Remembering 1996

Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of two watercolour paintings, Ballooning over the Masai Mara in Kenya and the Amber Fort near Jaipur in India, and a collaged watercolour of Portofino.

Self-isolating still in force here in Victoria, especially for us over-70s, so I've got lots of time to expand all these old Christmas letters.  What I'm saying is that you're going to be seeing more of them, possibly right up to 2019.

Remembering 1995

Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of a watercolour monotype of the Great Wall of China near Beijing and a painting of the Temple at Ninh Bihn in Vietnam.

As you can see, I’m still using old paintings to put together blog posts until I can return to my painting group.  This week, I’m continuing to use the time available to work on the sixth story in my six-generation collection – the one that begins in 2042 – enlarging on a scene where the girls are reflecting on the ‘cataclysmic changes’ that took place way back in 2020. (I’m pretty sure there are in fact some cataclysmic changes happening right now.)

Remembering 1994

Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of two overlay paintings of Pakistan, and a sketch of the Bidaya Mosque on the east coast of the UAE.  I wrote about this sketch in a blog post a few days ago. 

Back in the present (Happy Easter to you all in self-isolation)... One of my projects for 2020, as explained in my New Years blogpost  is to complete an autofictional novel about a few years in the lives of young women in six generations of my family.  In mid-March I sent a second draft of this collection of six short stories beginning in 1898, 1925, 1958, 1987, 2017 and 2042 to the publisher for editing. I’d had the presence of mind to insert a couple of references to COVID-19  – but it still jumped directly from December 2019 to September 2020 in the fifth story.  I am using this time when I can’t paint to fill in this big blank in the fifth story.  In real time.   

Our expanded 1993 Christmas letter

Click on image to enlarge

Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of a sketch of the rock-cut tombs at Petra in Jordan, and an overlay painting of a caracal lynx.

As you may have guessed, I’m not actually doing any painting these days – the seniors’ centre where I normally paint is closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and I don’t have a space set up for painting in our condo.

Missing from 1994

Bidaya Mosque

Watercolour sketch

©1994 Charlene Brown

In our 1994 Christmas letter, I mentioned a trip to the emirate of Fujeirah on the east coast of the UAE with visitors from Canada. There was a photo of our friends at the tiny Bidaya Mosque, and I am planning to add this watercolour sketch of the mosque to the expanded letter, which I will write a blog post about in a few days.

The entire UAE has been pretty well covered by Google Streetview so I took a tour along what was a winding coast road in 1994, to see what the mosque looks like now. As you can see below, it looks much the same, but the winding coast road has definitely been upgraded.