Such a busy day today. I think this is the first time I’ve manage to sit down for a few minutes.
Painting in the morning. I’d intended this to be an oil painting, laid on top of an acrylic ground on a canvas, but it turned out to be an acrylic on acrylic on canvas. Confused yet? I’ve taken the advice of one of the books I’ve been reading recently and assessed the basic colour scheme of my intended artwork. Then I paint the canvas with a ground which is the contrasting colour to the dominant one in the painting. Ha! You’re confused now aren’t you? It’s an interesting idea and I think it works. It’s so different from painting in watercolour where you have to plan the painting before you put brush to paper. You leave bare paper to produce the whites. In acrylic (and oils), you can add the whites later, in fact, some experts say the whites should be added last. Also, this is a small 200mm x 200mm square canvas and I don’t like squares – too static, you see. However, it’s working so far. Time will tell.
After the arty farty stuff, I made the chicken curry for tonight’s dinner and then some bread. Usually I just bung all the ingredients into the mixer and set it to go for 10 minutes. Today, for some reason, I kneaded the dough myself. It’s a good feeling kneading sticky dough until it turns out smooth. Very therapeutic.
After that it was off to the gym and swim while Scamp’s ladies were practising their singing. Came back too early and they were still at it, so I grabbed my bike and cycled off to one of my favourite bramble patches and got just about half a kilo of fruit. Most of the fruit isn’t ready yet, maybe another week or so.
Dancing at night, and thank goodness our usual teacher was back. Good teaching with a relaxed and pleasant manner. Not what we had last week. The guest teacher was good. A bit severe, but still good. JG though is head and shoulders above him – he is quite tall!
So, I’ve done the gym thing, a swim thing, cycling and dancing today. Surely that will take a few grams off when I next step on the scales. Of course the Old Speckled Hen I’m quenching my thirst with is low calorie and so was the chicken curry which was quite superb even if I say it myself.
I realise it’s a bit difficult to see the detail in the pics today, but either click on the mosaic or go here. All rights reserved and all photos copyright of D. Campbell (that’s me).
You know how it is when you’re browsing the ‘net’. Sometimes you just follow your nose to see where the journey takes you. Sometimes you start out looking for a particular item or a solution to a problem and get sidetracked. Either way, the serendipitous nature of this vast storehouse of knowledge means that sometimes you solve a problem you didn’t know you had and sometimes you find a solution to a problem you forgot you had. Hopefully you also solve your original problem too, but that’s not so likely. So where am I going with this? I’ll tell you.
Off to Perth today. Poor weather predicted, but aside from some misty, foggy stuff before we left, it looked good. Arrived in Perth in sunshine too. I’d broken my favourite watch’s strap on Monday and I wasn’t totally happy with the substitute watch I’d found. Last night I searched for and found my old Pulsar which has a metal bracelet, so that’s not going to break very easily. Unfortunately it needed a battery, so on my list of to-dos today was a battery for said watch. Scamp recommended Timpsons for the replacement. I eventually found Timpsons shop in Perth more by dead reckoning than by using my iPhone which couldn’t get a 3G signal in the centre of the town. All the phone companies are busy offering 4G-ready phones. Not much use when there’s not even a 3G mast nearby. Maybe it would be ok in Engaland (sic), but in Scotland it’s a no-no. Anyway, the nice man in Timpsons changed two batteries, yes TWO, one for the digital side and one for the analog apparently. I could say that he did it in double quick time, but that would be a pun too far 🙂 It’s a heavy watch, but at least I can read it without peering at it and the strap won’t come apart very easily. Sorted!
I had been meaning to visit two exhibitions in Edinburgh (notice I gave it the Sunday name for a change!) and today I’d chosen to go see the David Bailey *Stardust *exhibition. We’ve become used to getting off the train at Haymarket rather than travelling in to Waverley and that’s what I did today. I also wanted to go and get tea at my favourite tea shop in Edinburgh. The guy in the shop doesn’t deal in these new fangled metric measurements, he still uses pounds and ounces. He’s also got an opinion on everything and a story to go with that opinion. It’s an experience visiting his shop and always a pleasant one. I can’t remember what today’s story was about, but it started with me commenting on his choice of shirt which was much like my own favourite. It ended with him telling me that although the shop sign said OPEN, he didn’t start serving until 11.00. I apologised but he told me that it didn’t matter as I had money in my pocket! After getting my tea and a bit of convivial conversation, I walked up and on to the Grassmarket and there was still no sign of grass being sold, but there were beautiful golden colours in the trees. From there, I walked to Greyfriars Church and had a walk round the churchyard. I was tempted to take some photos there as the light and colours from the trees were good but I’m always a bit uneasy taking photos in a graveyard, so I kept the camera in the bag. Then on to the Playfair Steps to take me down to the exhibition, remember the exhibition? The first room in Stardust was wonderful. All monochrome shots. Some small, some big, some gigantic. My favourites were Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray. The HC-B was especially cleverly shot with the secretive man shielding half of his face with his camera. The luminosity of Man Ray’s eye was fascinating. I wasn’t so taken with the large colour shots, but the technical quality of the large fashion images was fantastic. About his paintings, the least said the better. Stick to the camera David. Speaking about cameras, in one of the display tables was DB’s Asahi Pentax SLR. Lovely piece of equipment but well used. Quick jaunt to John Lewis to see if there was anything going cheap – there wasn’t (no surprise there). Cup of coffee and a panini in Nero and it was time to get the train home. An enjoyable day getting a bit of culture – what else in Edinburgh? Next time I’m hoping to take in an M C Escher exhibition all being well. See me? See culture?
I did get up quite early(ish). Well, before 9.00 anyway. Started an oil painting on a square canvas. I tend to shy away from square photos and paintings. I always think a square shape is quite boring. Not as dynamic as a vertical rectangle (portrait format), nor as relaxed as a horizontal one (landscape). However, I’d seen an interesting oil at the weekend and was impressed with the way it used the square format, so I set to work. I was using water-based oils which might seem a contradiction, but they work well. I like the smell of oil paint and also natural turps, but I know that not all people find it so favourable, so I experimented with the water-based oils and quite liked them. They seem to dry quicker than normal oils, and that’s a pity, because I like the fact that you can work into previous layers and change them. That’s the difference between oils of any variety and acrylic. Acrylic dries quickly, too quickly for me. What I do like acrylic for is the ability to layer washes when using the paint very dilute – as watercolour in fact. Once a wash has dried, you can layer another on top without the fear of one mixing with the other and diluting it. I digress. This one was to be in oils and it’s sort of half finished at present. I’ll take a fresh look tomorrow.