#conbon

Connie x Cocoa !

Icelandic Poppies (2016)

I was looking through an old folder on my backup hard drive and came upon this high-res scan of a favorite painting, which I believe I called “Poppies,” from 2016.

The original now lives at my Aunt Margie’s house, and I have been looking at it closely for the last 20 minutes. It’s not big, probably like 9″ x 12″ or so, but it represents big learning. From how to approximate bookeh and depth of field with wet-in-wet, to rewetting a dry spot so I could apply more pigment, to scrubbing out the paint so more white comes through. 

And this is also the painting that taught me not to press too firmly with a pencil, because you can’t always erase after the painting is done, and the graphite color against the peach of the flower petals really brings it down. If you look closely enough, you can see all the different techniques and their various expressions in the buds of the unopened flowers. 

I painted this from photo reference, but it was still the most insane process of detail-oriented, patience-testing, attention-span expansion ever. Posting it because it turned out OK and I figured you’d be wondering what I was doing with all of my time since I’m obviously not spending it writing quality content on here. 

Day 16 – Iceland Gígjökull

Gígjökull (or Icefall) is the glacier tongue of Eyafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted in 2010. During the eruption, both the glacier on top of the volcano and a crater lake at the base of the glacier were destroyed by blast forces and the extreme heat of magma, causing a flood that stretched the width of Þórsmörk and eroding a giant rocky hole in the lake basin. We drove right into the basin and walked up to the glacier (which is huge, the cave on the lower left of it is about 35ft tall) to touch it and look back at the mountain range in the distance. The glacier photo is on the left, the mountains in the distance photo is on the right. 

Happy American Independence Day...Weekend...!

Day 15 – The Blue Lagoon

Jason has ONE good photo of me actually IN the blue lagoon and I’m not posting it so, sorry about that. Instead, take a look at these other photos of the hotel we’re staying in (the Silica Hotel, part of the big commercialized complex on the blue lagoon) and the surrounding landscape. PRETTY AMAZING. 

The last photo was taken at 11:28pm, just so we’re clear of just how light out it is at night. 

We arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm after spending the morning out shopping and having our umteenth burger lunch at a local restaurant. Burgers are an ubiquitous dish that everyone in Europe does well, so far. Then we did a little more gift shopping, had a donut at a Dunkin’ – for cultural comparison, obviously – and headed back to our AirBnB to catch the cab here. 

When we arrived we took a much needed nap and then walked around the hotel premises to snap photos and see what’s up. The usual scene of the volcanic moss plains in Iceland are GREEN with moss, but this time of year the moss is dormant – deciduous even – and takes on a gray-green hue. Still looks amazing. 

At the lagoon you’re basically made to shower before entering the water, then given a wrist band and shown a few of the “attractions” in the lagoon. One is a mud bar offering a Silicon mask, Algea mask, and one other that I forget. The other is a wet bar where you can get a glass of wine for $15. We skipped the wet bar because what if you spilled that into the pool? How does that work? 

The Silicon masks were amazing, though, and my face is radiant. Jay and I snapped a shot on the way back to our hotel to prove how fresh-faced the experience left us. Annnndd...that was the whole day! 

Whelp, there goes another 8 hours of cookie-related work disguised as “seasonal baking.” Disregard the uneven icing. Just pretend it’s not like that.