Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Last sketches of 2014

Fireworks, dim sum, and Lily in the laundry. 
New Year's Eve in Hawaii is a whole different experience than in the Seattle area. The day started out ordinarily enough. We met for lunch at Jade Dynasty Seafood for Dim Sum. The majestic bronze horses at the entry doors wore festive wreaths with red bows. We tried some new dishes and enjoyed our favorite Char Siu Bao. Then we shopped a bit, since the restaurant is located at Ala Moana in Honolulu.

At home in Kailua, the after dinner firecracker and booming explosions start in earnest. Our ears are ringing. By the time dusk arrives, the air is foggy with smoke and it smells like gunpowder. We've put Lily the family pug in the bathroom to lessen the noise for her, but she still shakes and tries to hide in the laundry basket.

Then the neighborhood show begins. All around us there is a constant display of cascading, starlike clustering, bursting fireworks. It builds to a crashing, booming, blinding crescendo at midnight and finally peters out with only an occasional blast for the next few hours. Lily and I finally can go to sleep.

Update: On Jan 2, #klsketchnation featured this sketch as one of their sketch inspirations #mysketchinspiration on Instagram. They wrote these very nice comments:
"Get out, travel and make a journal out of it. You are your own story. So why not have your own storybook."

KLsketchnation is an online community of sketching enthusiasts out and about in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2 comments:

  1. Happy New Year! I love your sketch of your pug and how you composed the page. Funny how sensitive dogs are to sounds. I remember our dog when we were kids hiding under the bed for hours after the fireworks...and even then she didn't want to come out. Things were pretty quiet in my neighborhood for some reason.

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    1. Cheers, Joan! Thank you for your kind words. I guess you can't predict how the neighborhood will do in any one year. Last year it was pretty quiet here, too. Have a happy and successful year ahead!

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