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Hoisting the Blue Peter

Seeing Kirk off on his last voyage.

There’s a signal flag that ships hoist in harbor when it’s time for crew to return to the ship. A blue field with a white square in the center, like a cloud in a clear blue sky. For generations it’s been known as the “Blue Peter”, and those who know it by name know it means it’s time to say your goodbyes, time to depart.

We waved farewell to one of our brothers recently. Captain Kirk tacked suddenly away downwind and crossed the bar. He was a generous friend, funny, and thoughtful. We’ll miss him much. He loved our merry band of misfit sailors, and wanted us to remember him with another sail together – at his favorite spot among fast friends on lovely boats. We were happy to oblige.

Around two dozen of us gathered on a beach where the Chickahominy meets the James. We sent some of Kirk’s ashes off on the sea in a little boat of his own, viking style, and went for a sail ourselves

Rigging Kirk’s boat “Rose of Sharon”

One of my Melonseeds, Aeon, got splashed for the first time this year.

Me and T in “Aeon” – photo by Matt J.
Harris and Barbara’s new catboat “Mariah”
Jim’s Sakonnet 23. photo by T.
Jim’s Sakonnet 23 – photo by T.

After a big cookout on the beach, many of us returned to campfires and tents to sleep under the trees along the shore of the Chickahominy. Perfect weather, with cool breezes and calls of owls and whippoorwills for lullabies.

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Water Music

It’s hit 100 degrees here past several days. And no significant rain for over a month. Everything brown and dry. Worse elsewhere, but not good.

Good time to spend in the river.

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Art at Altitude

We recently made a short trip to New Mexico for a family event. I’ll post photos and backstory about that soon, was a great trip. I took a little travel kit of sketchbook and watercolor markers to have something to do during the downtime. A big chunk of downtime is just flights and layovers. Jammed into a tiny seat on a tiny table at 30,000 feet above Louisiana, it had time to do a little study of a winter cattail.

Working from memory is oddly easier than working from a photo. The thing about watercolor is it has a mind of its own and may not want to cooperate. Especially true when you’re still a newbie and don’t know how to predict what will happen, or coerce it to do what you had in mind. But working from memory, you get into a sort of feedback loop with the paint and water and paper. Instead of trying to force it to look like the photo, you get into a conversation with it. Dabble a little pigment and water on the paper, then respond to whatever happens, play off the result and add to that.

Sometimes an accident results in an interesting effect that’s worth amplifying, then following to see where it goes. When you try to reproduce a photo, you can get caught into a frustrating loop, trying to recreate one visual medium with another – but the results are not comparable. It’s a sort of dead end with no exit and no way to backtrack.

I may unhitch my intentions from that mooring and just follow where the wind blows, see where we end up.

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Day 6 or 7 Watercolor Self-tutoring ~ Crow

I’ve sort of lost track of time. Things have been weird lately. After a long crappy day, I went back to a sketch I did late last night and this evening spent a half hour adding pigments and ink to it in the sketchbook.

It helped a lot.

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Almost Equinox

Today was the first full day of Spring. The Equinox officially arrived sometime yesterday. These photos were taken a few days ago.

I was reading about the megalithic passage graves in Ireland and Brittany, aligned with the solstice or equinox. Our house is oriented on the cardinal points, and around those astronomical events it becomes quite apparent. Near the Equinox, the sun rises and streams through from one side to the other.

As we grow older, and parents and friends depart this world, makes you think. 

We spend our days in a Passage Tomb
Souls suspended
Waiting for the return of the sun


I’m OK with that.

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Day 4 ~ Watercolor Self-tutoring

Got to play some more yesterday. Had to throw away two to get here. Amazing how much you can lose the groove in a week.

This one is done with paint, graphite, and fountain pen. Again using cards and paper towels and some canning paraffin – things that didn’t come from the art supply store. I seem to get better results with unconventional materials.