angels were made by Reed's Mom,
Dorothy Lenz, using pine cones, acorns, milkweed pods, long wooden golf tees and pipe-cleaners!

After lunch, we investigated screening times for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", which had been running in the US since my birthday, but was about to premiere back home in Sydney. Luckily, the venue we chose had the 3D (and HFR) version of the film plus the 3D trailer for "Star Trek Into Darkness". Later, we discovered that our alternate choice of cinema venue was not running the "Star Trek" trailer. Lucky! Serendipitous!

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Andorian Sock Monkey"

And lo, it was good. But long!

Waiting with Delta

Not many pics today, as the early part of the day was spent in the domestic terminal at LAX, staring at a series of about 32 changing screens, desperately hoping to see my code "MCLE/I" appear (telling me that I had, indeed, secured a seat on my flight to Detroit). Then there was the flight itself, and an interminable wait for my bag to appear on the luggage carousel.

All of this panic and boredom - not helped by an understaffed terminal with no one to ask questions - was swept aside by the single snowflake that spattered against my wind as the plane landed in Detroit. By the time my bag had dared to show its straps, and the cab had arrived, there was a delightful dusting of snow everywhere. Arriving in Ann Arbor, at my penpal Olivia's house, the roads and footpaths were all white. Their first snowfall of the season, and it delivered me the White Christmas I'd come to see! It seemingly snowed for at least three days straight. Every view out every door and window was a northern-hemisphere Christmas card!

Day 2 photos:

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — in Ann Arbor, MI.
We had not swapped notes about T-shirt themes, either! Serendipity!

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — but this time outside... in the newly-fallen snow!

Ian and Olivia meeting in December 1983 (New Year's Eve, actually) - and on Christmas Eve, December 2012.

Olivia and I had "met" in the pages of the newsletter of ASTREX, the Star Trek Fan Club of New South Wales, and immediately bonded over penpal correspondence, Trek gossip, and articles about the Aussie TV soap opera, "Prisoner", which Olivia used to watch as both "Cell Block H" (in the USA) and "Caged Women" (via a Canadian channel whose signal strayed across the border into Michigan).

Archival pic: Ian (and his beard) encountering hamsters up close, for the first time, at Olivia's place in December 1991.

The delightful Dorothy Lenz (Olivia's mother-in-law) and Ian, 2012.

Memories of the Times

In January 1984, this then-young Aussie on his first trip to New York City was advised by well-meaning friends to stay at the classy Gramercy Park Hotel, but it was twice as expensive as I'd anticipated. After one night there, I checked my finances, admitted defeat - and a local tourist advisory service recommended the Times Square Hotel on 43rd Street, instead, as "a place where Aussies often stayed when they couldn't afford the usual NYC prices".

My NY penpal was kind of horrified when she heard my new location. When I told Carolyn that I'd switched hotels she said, "New York's fine, so long as you stay away from Times Square. So where are you staying?"

Me: (in high pitched voice): "Times Square Hotel."

Yes, I couldn't have gotten much closer to Times Square itself if I'd tried! I must say that the Times Square Hotel's revolving door, quaint old foyer, cashier window, rickety elevator, incredibly noisy water pipes (at 3.30am every morning, like clockwork), a friendly maid who thumped on the door to clean the room at about 6.30am, the portable b/w TV with "rabbit ears" aerial (that had to be supplemented by touching the TV and raising one arm), the pathetic pigeon sheltering on a window sill from the blizzard outside, and not to mention the little mouse who visited me every night... Wow! What a way to get to know the real New York! I loved every second of it!


COMMON GROUND

I was under the impression that the hotel may have been demolished, but a bit of Googling today revealed that the Times Square Hotel is alive and well! Now a subsidised block of apartments, it is owned and operated by COMMON GROUND an organisation that develops solutions to homelessness.

According to a current resident, The Hotel Times Square "was built in the mid 1920s. It was a moderate-priced alternative to the great hotels in the neighborhood, the Hotel Astor (demolished) and the Knickerbocker (converted, still standing on B’way and 42nd St. The Hotel Times Square is very famous, since it was the neighbor to the New York Times building for much of the 20th Century. The NY Times moved to a new skyscraper a few blocks downtown, on Eighth Ave.

"The Hotel Times Square is on 255 W 43rd Street, at Eighth Avenue. It has a very grand lobby, a nice mezzanine, and a fine rooftop terrace/garden. It is not open to the public, but one may walk through the revolving door and have a quick look without trouble.

"There is an art gallery on the mezzanine. Most of the artwork is not terribly distinguished; but it is one way to get into the building. Ask to see the art gallery." (The New York Times' In Transit blog.)

Very cool! I must go through my album of pics. Somewhere I have a 3D photo of my little friend, the New York pigeon, who huddled on the opposite window's sill every night. I snapped a great picture the night of a freezing blizzard and I was thrilled to get a photo of "3D snow"! January 1984 now seems so very long ago, but almost like yesterday.

Ah, found it:



And here's why I couldn't find Times Square Hotel on Google Earth "street view" last year! The building's front was being renovated (2009)!