There’s something special about going for a dip in the sea in January.
Since Eilat is such a tourist hot-spot, there were Christmas and New Year’s decorations everywhere. This particular guy was having a lie down before a long work-day:
I’ve not posted any actual drawings here in a long time, so here’s a sketch from my Eilat Sketchbook to start the new year off:
I think we’ve gone to the Underwater Observatory every time we visited Eilat with Eli. I always spend the longest time at the turtle pool, sketching and taking photos. All of the turtles there as rescues (if my memory serves me right) who are released back into the sea once their injuries heal.
The Shark Exhibit is especially popular in the summer: air-conditioned cool space with seats and a great view… This is the place where I regret not being able to use my camera to its full potential, and I promise myself to study the manuals better. I forget about that as soon as I step back into the sun and heat… until my next visit.
I got Eli very excited about seeing the sharks back in the hotel, and we sang the “baby shark” song multiple times.
Aah, the crooked beach getting in the way of me taking artsy-fartsy photos! Damn you, nonparallel lines!
The above photo was taken on Eli’s birthday, which we tried to fill with her favourite activities: climbing about in a massive play-dome thing, getting wet at the beach, toy shopping and eating cake (after blowing out three candles). One of the toys she picked out is a doctor’s bag full of lovely items, such as tweezers, a massive syringe, thermometer and various torture-looking devices. She checks our vitals roughly 4-5 times a day, and I’ve grown a lot more cautious about coughing or sneezing around her (as she plunges the syringe into my mouth with an exaggerated “Oh No!!!”).
My January art-task is to finish my Eilat Sketchbook. It’s a soft-cover A5 book with low-quality paper, so I can only really draw on one side, and I think there are 48 pages. I’ve done a few pencil sketches while there, and only had time to fully finish 4 pages before coming home, so I’ll have to do most of the work drawing from memory and photos I’ve taken.
This was my first time using a soft-cover sketchbook in forever, and I can firmly say I’m not planning to go travel-logging with a soft-cover any time soon. I hated not being able to comfortably draw on my knee, or to lean onto a comfortable railing. That and I won’t be purchasing any more sketchbooks with such poor paper quality. I am determined to finish this one though, and I’m filling it with paints and markers and gluing all sorts of things into it. Clearly, I’ve watched too many Minnie Small videos…
So far the year has been pretty awesome: I met it with my husband and kid (so what if I had to drag the husband out of bed and poke him awake? Eli slept in that adorable-sleeping-baby way, hugging her fox toys), a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries. There were even some fireworks right after midnight, which we only listened to as the hotel was blocking our view. Still pretty cool though! We went splashing in the sea, celebrated Eli’s birthday, slept in, had cake and fed some fish. I even enjoyed the storm that started on our last morning there and is still going pretty strong back here in Jerusalem. Sleeping while it’s raining outside is the best kind of sleeping!
There’s far too much text and not enough pictures in this post, so I’ll be finishing up for today.
How was your New Year’s Eve?
Rediskot 