Category: Painting

East wind, Cold wind – 17 April 2020

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It was a bit dull dreich looking out at it today. Outside it was quite cold too.

It didn’t feel like a day for venturing far. In the afternoon the sun did try to get through, but without much success. I finished off the trees painting and it’s hanging in Instagram as I write. It’s number five in an as yet undisclosed number of sketches loosely linked by the title Lockdown Library. I’ve now decided that they will all be square format to fit in with the original Instagram ideal. How long it lasts and what the medium is each day is, shall we say, loose at present.

I did encourage myself to go out to St Mo’s in the afternoon to get some photos and some exercise. It’s so easy on these dull days to just sit there on the sofa while the day drifts by. The prospect of getting some photos to brighten up the blog and to add to the 366 encourages me to go out. All you youngsters who are now furloughed (if that is even a word), and all of you who are working from home, use these home-days as a taste of how life might be when you’re retired (if that is even a word when you reach 65, 70, 75 …).

There wasn’t much to photograph today. I did see a deer, but it saw and heard me too and was off. He/she needn’t have bothered. I was only armed with the E-M1 and a 30mm lens. The deer would have had to have been inside the social distancing limit for me to get a photo. What I did get was the cheery couple of Wood Anemones you see here. I also took inspiration from Ruth Spigelman on Flickr and attempted a ‘Fly Day Friday’. There were some flies around and the one I chose was black and looked a bit like a flying ant. I expect that come next Friday I’ll have forgotten all about Fly Day Friday. Not many people walking round St Mo’s today, but a constant stream combining their exercise walk with a shopping for essentials down at the new shops. We may go there tomorrow after our delivery from Tesco which is scheduled for between 12noon and 1pm.

Watched the second episode of Quiz. Yes, Hazy we can see how this is quite intriguing. Earlier we went through the four ballroom dances we (kind of) know, this time dancing them to music.

Possibly shopping tomorrow and finding places for all the groceries from Tesco.

Just another glorious day – 15 April 2020

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Long may they last.

More sunshine and more warmth. Gentle breeze that didn’t really cool things down dramatically.

I walked down to the shops to get some basil for dinner and a couple of limes to make Mojitos. As it happened, the basil was used for dinner, but we both agreed the Macaroni with Bacon, Peas and Basil was promising a bit more flavour than it was producing. More, or stronger, cheese and a bit more of the creamy sauce was both our suggestions. The limes weren’t used, however. Maybe at the weekend we’ll have a couple of Mojitos to let us pretend we’re in sunny climes. I went for limes and basil, but returned with wine (never a bad thing) pizzas (they were cheap) and chicken goujon things which went into the freezer to be discovered some day when we’ve nothing in our mind for dinner. Sat in the garden and soaked up some rays when I came back from the shops. The shops were fairly quiet for a change. No need to queue at M&S!

Earlier in the day we were working in the garden. Scamp got the front grass cut and I’m sure she’ll feel better for that. She managed to do the whole grass, yet still avoid the delicate looking little Stock flower that was growing through the grass. Now that’s skill. I planted some more peas (Ambassador) in little planters this time. I also planted some teasel seeds in a tray. We brought the seeds up from our visit to Hazy in January, when N-D was off in Goa. Not sure they’ll thrive here, but I’ll try.

While I was on my way to the shops, I took a detour through St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of a ladybird taking the high road over the edge of a leaf. First ladybird I’ve seen this year, a Seven Spot.

Had a short dance practise tonight.  Jive was the subject, but we couldn’t remember how to do one of the moves, the Whip Throwaway.  It was never a favourite, but now it seems to be lost in both our heads.  Maybe a night’s sleep will bring it back.

Weather looks dull for tomorrow, but we can’t complain because the past few days have been glorious. No real plans for tomorrow. Today’s sketch was a poor rendition of an apple. I must do better tomorrow.

Early Start – 14 April 2020

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Good heavens, I was up before 8am today!

Haven’t been able to say that since, ooh, a long, long time ago.

The reason we were up so early, was to get the delivery from Reykjavík or to be more precise, Iceland. It actually arrived just after 9am right in the middle of the stated delivery window. Lots of bags of food and stuff, but mainly food and this time there were only three missing items. Wonderful, although not so wonderful for Scamp because two of them were her’s.

After lunch (leek and potato soup) I was tempted to go for a walk to take some more photos with the Nikon, but a walk to inspect the growth in the front garden was enough to tell me that although the sun was warm coming in through the front window, the cold north east wind was stealing all that heat away, outside. Back inside I sketched the second of the Lockdown Library for Instagram. A set of sketches that will hopefully see out April and prepare me for EDiM which is only a couple of weeks away. Today’s painting was the orange bowl. It’s a lovely shape and a sturdy piece of ceramic. Bought for a fiver at an art class sale in Glasgow a few years ago. A bargain at the price and worth an awful lot more. As often happens with sketches, the ‘rough’ was so much better than the redrawn and recoloured ‘finished’ painting. However, it’s done and posted and available for perusal on Instagram. Text me if you want my Instagram name, but I’m sure a few of you can guess it.

I finally settled on a photo of the wilting miniature daffodils that have been gracing the front step. I tried an outside one, but the wind was causing havoc with them and I finally attempted a ’studio’ shot inside. The Nikon just wouldn’t play the game and finally I gave up and went back to the E-M1 which produced the goods again. I think it may be time to part company with the Nikon soon. Don’t know if it will be replaced or not.

Well, that was a lazy day, despite being up early. Tomorrow the only thing we have planned is a bit of jive practise some time during the day and maybe a walk as the weather is to be a bit milder, so they say.

A Tick – 6 April 2020

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How I hate these tiny invaders.

Found it last night as I was getting ready for bed. A tiny little black dot with a bright red surround and it was itchy. It was my first tick of 2020 and I’ve no idea how it came to be on me. I’m scrupulously careful these days when walking in long grass. Always have my jeans tucked into my socks. Never crouch down in the long grass. Rarely even put my knee on the ground. I don’t suppose it matters how, it was there and it had to be removed and the wound cleaned. Luckily Scamp had bought me a pair of needle pointed tweezers a year or two ago and they helped pull the tiny thing out. It was only about 1mm long, I had to use one of my old camera lenses as a magnifier to be sure it was a tick, although all the evidence pointed to it being one. It was. Just need to keep taking the antihistamines and using some Germoline for a few days. Covid-19 and ticks, what a wonderful world!

Hadn’t intended going anywhere today, even with the brilliant weather predicted and that’s what we did. We stayed Home. Made some soup in the afternoon and got a delivery from Tesco with about 75% of the stuff we’d ordered. Not bad really considering we didn’t have to traipse round what is now a One-Way store. That’s worse than IKEA. At least it just has arrows projected onto the floor which you can ignore. Ignore the one-way system in Tesco at your peril.

Finished painting the upstairs window sills. That’s all the sills now have at least two coats. Some have three and a couple of lucky ones have four, I think. But who’s counting. The paint has been put away for this year and the brush has been washed. I intend to do no more to it.

Today’s PoD is a couple of Forsythia flowers. Last autumn I pruned the forsythia too hard. I got a gentle lecture from Scamp about next year’s flowers growing on the old wood I’d just cut off. I don’t intend to make the same mistake this year. “Prune immediately after the flowers fall, not in the autumn” is the mantra.
We still had a few flowers, despite my hacking.

Poor Boris, or BoJo and Fred calls him seems to be in a bad way. He was admitted to Intensive Care tonight after being given oxygen in the afternoon. I don’t like him, but I feel he’s in over his head with the epidemic. He just looks shattered. Who would have that job?

That more or less summed it up for the day. Tomorrow we should go out for a walk, if only for the exercise.

More painting – 1 April 2020

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Just brushing it on the front sills mainly. Oh yes, and some oil work too.

Scrubbed off yesterday’s paint from the back window of the living room. It flaked off really easily, so it wouldn’t have lasted very well. Gave it a new coat of that lovely rusty brown acrylic. I was actually wondering if I could use it as a primer for oil painting. The sand in the paint would give an interesting texture. But that was for another day. Today wasn’t nearly as warm as yesterday, so I got the jacket on and started scraping the front bedroom sills. They were a totally different colour from the back, so I suspect they hadn’t been painted as recently as the back. Lots of lichen on the concrete which was another indicator of the age of the paint. Slapped a relatively quick coat on them as it felt like there was just the hint of rain on the breeze. Next was the back bedroom and it was really flaky. Another quick coat. The tiny wee bathroom sill was last to be done because it’s such an awkward window to open fully and even then, you don’t have much room to work, but it was scraped, dusted and painted and we were good to go before the rain. In fact the rain didn’t materialise, it just drifted by on the gentle western breeze, cold breeze.

After the left overs from yesterday’s main courses (‘Rats’ for Scamp, stew for me) warmed up for lunch, we both went for a walk in St Mo’s. Still lots of people walking round the pond just to be out and about getting some exercise and some fresh air. I grabbed a shot of the larch flowers I’d seen yesterday and although the light wasn’t as good today, the photos were. One of them made PoD. Walked to Condorrat to get some chicken burgers, fresh chicken, some stew and some black pudding. Just to see how good the meat was. The Chicken Stir Fry was sold out.

Back home and after I’d confirmed that my shots had worked, Scamp started preparing dinner which was a roast chicken. I went and tackled the tree in the oil painting I’d been working on for the past few days. I’d sketched part of it in last night, but wasn’t really happy with it. Today was much better, probably because I stuck to the maxim Paint What You See, rather than what you think it should look like. Roast Chicken, roast veg and baked potato smells were calling from downstairs and I had to wash out the brushes and leave it for a while to go and eat.

Tonight, after the Portrait Artist of the Year produced a dire painting of Nile Rodgers, I went upstairs, finished the tree and signed the painting. I will do no more to it.

That was it for the day. Funniest thing was an April 1st joke on Facebook to the effect that as part of the Covid 19 precautions, Nicola Sturgeon had banned the sale of alcohol from midnight tonight. It shows how gullible we’ve become, because Scamp and I simply accepted it as verbatim! But then, it’s the sort of thing Nick the Chick would do, just to annoy folk!

No plans for tomorrow. Is there ever, these days?

Shopping, the new way – 31 March 2020

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New day, new rules.

Drove to Tesco today with Scamp, only to be told that the rules had changed:

  • One trolley per household.
  • One person per trolley.

Scamp had the shopping list in her head. She hadn’t committed it to her phone or a notepad, so she got to be the one to enter the golden portal to do the shopping. I went back to sit in the car and enjoy the sunshine, because the sun was shining quite brightly this morning. When she arrived back at the car, her trolley was brimming with stuff. All useful and mostly edible stuff too. Biggest shop she’s done in a long time, she said. Given that there was a bottle of whisky, another of gin and three bottles of wine, plus the groceries, I’d say we did not too badly from our big spend. Lots of folk were spending much more. Those were the ones with the extra large trolleys. I’m sure some of them had a forklift truck parked in the carpark to get their stuff home.

After all the stuff was put away, and after lunch, Scamp went out to ‘clear out the bin shed’. The bin shed is where lots of the gardening stuff is kept and it occasionally deserves a good clean out. By the time I’d changed into my painting togs, she had everything out of the shed and on the path. It was probably getting in poor Bobby Flavel’s way. He lives at the corner house and is never happier than when he’s got something to do. He’d already dug his garden, swept the path and then swept the road outside. No kidding! Now he was cutting the grass for Angela (next door) who is off work and self isolating. Not only cutting the grass, but also edging it too and doing a great job. Me, I had already scraped the front sill and started painting it. The external acrylic paint is great stuff, especially when painting on warm concrete. It dries almost instantly. So, it was like the old story about the Forth Bridge. When they’d finished painting it, the went back to the start and did it all again. Once I’d finished the 2.5m length of the front sill, the bit I’d started at was dry and ready for a second coat. Two coats should do. Next the back window that I did yesterday, but wasn’t satisfied with. I’d already scraped it too and gave it a fresh coat. Maybe one more coat for it will do, maybe tomorrow.

Would I? Wouldn’t I? Eventually I did go out for a walk in St Mo’s. Walking through the woods is perfect for isolation. Usually nobody and nothing there to bother me. Today was different. Turned a corner and less than 20m away was a Roe deer, a doe, happily grazing. Luckily I had the right lens on for once and got one shot. Then its head went up and away it ran. Took another shot, but I knew it was too soft. First one looked good though. I think it was the sound of the shutter that startled it. Next time I’ll remember to use silent (electronic) shutter. If there is a next time. This is the first time for months I’ve actually managed to get a decent shot of a St Mo’s deer, or any deer for that matter.

Walked back and took some shots of strange wee flower things on a little larch. They didn’t work, but I’m hoping to go back tomorrow and have another go, weather permitting, because we’re due some gales on Thursday. Possibly snow on Friday.

I did get one more shot and it became the PoD. A little clump of Coltsfoot Daisies growing beside the footpath on the way home. Lovely flowers, they bloom just around Easter every year. They always remind me of my dad for some reason. That’s not a bad thing at all.

I’d made stew for dinner tonight and it was lovely. Of course it was under the strict tutelage of Scamp, the number one stew chef in this house. I stewed a couple of sausages in it for good measure and they were the stars of the show. Left just enough to have for lunch tomorrow.

Practised our dancing routines tonight. We’re probably building in a lot of mistakes and short cuts I realise, but Kirsty’s not the perfectionist that Michael was, so it will be ok. What Michael did do, and did well, we both agree was teach us how to Jive and those moves are hard wired into our heads now. We reprised them too. Actually we remembered a lot of them we haven’t danced since about November last year. He might have been was a pain in the backside, but he did know his jive steps.

Tomorrow we have no real plans. Must get the upstairs sills cleaned down and maybe a coat of paint on them too. Must also get something done about staking the apple tree. Depends if we can get some wood from B&Q.

Painting – 30 March 2020

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Another day painting, this time with acrylic paint.

Preparation is vitally important with painting. Today’s prep required a stiff wired brush and an old pot scrubber. No, this wasn’t to texture the canvas, it was to scrape the bubbled paint from the back window ledges. No fancy-pants flats and no filberts, just a nice clean 3” brush and a big tub of exterior acrylic paint. It took ages to scrape the old paint off one window ledge and no time at all to clean the other one of moss. Then after mixing the acrylic paint up it was time to slap on the paint. It wasn’t the most artistic painting, but it did look better after than before. I’m not sure I scraped off enough of the old paint from the living room sill, so that may need redone tomorrow if it’s dry, but the kitchen sill looks good. Front downstairs windows tomorrow.

While I was painting, Scamp was shopping in the local shops. She wasn’t overloading herself, just buying the essentials. We might do a ‘proper shop’ tomorrow. I need to give the car a run anyway, if nothing else than to charge the battery

Went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon, still looking for that fungus, still not finding it. Eventually made a dogwood bud the PoD. When I came home I Scamp started telling me what SHE wanted me to photograph, so, just to please her I took the photo you see here. She was right, of course, the crocuses were a great subject. Bright colours and strong patterns. Simple and effective. That’s why we have so many around the garden in the spring. They lift the spirits, so this photo is just for her.

I’d been working on a photo of Mr Grey from last week. I knew it would make something decent if I just approached it the right way, then I read an article on ON1 an found a way. It might not be the right way, but it seems to suit this subject. It’s a radial blur that gives that ‘zoom’ effect, then a mask to remove the effect on the bird itself. I like the inferred sharpness on the bird and the extra blur in the background almost as if it’s the draft from its wings blurring the trees and grasses.

Spoke to JIC and Scamp was complaining about her bottle of peppermint Milk of Magnesia she’s been given as a substitute for Zantac which is under a cloud of suspicion at the moment. He recommended Nexium which she’s now ordered from Boots. We’ll see how that works. We have to pay for it, but it’s not that expensive. Much better than a bottle of emulsion paint. The other thing JIC suggested was to try to get groceries delivered. We tried. Nowhere had any slots available for the next 14 days. Maybe I should try just after midnight, see if slots appear then!

Shopping probably tomorrow and I’m hoping to make a steak pie if I remember to take the stew out of the freezer tonight.

The man who worked in the garden – 29 March 2020

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Today I became that man, the man who worked in the garden.

I didn’t do it for very long, you understand, just long enough that it was noted, and I wasn’t alone. Scamp was making sure I didn’t do anything stupid, like dig up any of her plants. I dug up two leeks for her to put into soup, gently forked over that area of the raised bed and planted some Ambassador peas in their place. After that I hoed over the remainder of the bed to break up the soil and displace the weeds that were beginning to show themselves. It looked a lot better with the soil broken up a bit, so I then turned my attention to the flower bed beneath the window and broke up the soil there too with the hoe. I’d forgotten how satisfying it was to use a dutch hoe to get rid of weeds and to aerate the soil. While I was there, I cleared out a few pots from the greenhouse leaving more space for the pots with actual plants in them, not just weeds. Scamp was busy planting pansies in a long trough that hangs on the fence. With that all done, I felt I’d actually done something in the garden for a change. It was a cold day, although the sun was warm. We don’t get much sun in the back garden and today was worse with a north wind blowing right into it. We adjourned for lunch.

After lunch I went for a walk over to St Mo’s. Scamp encouraged me to go, but stayed inside herself. I think she needs just as much ’me time’, as I do. St Mo’s wasn’t too busy today, I think that north wind again kept people inside, using the ‘self isolating’ excuse reason to stay warm. There wasn’t much to see, but I did get a chance to take a three frames focus stack of a fly basking in the sun with the hedge sheltering it from that wind. Other than that, there wasn’t much to recommend it today, so the fly grabbed the PoD. Still can’t find those bracket fungi with the oyster shell pattern.

After dinner I slapped more oil paint on the acrylic underpainting and have now just the tree to add. I say “just the tree”, but it’s not as simple as that. Trees are difficult for me and as this is the focal point of the painting, It has to be reasonable accurate. A bit of practise needed tomorrow before I take the plunge. The lack of a ‘CTRL Z’ button really is an oversight on the part of the people who design paint brushes.

Other than practising painting trees, we have no other plans for tomorrow. Maybe a walk if the weather is decent? Maybe dancing practise if it’s not? Who knows.

“The man who worked in the garden” was the unseen gardener in Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men. Just incase you didn’t know.

A little bit of sunshine – 28 March 2020

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Bright sunshine to wake up to, but it disappeared fairly quickly.

We didn’t have anywhere to go today. We had food for dinner and for lunch and anyway, there was nowhere that would welcome us. That’s one of the problems of this Coronavirus. Everywhere is closed. Heavens, even the children’s play parks are locked and bolted. Not that it makes any difference to the children, their mums and dads just lift them over the metre high fence and off they go to play on the swings and roundabouts. How they get them out and back home again is a different problem. We weren’t going to the play park today. The furthest Scamp went was into the front garden to repair the damage the cat had done to her planting box yesterday. It’s now covered with plant pots which should discourage the incontinent feline.

After lunch and after a consultation on what we’d have for dinner, I went out with the camera and the Benbo tripod slung over my shoulder on a strap that was originally for the Manfrotto tripod, but with a bit of adaptation suggested by Scamp worked well on the Benbo too. As has been the case these days, St Mo’s was buzzing, mainly with mums pushing prams. Social distancing is becoming more and more difficult with the number of folk wanting to use my park. I was heading into the woods where prams don’t go, so I would be safe from contamination. I was looking for the fungus with the oyster shell patterns I’d seen last week, but I didn’t find it. After searching through my images tonight I think I’ve worked out two places it could be, but that was no use to me in the trees. What I did find was today’s PoD which is three little sycamore seedlings growing in a cleft in a sycamore tree. I also found this strange black fungus which I think may be Black Tree Ear fungus so called because it is black, it grows on trees and it looks like an ear. I’m pretty sure it’s the fungus we bought and cooked from a Chinese supermarket last year. As I recall it looked dodgy and tasted just OK.

Came home to find that Scamp had been baking. Not one, but two cakes. We’ve sampled both and they passed inspection, especially the sultana cake with fruit soaked in Calvados. Dinner was fish ’n’ chips, home made because I didn’t fancy standing outside the chip shop waiting for my order to be called. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but there was a cold east wind today. Speaking of which, it was a lovely morning with bright sunshine. In the afternoon when I went out with the camera, it clouded over. When I came back, blue sky reappeared and the sun shone again. What am I doing wrong?

Splashed some oil paint on my painting board today and created another masterpiece. It’ll be tacky by tomorrow, so it should take another layer of paint. Quite like oil paint, much nicer to work with than acrylic. Seems to be easier to get bright colours with it.

No plans for tomorrow, but we may need some fresh veg, so a walk to the shops may be in order.

It was a dull day – 27 March 2020

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Not really a day for doing much. It started cold and dull and that theme extended through the day.

What we did do was go for a walk. Across to St Mo’s and round the pond once. Took some photos of what I think were rasp flowers, wild rasps. Not really much interest in them though, so the photos didn’t work very well. That’s usually the way of things when your heart isn’t in the subject, then you’re really only treading water. Not quite two weeks in and I’m becoming jaded. I took a couple of shots of a woman sitting with her dog on a bench at St Mo’s. Seemed to sum up Self Isolation. More like self enforced isolation. That became PoD.

Walked home and did a bit of watercolour painting. Again, I wasn’t really interested and it showed in the painting. Tomorrow I’ll slap some colour on the drab acrylic painting I tried yesterday and see if that lifts my spirits.

What I did do was clean the bathroom and ungunge the trap in the shower. I didn’t think it was really necessary until I started and then I discovered it really, really was necessary. Latex gloves are great things for using when you’re cleaning the bathroom, just incase you’ve not noticed, or not cleaned a bathroom recently. While I was gainfully employed with this work, Scamp was cleaning out her fancy steam iron. We were shocked at the amount of what looked like crystals in the tank. I presume these are left behind after the steam has been generated. It just shows that it’s not just pure H20 that’s coming through the tap. Scary. With the boiler cleaned out she was ready to do the ironing proper.

That was about it for the day. Blue Dragon Ramen Noodles with Chicken for dinner. It was a hit and a miss. I voted Hit, and not just because I made it. Scamp didn’t like the noodles, so it was a miss from her. May try another of their offerings, the next time I go for the long wait at Tesco.

Discovered that a cat had been using Scamp’s sweet pea box as a toilet, so today I sprinkled a fairly heavy dose of ground white pepper on the compost.  If you see a cat sneezing a lot, you’ll know where it came from.  Sorry Hazy, but it needs to be told how to behave properly.

No plans for tomorrow. Where can we go anyway? Enforced isolation is becoming boring.  However, it’s worse for some.  ‘Poor’ Boris has tested positive for Covid 19.  Is this to garner sympathy, or to show that he’s suffering with his plebs people?  If it’s good enough for Prince Chic, it’s good enough for Boris.  What a pair.