I've been drawing pretty much daily again. I spend much of today in transit, and I had the craving to draw a raven. Tonight, I did. I decided to go with soft pastels on sanded paper. I call it "Ravenous."

( Here are the in-progress shots. )

I got up at 6 on Saturday, stumbled out of bed, and looked out the window at a cold, wet, grey day. I put on my workout gear and had a big breakfast. Today was going to be brutal ( Read more... )

We cannot escape the past. Everything we touch and see is from the past. Our present is so fleeting that it has left us before we have even become aware of it. The question of who owns the past is misleading, for the past owns us. All we can do is create and imagine based upon what it gives us ( Read more... )

When we arrived at Machu Picchu, we all had to go through yet another checkpoint. Once again, passports were checked, and knightky and I had to check our backpacks into storage. Unladen, I felt much lighter on my feet. David and Jesus took us around the city, showing us various temples and explaining their significance to us. Machu Picchu is made of ( Read more... )

knightky and I are not used to getting up at 3:30 in the morning. In the past, I've gone to bed around that time, but I can't recall ever needing to wake up at that hour. It wasn't easy for anyone. David and Jesus were as sleep-fogged as the rest of us. The camp was cold, damp, and seemed to be filled with shambling zombies. My ears were filled with a ( Read more... )

Plant life along the Inca Trail is incredibly diverse. Growing conditions change according to altitude, and the Incas took advantage of this. They were master botanists, and used the terraces to do a lot of experimental gardening. This diversity is evident in the plants and trees growing along the Inca Trail ( Read more... )

We were woken by porters placing bowls of steaming water and mugs of hot coca tea outside our tent. "Gracias," I said, then peeked outside. Heavy cloud nestled not too far overhead. ( We'd be heading into that cloud soon enough. )

When we woke up, we were on the periphery of cloud. The morning was chilly, but not nearly as cold as we'd been prepared for. The porters had placed bowls of hot, steaming water just outside everyone's tents so we could clean and warm ourselves before breakfast. When I got out of my tent, ( I was confronted by this intimidating beauty: )

At some point in the middle of the too-short night, knightky woke me up in a mad terror. "UP UP UP UP UP!!!" he shouted while shaking my shoulder ( Read more... )

The Q'allaqasa citadel at Pisac was our next stop. Like all the sites we saw in the Sacred Valley, the citadel overlooked the Urubamba River. The river was important for more than just the water and fertile land around it. It had spiritual significance to the Incas, and was viewed as ( an extension of the Milky Way and the mountain peaks. )