EDM #135: Draw a salad (Shopska salata)

This drawings is in my sketchbook from last summer holiday in Bulgaria .
Cuisine of Bulgaria is a special subject. Because of its geographical position and long history Bulgarian cuisine is a mixture between the best parts of the Slavonic, Greek and Turkish cuisines. This country is one of the world leaders in number of long-livers. And the reason of such high life interval is first of all a healthy food. Bulgarian cuisine is quite heavily centred on salads, which are varied and tasty.In every restaurant in Bulgaria the first thing you will notice on the salad menu is Shopska salad which is Bulgaria’s most famous salad. It is named after the Shoppi, or natives of Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria). This salad is perfect in the summertime, when all the ingredients are freshly picked from the garden, but it is tasty and easy to make the whole year-round. It was my favourite meal during hot day.

Shopska salata is nothing more than diced tomatoes, cucumber and grated cheese (rather like Greekfeta) . Bulgarians have their own white cheese, Sirene . Sometimes is added baked and peeled pepper and onion,too. Salt, vinegar, oil to taste . Top with black olive. Enjoy !

Drawings is done in watercolor and inkpen in my sketchbook

Thailand seascape

Today is a grey, rainy day here and my thoughts are rovering along the beaches of sunny and hot Thailand. You are looking on my last week´s homework from Cathy´s class about creating textures in watercolor (btw. her book is really awesome !) .Here you can see scraping with toothpick, scratching with sharp blade knife, splattering with water and with paint, and salt , too. This last one is not too much to see, because it was a fine sea salt- you can see results on right side between sea water and sand . It is not easy depict water texture .

Two castles

I am taking wonderful watercolor class (of wonderful Cathy Johnson , why not you ? ) and for this ocassion here is coming time for better watercolors for me. On eBay I was succesful bidder for Winsor Newton watercolor Sketcher´s Pocket Box ( inside with 12 halfpanes of Cotman WC and neat retractable brush). It is so small I can take it really everywhere with me. So this sketch I made in my daily sketchbook from city beach on bank of river Dunaj. It was really quick and with this small pocket you are not a center of view for people all around.Of course, first I need to know these colors, but I am very satisfied with it.
Bratislava´s castle is done in Lamy pen and WN watercolors in my (no branding) sketchbook Here is another castle, this is castle hill in Alanya (Turkey) taken from Cleopatra beach, sketch from last holiday . Besides some scanner troubles ( no blue sea or sky) you can see that for example green is quite different from WinsonNewton . This sketch was done in Koh-I-Noor watercolor and Lamy pen.

Happy months

It is a long ago I last updated my blog. Even not updating, I still create, draw, paint or make a photo each day.Only this posting.... :-( Let´s say I take a blog holiday.
But these months was so exciting that some of the events must be mentioned.

For example gigantic monstrousus concert of the rock legend, music band GENESIS. This group started 40 years ago and now, after 15 still years, they are on stage again. Present new world tour „Turn It On Again“ are going through twelve European countries (starts from Helsinki to Rome) and I think from September people from USA and Canada can enjoy their music.
The concert in Prague was performed on Sazka ARENA 20th June 2007. Tony Banks, Phil Collins , Mike Rutherford, Chester Thompson and Daryl Steurmer was perfect on gigantic stage in front of 25 000 people standing here . The drawings I did are drawings as seen from two megascreens , I was standing maybe 70 meters far from stage.The colors are finished later at home.








During these two months I became happy winner !!! Normally I have no luck but this is so special I named it "East meets West" right here , in Bratislava. On the photo you can see two small parcels, one from free Moleskinerie giveaway (contains lovely ruled notebook Moleskine ), second one right from fabulous printmaker David Bull (contains small print "Fuji from Edo Castle" ). Both of these sites are definitelly worth of seeing and bookmarking !!



And holiday, of course. This year in Alanya,Turkey again. I made small travel sketchbook , for this moment I will publish only two pages , the rest next time.

Back from the Land of Half-Moon

The last two summer weeks we usually spent in Turkey, on so called Turkish Riviera on the coast of Mediterranean Sea .This year in Kemer , which was formerly small town, now seaside resort .One of the major attractions of Kemer is it´s natural beauty.
The clean sea, forests and the Taurus mountains combine here in harmony.But more, the area around is full of ancient cities and archeologicals points of interests. So, you can imagine, there was no time for boring on my holiday.


As a very favourite part of my holiday is a tasting of turkish cuisine. I must admit, there is no meal you could not give thumbs up . Gözleme is a savory Turkish pastry made by rolling dough with a thin roller and repeatedly folding it. It is filled, and browned in a pan.

Next pictures are from sunken city of Kekova, an ancient town, which was destroyed by an earthquake during the second century A.D. You can see see parts of houses through glass bottoms of boats . Very impressive !

Next town I visited, Myra, was one of the six most important cities of ancient Lycia and eventually was made the capital of the Roman province of Lycia. As a result of Arab raids, earthquakes, and the flooding of the Myrros stream, the city became largely abandoned.The ruins of Myra consist of an impressive necropolis and adjacent well preserved Roman theatre and are located at about 1.5 km north of present day Kale - Demre. The Roman theatre is large with 35 consecutive rows of seats. The facade of the amphitheatre was richly decorated with theatrical masks and mythological scenes. To the west of the theatre the steep cliff is honeycombed with closely packed tombs, most of them of the Lycian house-type.
In early Christian times, Myra was the metropolis of Lycia. The town is traditionally associated with Saint Paul, who changed ships in its harbor. Saint Nicholas of Myra was a bishop of Myra in the 4th century, he had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly known as Santa Claus. The earliest church of St. Nicholas at Myra was built in the 6th century.

In 1863 Czar Alexander II of Russia bought the building and started to have it restored, but the work was never finished. In 1963 the eastern and southern sides of the church was excavated, in 1968 the former burial of St. Nicholas was roofed over. The floor of the church is made of opus sectile, a mosaic of coloured marble, and there are some remains of wall-paintings. A Greek marble sarcophagus had been reused to bury the Saint, but his bones were stolen in 1087 by merchants from Bari, and now held in the cathedral of that city.

Karpuzkaldiran Waterfall , is approx. 40 meters high and the water gushes down onto the massive rocks with great force.This waterfall is located in Antalya, near Lara.Don´t worry, there was still plenty of time for sea and sun, and for some drawings, too. Despite of bomb attacks in near Antalya and annoying Russian tourists in hotel, it was fun-tastic time again.

Bulgaria, Nessebar

So , I am back from my vacation, which we spent in Bulgaria, on the coast of Black Sea.Primary, we was on Sunny Beach(Slnečné pobrežie), but the very first day there was so big waves (this year´s up-side-down weather! ) , that there was still a red flag and swimming was no allowed. Fortunatelly, right opposite the beach is a small rocky peninsula and a lovely town on it :
That was very good idea, because that was not only interesting, it became literally "a feast for me and my sketchbook". This old town is ancient city of Nessebar, one of the oldest towns in Europe.
The more than 3,000-year-old site of Nessebar was originally a Thracian settlement (Menebria). At the beginning of the 6th century B.C., the city became a Greek colony. The city's remains, which date mostly from the Hellenistic period, include the acropolis, a temple of Apollo, an agora and a wall from the Thracian fortifications. Among other monuments, the Stara Mitropolia Basilica and the fortress date from the Middle Ages, when this was one of the most important Byzantine towns on the west coast of the Black Sea. .
The peninsula itself is not a big, you can walk around in about 30 minutes. But hey, what a treasures ! There is about 9 churches or remains of churches . On this quick sketch her is church of St. Johan Aliturgetos . It starts like watercolor sketch, but there was so hot, that paints dry almost immediately.

Oh, I found some fire hydrant :-) and fulfill my promise from EDM 66 :
Wooden houses built in the 19th century are typical of the Black Sea architecture of the period.







Nessebar´s abundance of historic buildings prompted UNESCO to inscribe Nesebar on its list of World Heritage Sites in 1983.

Holiday

I am sorry for my absence here but for a last few days we were on holiday. We spent it in Hurghada , Egypt , here



It was very hot and we have a lot of fun, especially when I want to learn some moving on windsurf.





Egypt seems to be very one-color country (due to sand of desert) but you can find a lot of colors everywhere around you.