More than four years ago I announced that I was going to get reacquainted with my sketchbook. It was a New Years Resolution, so of course it didn’t stick. So here we go again.
Drawing is Good for the Soul
A musician friend of mine, Tim Green, and I were chatting online recently. We discovered that for both of us, drawing was our first love, before music. Tim reminded me recently that “drawing is good for the soul.”
I was away from home, in Ampefy, Madagascar, and had brought my sketching supplies along with me as I’ve done many times in the past four years on many out-of-town trips.
So I got out the sketchbook, looked around the for inspiration. Nothing too ambitious. Something to break the dry spell. Something that was speaking to me at the moment. Beer.
Madagascar Is Not an IPA Country
Corsican IPA, from Brasserie Pietra is imported from France. But IPA beers are not particularly popular in Madagascar or France, apparently. IPAs are not particularly popular in continental Europe. It’s rare to find an IPA in a grocery store. In more than nine years living in Madagascar, I think I’ve seen four different IPAs.
And when I do find them they are five times more expensive than domestic beers. (Not just IPAs but any imported craft beer.) So when I saw these at the store recently, I bought precisely three bottles. And I even felt a little guilty about it.