‘This was once a lake bottom. There was a lot of johnsaon grass and nothing much else. It’s now being tiled for drainage then the land will be leveled. The soil has excellent possibilities once the salt is out you’ll get real good crops out of this. We’ll get an indicator crop in by April. It’s 320 acres farming ground. We’ll have furrow irigation.’

There was a lecture on malaria prevention, weighing children for growth charts and examination of pregnant women; then inoculations for polio, tubercloses, measels, tetnis, whoping cough and diptheria.

Before the pandemic.

These girls break rocks with hammers and other hard jobs. They earn 10 baht a day. That is almost 3 US dollars. I was told they don’t need social security, unimployment insurance or old age homes. The family bond is enough. The girl in the foreground lifted her scarf to show her nexklace. It was a string of tiny urns containing ashes of her family, her grandmother, grandfather, uncles, aunts, etc. She knew who she was.

The tempture must have been close to 50 degrees centagrade. These workers were breaking up that salt as fast as they could. It was then put on a forklift then dumped on a convayer belt connected to the freighter in the harbour. Every time I add salt to my tomato sandwich I think of these guys in the salt mine.

A note from a pleasant receptionist in a small hotel in Brunei. I had finished drawing pictures for an oil company and wanted to visit Sarawac on the Island of Borneo. I was reading ‘Into the heart of Borneo’ by Redmond O’Hanlon for inspiration. It was a pleasure to have this personal note that day for directions than the standard tourist brochure. This is how it was.

When drawing the previous sketch the man in the foreground approached and asked to be drawn also. Here he is with his fishnet full of skulls. He asked me to show it to many people. So I did, and now again..

If you have read the receptionist’s note you will know who Ah Fat is.

I suggested a ‘Buddah ‘ pose. He agreed.

‘I cook Indian, African, Malay and Curry dishes.. I make a nice mealie soup. Portuguese introduced corn to Africa. We call it mealie. I cook a nice bobotie. It is a Cape Malay dish and the national dish of South Africa. When the slaves came from the east in the 17th century, they brought the spices like masala, turmeric, cumin and coriander, etc. It was again a blend of east and west.

Every once in awhile an artist like Karsu (Turkish/Dutch) comes along at a young age and in her mid 20s keeps getting better. She played at Carnegie Hall in 2007, age 17 and twice since. Also twice at the North Sea Jazz festival. Google her on youtube.

My good neighbour.

He lives in Turiani, a small village south of the Serengeti. He loves to listen to Bob Marley as much as I love to listen to blues and Bob Dylan when working.

Henry has lived in Hong Kong since the ‘60s. For international work he is definitely top dog. We have worked on several projecrs. He’s tough and accepts nothing but your best. I think he has remained in Hong Kong because it is the cross road between east and west.

The highways end where the jungle begins. There is a grocery store and restaurant. After that there are some small roads but travel is by boat.

You can place a dish of the best cat food in front of her but she loves to go into the woods past the barn and hunt for a day or three. She returns, throws up hair balls, and repeats this. One time she didn’t come back.

Locals tell the legend of the snake fish.

In the distance is the Beagle Channel. It is named after the British ship the HMS Beagle. Charles Darwin was a self-funding passanger as an amateur naturalist exploring the area in 1833-1834. He was in total 5 years on board the ship. After, he wrote ‘The Science of Evolution’ and ‘On the Origin of Species.’

Flying to an oil drilling area in north west Canada. We are between Edmonton and Lloydminster.

This UN farm is experimental. A new method of outdoor farming being introduced in the Middle East called “dryland” farming. A technique enabling wheat to be grown without irrigation on land that receives as little as 5.9 centimeters of rain a year. I was working on this story for the Aramco World magazine with several journalists and experts on farming. It is always a pleasure working for that magazine.

Long history. Origin was Carthaginian. Then the Romans in 152 BC, followed by the Visigoths, 6th century. In 711 Arabs captured the city . Finally in 1236 it fell to Ferdinand 3rd. Still Spanish.

My goal before leaving the city was to see Marc Chagall’s 12 stained glass windows in the Hadassah Hospital. I did.

This one was growing in Portugal.

These coins and those listed in the sketch were proclaimed legal tender in Hong Kong in March, 1842. History museum, Hong Kong, 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

This part of a vase is in the Iraklion Museum on Crete.

This food was originally called heri heri which slaves in the 18th. centure had to eat in Suriname. Today it’s called BBR…brown beans and rice, pretty much a national dish. Chicken and exotic (hot) spices are added and it is delicious.

Everyone who has eaten in a fast food place has seen these.

…without the feathers and long pole. National museum, Cairo, Egypt.

This mosaic (detail) dates about the 1st, century AD.

These bottles are sold right out of a rucksack in alcohol prohibited Nunavut, Canada. The price was 600 Canadian dollars not long ago. An illegal shipment from the south.

Situated on the eastern Serengeti plains. A side ravine of the great rift valley. It is one of the very important paleoanthropological sites in the world for early human evolution. Louis and Mary Leakey - and a lot of others - developed the excavation and research programs here for great advances of human knowledge. Gives one goosebumps.

The top skull was found in 1959 among remains of animals and crude stone “pebble tools”. Jaw not found. Dated by potassium argon process to 1,750,000 years ago. Great teeth, not a cavity! Natural Museum, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Ten thousand years ago the present Sahara desert was forests and grasslands teeming with wildlife from the Atlantic to beyond the Nile. It was a great place to live. 5500 years ago the global monsoon system weakened and the climate changed. The rains stopped and the long drying began until it lookd like it is today. The only solution must have been to migrate and continue life in a new place or parish.

This sarcophagus is at least 2500 years old. I drew him at the ROM, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. As a member I was allowed behind the glass, peer into shelves and draw. The paint, jars and brushes are also from that time frame. They looked like my mixing tray today. I was illustrating a story for Frank Holt, professor of ancient history at the university of Houston, Texas. Again for the Aramco world magazine.

Hammurabi ruled Mesopotamia from 1792 to 1750 BC. The code of law was written on a stone stele 2.25m high and in the shape of an index finger. The 282 laws are the oldest deciphered writings in the world. Translated from Akkadian using cuneiform. At the top of the stone slab Hammurabi receives the laws from Shamash, the sun god, the god of justice, morality and truth. The laws deal with matters like “an eye for an eye” a “tooth for a tooth” and of contracts, wages, household and family relationships, etc. Guess who I illustrated this story for?

A sailor in the Indian ocean following the monsoons he is using his 2 fingers to calculate his latitude. plus/minus 13th century.

March 1969

Kosovo. 24 - 09 - ‘03, American soldier on UN duty. ‘I’m saving all my “off duty” free time just to get out of here for awhile. The longer you stay the more sympathy you have for the other side. They were all bad in that war.’ He also served in Bosnia. ‘The Bosnians are all liers. They lie all the time, all the time. Everyone. But you can’t tell them that. You got to use diplomacy - political correctness…’ He asked not to be identified and places his hand over his name.

The pictures in this section are made pretty much during down time. I love the shapes, colours and compositions. I do this mainly for practice and for myself. This one just happened to find a customer.

I have no idea if this picture is good or not. I wait for some down time so I can work on them.

This picture makes some sense. I’m a realist, I admit. I have artist friends that work in the abstract. We’ve traded work with each other, happily!

Up in the clouds again.

This picture was made for a new addition to a hospital. Architects have a small part of their budget for art and they all prefer abstract. So, an abstract triptych seemed logical. This is the centre panel.

This is one of the 3 sketches for Micro Wind.

This is not a painting, just my mixing cardboard. This is how some artists start out as abstract painters. It’s the search for eye candy.