Oh, Felicity!

I'm on a drawing binge today (and it feels really relaxing for I haven't taken my pencils out for ages!) and, looking through the collection of numerous bits and pieces in my folder, I discovered this face:I sketched her about two years ago when I was still working in the old office, during some quick pause between translating commercial correspondence (I was listening to "A Story Girl" from librivox.org at the time). When we were moving office, I saved this one as well as some others, and in the depths of my folder it was kept till today. It seems just yesterday I did it and it seems at least two lives ago at the same time...

I posted another Felicity portrait last summer but there she is "Felicity a couple of years after the events in the book", neatly dressed and with a grown up air, and here she's exactly the girl Peter admired so much, and (remember her cooking talent?) she's even wearing an apron :-)

Happy Birthday to Maud!

I am planning to cook supper consisting of:

1)Anne's cream potatoes
2)oatcakes from Emily books
3)ginger tea

recipes here:http://www.tickledorange.com/LMM/Recipes.html

And I must do the final editing of The Materialising of Cecil (I translated it into Russian).

HAPPY LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY BIRTHAY TO ALL HER FANS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MAUD, a kindred spirit who gave people a real treasure in her books, the opportunity to leave through the sweet moments of childhood once again, Once she said she dreamed to write a book that would live, and they do live!

Off to the kitchen!
(You cannot imagine how great it is to have the weekend for yourself, without any translating or preparing for classes !)

I am Emily

Which L.M. Montgomery Heroine are You?

I did this ages ago and now was reminded of it by Paula's post. So let it be here. Time to read about Emily, by the way, I suspect these may become my absolute faourites by LMM!

Frozen

It's so cold outside we had to switch on the portable heater and it still doesn't help much/ I want nothing but wrap up in a shawl with a cup of Christmas Mystery (!) tea and L.M.Montgomery's diaries or better Amelie und die Liebe unterm Regenschirm. It feels so much like late autumn! I was taken for a student again. Yesterday I had a re-sit with a student and while she was writing the test I sat at a desk in the next row. A group of students went into the classroom and announced they were going to write a paper there, their teacher would not be present however. I had to expain we were having an exam there. Then the students... asked when our teacher was going to come. Sure I had to explain and saying sorry they left my student and me in peace. I think it will still continue several years longer. Not that I mind it much (better than too look like ateacher ;-)) but sometimes it's too tiresome to explain to people I'm a teacher! it was so cold at the Uni too. The classroom was awfully big and I entertained myself examining the desk graffity left by many many students who had to while away a boring lecture there. I was reading a bit of Amelie und die Liebe unterm Regenschirm too, it fit so much because it was describing late autumn! It does not look like June at all :-( And June my favourite time of the year for its long days and the promise of a whole summer ahead!!!

I love red roses

"I love the red roses, ... I want the crimson ones. They satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does."

Leslie, ("Anne's House of Dreams" by Lucy Maud Montgomery).

This is the red rose my students gave to me on Tuesday. A lovely one and still blooms! Overall, the "Last Bell" day was nice and I really feel sorry to part with my first students!

Guess who is the teacher :-)) (hate my hair here :-( )

Leslie

This is Leslie's portrait. I've had the pencil sketch about a year maybe, but I only coloured it today. Looks a bit clumsy but Oksana said she liikes it only she would Leslie wear her hair loose. Mediums: gel pen and watercolours

Still another

This is the final scene from Pat, only a slight sketch, also done yesterday evening.

Cecily, who always poured balm

With her hair curled, no matter how her siblings and cousins tried to persuade her her sleek straight brown hair looked uncurled better. For some reasons I picture her in a cherry background. At first I wanted to make a cherry pattern on her print dress but then thought real cherry branches beside her would be better. I tried to make her sweet and simple and pretty and leave it to yourself to determine wether I achieved it. Now I'd better go to bed as it's quite late, but I could not stop until I finished this drawing. After loads of boring letters in the office (how tedious and useless my work seems!) I just needed some for my soul!

Back with Felicity

I'm back and back to my coloured pencils (I carried them with me to the Bulgarian vacation (Bulgaria is lovely by the way!) but somehow did not come up with any drawings at all - did come up with a translation of Materializing of Cecil from Further Chroinicles of Avonlea into Russian, so I can edit and type it soon - hopefully, I already owe 4 promised Chapters of Rainbow Valley translation at the Avonleaworld site (I promise to make it asap, girls and boys!) .Another story from FCoA I loved (I think it is my favourite) is Her Father's Daughter, about a daughter of a sailor, to read it at the sea was a special pleasure! Going to translate it as well (already begun in fact). Must transfer all my vacation photos to the computer tomorrow at last and choose some for the journal to share. The Vienna vacation story is going to have at least 10 chapters I guess... And the Bulgarian one is not going to be small either!

By the way, Paula, thanks for the present! Perfect for a little blond girl (though literally not very little, I am a child forever inside :-)). Must figure out how to put it somewhere here/ Indeed, I love getting presents and compliments even after Birthday passes, and as we are in the habit of going away for summer vacation presents and celebrations may last till September!

Have a look at my version of Felicity dressed up for some event, she reminds me of Eva from Durch Liebe Erloest here, a German film based on the book by the same name (quite a good film, even if the story seems quite trivial and a bit like Jane Eyre, Germans can make a gem of everything! And how perfectly they dub movies!)

Sara Stanley

I finished Sara Stanley sketch yesterday, the Story Girl was not supposed to be very pretty after all. Paddy is not 100% the Paddy I wanted to draw... 3 more sketches, with Sara Ray, Cecily and Felicity to follow, I am not sure when though.

A dog instead of Vienna photos so far!

Lieber Leserin, lieber Leser! – My dear readers!

I have not yet completely forgotten you are expecting a detailed account of my Vienna vacation and I promise I’ll be giving the info little by little from my office laptop, because I saved the pics there and the internet speed is much higher there, which will make uploading photos much faster. For the time being please have a look at the dog in the neighbours’ of my granny window who I sketched yesterday. I also sketched the girls from “A Story Girl” by Lucy Maud Montgomery yesterday, and I hope to turn them into coloured pictures these days. Well, we’ll see…

Liebe Gruesse – Best wishes,
Yours&c. …

Sorry for the bits of German to those who do not speak the language - this is stronger than me! - and I translated these pieces into English diligently!

A little Blue Castle illustration

I put here a lot of photos recently, now it's surely time for a drawing: the neclace and note Valancy left on Barney's table before leaving him.

Another Anne drawing

Here she is on her first day of teaching at the Avonlea school, nervous and trying to calm down with a cup of camomile tea Marilla made for her. The way she's holding the cup is a bit peculiar, but well, she is very nervous! ;)

I came up with the idea of this drawing when sitting in a queue at the hospital waiting my turn to see the doctor and actually made a couple of sketches for it sitting there

New drawings

Two new drawings: Grandmother King blue cup from A Story Girl again, and a lady in the garden (I don't particilarly like how the latter came out, but let it be here). Drawing seems to be the onlyy thing cheering me up because being ill with bronchitis almost three weeks will certainly affect your spirits at least a little

A Spring Drawing

The trees will be in full bloom soon and the frogs will be singing.. like in the first chapter of A Story Girl by LMM. Hence the drawing - the old King orchard (I'm not sure whose trees are these :)) with the old blue cup from Grandmother King's set on the well. I love that blue cup, this tiny detail links the past and present so beautifully!

LMM etc.

Well, I do not think this post is going to be particuarly interesting...

I'm just having a short break in the office to put it here. Looking forward to receiving the 1st 2 volumes of LMM diaries and also Annotated Anne of Green Gables, which ordered in January (long time, but still worth every minute of waiting!).

I love the photo on this cover, LMM looks so intelligent, elegant and ladylike here.

Have some Sunday spring photos, but I reach home so tired I just can't switch on the computer and transfer the pictures from the camera. Hope to do that before it's summer however!

The Blue Castle... again

Pencil drawing scanned and printed, refined with a nib pen and ink, coloured by wax crayons and oil pastels

(A Birthday present for Oksana, a kindred spirit whom I got to know thanks to Lucy Maud Montgomery)

Fever and drawings and the agony of moving I do not know where

The awful manual finished, the urgency and pressure of it must have taken all my nerves and strength, because I felt feverish Tuesday morning sitting at the office so I left after lunch. I turned out to be rinning quite a temperature, indeed. I lay in bed all the rest of the day remembering the time 18 years ago when I was down with flu, the bitter anti-flue powders in thin papers which I could never swallow and this red teddy bear my mum brought to me when buying medicine at the drugstore, it might have helped me to get better. Mum told me that there was another girl in the shop who wanted to have such a bear, but thу one mum bought was the last one and that girl was in tears. But I was the lucky owner of this little thing (there was not such amount of toys in shops back in the late 1980s) and he was quite a friend to mine: all that winter. I took him to walks, when shopping with grandma, played in snow with him until his plush skin got all wet (he's plastic inside) and started falling off, so granny had to stitch the print trousers and skin together with a thick wide thread. I discovered him in granny's attic last spring and now he's on my favourite bookshelf next to the best and the cosiest and the most beloved reads.

Besides remembering being ill in childhood I dreamt about Anne's cosy House of Dreams and various ideas for drawing too. I hoped to read quietly the next day (Wednesday) while being om sick leave but I just couldn't because of a splitting headache. However, I could write (I never could just sit ildly - well, unless I am dreaming, but dreaming or thinking things over or making up stories in your mind is not being idle in my opinion!) - so I made a long diary entry with my fountain pen, then took the thick book of nursery rhymes with illustrations by Y.Vasnetsov and just revelled in his beautiful drawings and then I picked up notepaper, a gel pen and wax pencils and... you can see the rest. (I don't know if you believe I was suffering from migranes, but I was, it just felt too much pity to waste the day lying down, especially that I have to spend most of my time doing boring translation tasks at the office and do not have much time for doing something creative). I pasted the rose onto the envelope with a letter to a friend, and it's in the mail already.

Yesterday I already had to translate business letters from home... :(((

And fancy what happened today? I came to the office to find no laptop on my desk! Part of our present office is moving (including me) and evidently moving things during work-time is considered prior to all duties and obligations. Well, I had nothing to do, just gathered my papers, dictionaries and other things to be moved and went home. So I'm practically having an unplanned day-off! I never saw the new office and I plan to go there tomorrow to see what the new environment is like, I'm definitely having more work therefore less time than the two others who must have already equipped their places (during working hours!!!) leaving some poor corner for me. If it is so there's going to be a big scandal! I'm not going to leave it at that! We are moving in on Monday but the executive director has not given me any information as to the new working schedule (the new office means commuting), or my working place (do I have a desk and a chair at all I wonder, there must be something to put the laptop on I guess?). Should an executive director not take care of all people working under his guidance? But what would you expect of a vain 24-year-old boy? Should not all employees with a company be treated as equals after all? Evidently it's not the case here. Well, I stop here, I said more than enough!

The good thing is that the new office is to be in the center of a bigger city, with the British Council library (English fiction and non-fiction, magazines, films, documentaries audiobooks... ahh, cannot wait!), bookshops and my University nearby, so I could drop into my old school to see the people who treated me as a real colleague and who gave me good education which does not seem considered or respected or valued where I am now.

The weather keeps frosty. It was such a pity I haven't taken a camera with me today. I don't yet have any pictures of the morning sun, and today's was a fabulous light-golden sunrise.

The Blue Castle

Those who read it know that it's a beautiful book/ The nature in Lucy Maud Montgomery's descriptions is so breathtakingly beautifil, in other words I'в say her books are a treat for the eye too (for the inner eye for that matter).

Here's my attempt to transform words into a visual image (Valancy's Blue Castle come true on Barney's island)

Prince Edward Island

Мар of the Places where Anne Shirley lived.
When do I return to the wonderful world again? I certainly need comfort reading.