Dale Hope had a 3" thick stack of references to use for this print on organic cream colored cotton with blues in sky and ocean. The rock mountains are in light to dark tans.
There is a tiny rock climber wearing a red shirt,light blue shorts and light blue shoes.His pack is cream colored.
My niece, Helena Al-Kubaisi, gave me information on the gear that she and her husband,William, used when they climbed rocks. I looked at countless other photographs of rock climbers in Dale's reference book,online images, magazine photographs and library books.This climber became the man in my life!
The outrigger canoe tucked behind the mountain is an authentic island canoe with a South East Asian spear fisherman.In an old book we found this black and white photograph of rustic canoe and Islander leaning out over water with his right arm raised,ready to spear a fish.
The outrigger canoe just off a tiny coconut palm island is in calm waters with the fisherman seated,holding a tan colored fishing pole.His pants and outrigger are red.
The surfer closest to mountain is wearing red pareo shorts.
We added accents of red to coconut palm tree trunks,outrigger on canoe,surf board of 2nd surfer and rock climber's shirt.
There is one wave in this design that is drawn from the ocean looking towards the land.Drawing it from a photograph of wave from behind created a slight sense of sea sickness for me!
Last year I was in Manoa Valley ,Honolulu,at a shopping center, just having walked out of the soy shop ,when I spotted a man wearing this very shirt. I shared my design process with him .
He graciously told me that he enjoyed wearing this shirt. I walked to my car ,holding my frozen chocolate soy dessert, and knew that it had been a good day.
Aloha from Kailua,
Emma Howard
