Time for a New Red Room Photo?
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As fond as I am of black irises, the national flower of Jordan, I'm considering changing my Red Room photo. Today I created a caricature of myself, complete with a red hibiscus behind one ear to commemorate my days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa. The bank I worked for rented for me a huge Western-style home built by a German doctor during World War II. In my yard grew a banana tree, a cashew tree, a papaya tree, coconut palms, two massive mango trees (but I'm allergic to them!), frangipani, and hibiscus bushes. A little Eden, and so fragrant. As I crossed my yard to head for work each morning, the last flora I passed were my hibiscus bushes. Most days, I plucked a flower and jabbed it behind one ear, in the Polynesian fashion.
Anywhooooo. . .what do you think? Should I switch it up and make this caricature my new Red Room photo? Or is all that Angel Face-ness just too gorgeous for a grim subject like dishonor killings?! :-D
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Abdelwahab Hammoudi says:
Shines
Shines optimism.I like it.
Rosy Cole says:
I like it, too, Ellen
Lovely as the irises are, I feel the caricature is more hospitable. In fact, do I detect a graphic novel on the horizon, based on your travels and insights into the Middle East?
Abdelwahab Hammoudi says:
Why not a
Why not a filmscript,Lawrence of Arabia style?(with a female as a hero?!)
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Thanks for weighing in,
Thanks for weighing in, Hammoudi and Rosy.
I don't think of myself as very creative in that way. . .rather left brained from decades of being a numbers geek. But I do like the sound of Ellen of Arabia. :-) Maybe Ivory will consider it for her next book?!
Farzana Versey says:
Ellen, stop playing
Ellen, stop playing the temptress :) And now for my two bits, and I disagree thus far with the honourable jury, though the ideas of 'graphic novel' by Rosy and 'female Lawrence of Arabia' by Hammoudi seem like great possibilities.
I find this caricature too nerdy. Out with the sunshine smile or the daggers drawn look, girl...I have tried to do a little teasing with your effort and, don't mind, but I like pottering around with faces.
My evil intentions just give the image a dishevelled look, red lips and eyes masked!
All this is in fun, of course.
~F
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
But I am kinda geeky,
But I am kinda geeky, Farzana! I wear prescription eyeglasses about half the time (the half in which I wish to see).
Rats! I can't get the image you created to pop up on my screen. Could you e-mail it to me, please?!
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Love the femme fatale/ninja
Love the femme fatale/ninja look, Farzana. The lips are to die for!
Bob Levin says:
You worked for a BANK when
You worked for a BANK when you were in the Peace Corps??? Is that a hint of where the expanded AmeriCorps folks may be headed? To help out AIG, General Motors, assorted brokerage houses and savings & loans?
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Yep! A development bank
Yep! A development bank (agricultural and industrial lending only) funded by the Asian Development Bank out of Manila. I certainly hope no one in AmeriCorps is asked to volunteer to help bail out corporate America, unless those volunteers are the greedy folks who ran those companies into the ground in the first place, but then you'd have to question their skill.
Bob, I'm told that, before I joined the PC, there was even a PC attorney placed with one of the Samoan ministeries. He didn't last long, though. . .don't know why.
Luciana Lhullier says:
I loved the irises,and I
I loved the irises,and I love this caricature. I think I like the caricature better because I can see your wit in it. But where are the wings, Angel face? :-D
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
A red pitchfork and tail
A red pitchfork and tail might be more appropriate, Luciana. :-D I'd be the last person to call myself an angel.
jitu rajgor says:
Hi
Put irises flower's back ground behind this caricature. Also make it more descriptive.photo shop software will be useful.But I really will miss those beautiful flowers.
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Not sure I have the
Not sure I have the Photoshop chops to do that much tweaking, but it's a good suggestion for how to incorporate the two.
Keiko Amano says:
The girl with an iris flower
Ellen,
I like the contrast between a girl and dishonor killing, and I had a similar idea as Jitu. How about the girl holding just one iris flower or the girl with an iris over her ear rather than a hibiscus?
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Oh, that is a great idea,
Oh, that is a great idea, Keiko! [Goes back to drawing board to see if she can turn that red hibiscus into a black iris.]
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
I've reworked the
I've reworked the caricature to reflect input from Dr. Jitu and Keiko, though I couldn't edit the flower into a black iris, so I just turned it black. Also lightened my hair, since a friend who knows me well told me the shade I used earlier is too dark.
Farzana Versey says:
hrmph
...and all my efforts at femme fatalism/ninja chickism are dumped for some irises...
It don't matter...I know the real McCoy...and it ain't all that coy:)
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Actually, Farzana, here's
Actually, Farzana, here's what I'm thinking of doing:
1. Using the irises when I write about dishonor killings.
2. Using the caricature I came up with when I write about miscellany.
3. Using the caricature you came up with when I'm steamed about something and feel like kicking some bum. That character is much cooler and more feisty than I'll ever be, plus you gave her really gorgeous lips. :-D
Farzana Versey says:
Now you are swinging
Now you are swinging three ways, Ellen :) That itself makes you absolutely the candidate for the feisty one...but your idea is good enough. Remember, you are my ticket to caricature fame!
~F
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Your caricaturing talents
Your caricaturing talents will not go to waste, Farzana! I'm rather impressed with what you produced having seen only one photograph of me.
Mary Wilkinson says:
The caricature wins over the
The caricature wins over the black iris Ellen. That garden must have been beautiful, mangoes, hibiscus.........I am swooning.
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Thanks for weighing in,
Thanks for weighing in, Mares. I'm having difficulty uploading the caricatures, but Huntington is working with me.
I think you would've loved my yard in Samoa, Mary. Early in my days there, I accidentally dropped some papaya seeds as I was walking down my front porch stairs to take out the trash. By the time I left Samoa, I had a new papaya tree near the stairs where the seeds had been dropped. Everything is so fertile there, and you can literally go out to your yard and pick something from your trees for a snack or a salad.
On a literary note, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island in Samoa. In addition, he is buried there. The Samoans loved him and called him the Tusitala (teller of tales).
Mary Wilkinson says:
Imagine that dropping seeds
Imagine that dropping seeds and a tree grows. Here everything is a challenge, the growing a metaphor for survival! Our potatoes are thriving but everything else withered this year-left us feeling a little angry at the soil and the conditions, you give your heart and best intentions and toil and yet little to show. Maybe we need to reconsider the terms, rework the planting schedule, stand back and find an alternative seed bed.....
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
There must be a reason why
There must be a reason why paradise is almost always depicted as tropical. We humans just tend to gravitate toward that and, yet, it is not without its downsides.
The spud has served the Irish so well. What is it about the Irish climate that is hardest on growing other plants, Mary? Is it the wind? The oversaturation of the soil after excessive rains? Samoa is volcanic, so the soil is rich and porous. So, although it rains quite a bit there, the moisture quickly drains or evaporates due to the equatorial sun.