Category: Painting

Catching up – 4 February 2024

Posted on by Zogman

I left myself with a bit of a backlog yesterday.

I needed to complete two sketches and write up two blogs today, but only after I’d had my morning coffee and solved Wordle. Wordle was just a whim, but the coffee was essential because I’d and idea to use the dried coffee residue in the cup to add some ‘real’ coffee colour to the paint I was intending to apply! The prompt was ‘Coffee’ as if you hadn’t guessed!

The coffee was drunk and the Wordle was solved, so no excuses for not putting pencil and brush to paper and getting on with things. The first sketch was fairly easy, but as this was only the third drawing I’d done since November ’23 it took me longer than I’d anticipated. Having said that, it looked not too bad at all. Pencil sketch and watercolour washes plus the coffee wash to the cup and the coffee beans. Yes, that worked.

The paper needed some time to dry out, so I started my next task. The wee Split Rock (Nelly) that Hazy had given me was needing potted up with proper succulent compost with a fair amount of grit and perlite added for drainage. Scamp had the great idea of covering the work surface with a plastic coated tablecloth that would be easier to clean afterwards than the work surface itself. That made things much easier. We’d bought some cactus and succulent compost last week and after carefully measuring out a small amount of it and adding the grit and perlite I could mix the whole thing on the tablecloth with (almost) no mess. The next stage, actually potting it up and getting the plant to sit up straight was the difficult bit, but eventually it settled into its new pot complete with matching saucer. A splash or two of water to encourage the roots to take hold in what is a very strange mixture of soil and stones and we were done. It’s now sitting back in its place looking out at the wild wind outside. Photo tomorrow Hazy.

It was wet and it was windy outside, but I was determined to go out for a while. There wasn’t much to photograph, but I did spot a crow high up on an alder tree and that became PoD.

Now that the PoD had been sorted out, Nelly was in her new pot and the first sketch had dried, I could start on the second one which was actually today’s prompt, ‘Lavender’. I struggled with a prop for the lavender and finally chose the wee frog I’ve used before. He didn’t seem to mind.

Spoke to Jamie after dinner and discussed a few photos he’d sent of the renovations this week to the house. It’s still a strange building with more questions than answers in its construction, however things are certainly moving along and the roof timbers are looking like real roof trusses now and the brickwork on the first chimney looks like brand new. Hopefully it won’t be long now.

It’s windy again tonight and it looks like more wind is forecast for tomorrow. I’ve an appointment with the nurse tomorrow morning to check my BP and then I’m booked to take Val out for coffee at midday. Another busy day for me. Not sure what Scamp is doing.

Dentist – 20 December 2023

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Today I had an appointment with the dentist and Scamp had a lunch appointment with the other Witches.

My appointment with the dentist was in the morning. The easy part of it was the replacement of a filling that was coming loose, but I wanted her opinion on the big tusk at the back of my mouth that was giving me toothache. She checked it by tapping it with her scraper tool and also by scooting cold water on it and it passed the tests. Just to be sure she did an X-Ray and it came up clean, no sign of an abscess. Scamp thought it was the Edinburgh rock I’m addicted to and that a bit of sugar from it had got into the tooth. The dentist said Scamp is probably right, because teeth are porous (didn’t know that) and the sugar could pass through and cause the pain if it reached the nerve. She put some varnish on it and set it with an ultra-violet light thing. I’ll keep a watchful eye on it for a few days until I forget and go looking for that bag of Edinburgh rock again!

The filling was easily removed and replaced with a shiny new one that I’m hoping to keep for a while and not go poking at. It seem that the NHS are now recommending annual dental checks, not biannual as they were last time I had one. It’s just a cost saving exercise, I know, but at least Scamp and I are on the NHS list, rather than paying the full price as a lot of folk are.

By the time I got home, Scamp was ready to get a lift from Jeanette to Calders where they had a table booked. I had a couple of hours to myself, so I added another wash to the painting I’d been doing. What I SHOULD have done was check what that wash was supposed to do. That way I might have avoided the mess that resulted from adding paint where it shouldn’t go. Not to worry, it was a first attempt and I learned something. I think I now know what I’m meant to do with this second stage, so I might try again tomorrow on a clean sheet.

I decided lunch was on the menu and today it was going to he a Larky favourite of an egg poached in mince. Sounds disgusting? Try it before you condemn it. It’s delicious, especially served on buttered bread.

I thought I’d just enough time for a walk round St Mo’s pond before I lost the light entirely and that was how it turned out. Today’s PoD was a fairly close-up shot of a St John’s Wort plant that’s been growing quite happily through the summer, the rain of autumn and the frost and snow of early winter. I’m surprised that those big flat green leaves didn’t collapse under the weight of the snow last month, but there it is with them and the flowers still intact.

Walked back and hadn’t even taken my boots off when Scamp arrived in Annette’s car. Spoke to Annette about her fairly new hybrid Toyota and she told me she wasn’t impressed with it. Mpg is good, but not brilliant and it’s a bit sluggish on hills. However, we agreed on one thing. It’s much better than the Juke she had before. I think we’ll keep to the Micra for the foreseeable future.

I was just heading out to post the last two Christmas cards and I suggested I might bring back a fish supper for dinner. Scamp agree and that’s what we had. A lazy dinner for a change.

Tomorrow we’re intending to go to the last tea dance of the year. Let’s hope Storm Pia isn’t as bad as predicted.

 

 

A surprise parcel – 19 July 2023

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A warm sunny morning, at least it was in the house with the sun streaming in the window.

The postman arrived just before lunchtime with a parcel. Scamp was expecting a parcel today, and was sure it was for her, then she noticed it had my name on it! It was a camera bag from Alex. I’d completely forgotten he said he had a spare bag that wasn’t big enough for his needs and it was too late to send it back. It was an ideal size for my A6000 and space for an extra lens. I phoned him to say thanks and we had a good talk about what we’d been doing. I also sent him a link to a website where you can book a Glasgow walk for free with an option to make a donation to the RNLI. We agreed it was worth looking into.

I’d noticed today how dusty and rough the inside window sill had become, so while Scamp was off up to the town centre I sanded down the sill and gave it a first coat of varnish. Waited for it drying which was almost instantaneously given the heat coming in from the sun and gave it a second coat. In all, the sill had three thin coats of varnish and looks much better now. I wonder who invented the disposable vinyl gloves. Whoever they were, they must have had the idea after they’d been painting window sills. I finished the job with clean hands. A first for me!

Scamp had had her nails done for going away on the cruise and now she wanted to get the remaining coating removed. The lady who did her nails said it was fairly easy to get them done and she has now booked a session to get the coating removed and redone.

When she returned I grabbed my camera and went out for a run to find some scenery worth shooting, but first I dropped in at Colin’s house to find out how his wife was keeping. She’d been in hospital after she’d come home from holiday and had an emergency operation. She looked a bit tired, but that’s to be expected. I remember Scamp looking a bit like that after her op. Good to see her up and about, albeit with a stick, but we’re all getting to an age when we need some extra support sometimes.

We stayed for a while just blethering in the sun. I hadn’t realised what a lovely little sun trap they had in their patio. Colin wouldn’t allow me to go without some veg so I came home with four courgettes and a cucumber from his garden.

I did get a chance to get my landscape photo, but PoD went to a bunch of Hydrangea flowers. Scamp’s Hydrangea Paniculata ‘Switch Ophelia’. A variety of hydrangea that changes colour throughout the summer. We feared the hot weather might have killed it, but here it is flowering happily after a fair bit of hydration.

Busy day tomorrow. Things to do and places to go, hopefully.

Another hot day – 30 May 2023

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Temperatures around 25ºc expected again today.

Scamp was supposed to be going for coffee with June, but she called off this morning with a dodgy stomach. I know how she feels.

That left us with a different shaped day. We did consider going for walk, but decided it was too hot for that today. Instead, Scamp went out to do some weeding and pruning. I was checking the roses and found a sticky residue on one of the buds, in fact, on more than one of them. I suspected aphids and was about to grab the bug killer spray when I noticed a little blob of orange on one of the rose leaves. It was a little sixteen spot ladybird, Halyzia sedecimguttata, orange with white spots. I put away the bug spray. The ladybird will hopefully deal with the aphids and get lunch along the way. Of course I took a fair amount of photos of the little orange killer. One of them got PoD.

We went to Tesco to do some shopping. We also had a fair load of stuff to go on the skips, so we split up. Scamp went to Tesco and I drove over to the skips to dump the old carpet tiles, the broken carpet sweeper and yet more Wii controllers. Hopefully they were the last of the Wii. While I was there I managed to grab a few shots of a Teddybear’s Tea Party.
Back at Tesco we met up just as Scamp was finishing the shopping and drove home to have a roll ’n’ banana for lunch.

In the afternoon, Scamp was going to do some more trimming and I was taking the A7 for a walk and to check out the graffiti on the Luggie because I’d promised Alex a walk there tomorrow. Unfortunately they hadn’t been improved since last time. Then I went for a walk in Fannyside, hoping to get another photo of the caterpillar I saw last week, but there was nothing interesting to be seen. I drove home and had a beer in the garden while Scamp had a Pimms.

Dinner was a Scamp speciality, Potatoes and Cabbage with an addition of fried bacon for me. Then I washed the dishes while Scamp grabbed a few more minutes in the sun in the garden.

Today’s prompt asked for A Guitar. This is my Spanish guitar It’s a fairly old instrument now and is a bit battered and bruised, but it’s had a hard life and still sounds good. It’s nylon strung and therefore it’s a bit easier to fret than a steel strung acoustic guitar.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet my brother for a walk around Glasgow and the chance of a coffee and a blether.

Intense – 27 May 2023

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Drove through some fairly heavy traffic to get to dance class and it was hard work, the driving and the class!

The traffic was heavier than normal for a Saturday morning, but we managed to pass the slower traffic and ended up in Brookfield earlier than I anticipated. The class started with a Foxtrot. We’d expected Joy’s Waltz v2 and had practised it last night, but after a few dummy runs, our foxtrot was decent enough. No fancy rise and fall, just the basic routine but smoother than it sometimes is. It took me a while to fall into the order of the steps, but by the end we were looking quite good, and able to finish the routine and start again without stopping.

That foxtrot took us and the teachers a lot longer than they had intended, but the next one, Queen of Hearts Rumba was new to us, well it certainly was new to me. It’s a sequence dance, and after a couple of walk throughs, I was getting it right most of the time.

Third was Joy’s Waltz v2 and that v2 made a big difference. None of that complicated foot entanglement we had two weeks ago. That didn’t mean it was easy. Both of us found that we were turning the wrong way, but with a few helpful shoves from Jane I got the idea of the correct way to go.

A couple of sequence dances to lighten the mood and to bring us up to the end of the class. One, of course to Scamp’s favourite ‘Shivers’, and Stewart’s favourite ‘Green Door’.

The traffic going home is always terrible, but today for some reason it was fairly light and although we went the M74 route, we could almost have made good time crossing the Kingston Bridge instead.

I went out for an hour when we came home, but didn’t get anything startling. PoD turned out to be a buttercup flower which I liked.

The prompt for today was Your Favourite Game. Mine was Wordle

For the past year or so, since Scamp found this addictive game on a friend’s page on Facebook, we have struggled to complete it every day.
Like all good games, it’s the simplicity that makes it addictive. Six tries to find the hidden five letter word with minimal clues.

One of the best things about it is that you can only play one game a day, so you have to make the most of it, but it doesn’t take up all your day. Unlike Angry Birds which is my second favourite.

One of the worst things about it is that you need an internet connection to play it. That means if you are flying or on holiday in some remote place you can’t complete the game and if you can’t complete it, you lose all the points you’ve gained. That is maddening!

Dinner tonight came from Bombay Dreams and it was a shade poorer than is usual from them. Scamp had her usual Mushroom Paneer and I ordered a Special Handhi. I’m not sure that’s what I got, because there was no mention of a tomato sauce in the menu and there were none of the onions that were advertised. However the bread was good, Tandoor Roti. Best bread we’ve had from there.

There had been a sprinkling of rain today during the morning and afternoon, but nothing serious. We may water the garden tomorrow. Apart from that, no plans.

A glass of wine and a cucumber – 26 May 2023

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The glass was a prompt but the cucumber was in the garden.

While Scamp was off at FitSteps class this morning I did a rough sketch for today’s prompt which was A Glass of Red Wine or Juice. I chose the wine of course and as usual, the rough sketch got more and more refined until it became the painting. I was running out of free space on my concertina sketch book, so I’d drawn it on the back of a sheet from my A5 sketch book and I’d already been doodling on it weeks ago. That meant I had a lot of erasing to do once I’d finished painting. I think it worked really well.

When Scamp returned we went for a wander round the garden and that’s where I saw the wee green spider. It’s a Cucumber Green Spider and it looks like it’s just caught its lunch on its web. The web was stretched across one of the rhododendron flowers in the garden.

After our lunch, Scamp went and sat in the garden for a while and I put up a hook on the fence to hang the watering can from. That was the sum total of my work today, other that frying my lunch which was a venison burger that I found in the freezer. It was a bit past its ‘sell by date’ and had lost a bit of its flavour, but was ok with potatoes and beans. Scamp had the same potatoes and beans, but with a veg sausage.

She stayed out a bit longer but eventually gave up because the sun was coming and going all the time, just as the weather fairies had predicted.

Hoping to go to dance class tomorrow if we can get a quorum.

Leeks, Kale, Flowers and a Bow Tie – 25 May 2023

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Today we went to Torwood to buy some plants. We didn’t buy a bow tie.

We were off out this morning to get some flowers for Scamp. I bagged myself a tray of Kale and another of Leeks, both of which will be going into the raised bed once I get it fixed up again. Lunch was at Torwood too. Quiche for both of us. Scamp’s tomato and cheese seemed fine. My chicken and bacon was a bit too dry. Maybe I’m just a perfectionist! When she was last there, she’d seen a garden kneeler that converted into a seat and was quick to add it to the trolley.

Back home, I started work on today’s prompt which was “A Gift Loop or a Knot or Towel Day – a tribute to Douglas Adams.”
That is a bit of a mouthful and I had no idea what a Gift Loop was, so I took the Loop and Knot part and made today’s sketch a Bow Tie which has a Loop and a Knot. Simples!

While I was drawing and painting, Scamp was eager to get her Rozanne Geranium, planted out and an ornamental grass put in its place for now. I left my kale and leeks to stand outside for a while until I get some wood to repair the raised bed. With that done, she took her seat out and found a place in the sun until a call from Jackie interrupted her. I knew the two of them would be busy blethering, so I took that as my cue to get out of the way for a while.

I took the A7 back up to Fannyside, but first I went to M&S to get the makings of tonight’s dinner which was to be potatoes and spaghetti with a pesto sauce. Then I posted a card I’d been given in the postbox at Condorrat. Then, finally I was on my way into the great wide open. It’s such a lovely place, Fannyside. Much nicer than its name implies! Unfortunately there was a lack of insect life today. A few of the black Hawthorn flies, but that was it. I did get a quite twee rural scene of sheep lazing in the shade of the big pine trees. I quite liked it and it became PoD.

The potato and spaghetti pesto was not voted a great success, which is a pity because the pesto took a long time to get looking right. However I’ll remember to forget it for the next time!!

Hazy’s cat, Penny was at the vet’s today for a little op.  She got home tonight and was looking quite sorry for herself in the photo Hazy sent us.  Poor wee soul having to wear a lamp shade for a week.  How embarrassing!  Hope she  feels better soon.

Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps tomorrow morning and I might go for a walk to get a photo, because the weather fairies say it will be a bit cloudier than today in the afternoon.

Where did the sun go again! – 23 May 2023

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Yesterday we sat in the garden in the sunshine.

To risk that today would have been foolhardy in extreme. Cold wind from the west, although Scamp said it was just cool, not cold. The furthest we got today was the Tuesday shopping run to Tesco.

In the morning I finished Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv. I put a review of it in Goodreads and just in case you were thinking or reading it, I’ll warn you that my review has spoilers. Rated it at 3.5/5

Later in the afternoon I took the A7iii for a walk in St Mo’s and captured a photo of three snails climbing a dried up weed by the edge of the path. After a fair bit of post processing I came up with a mono version of it that looked better than the original colour one.

Dinner was my version of Amatriciana, perhaps with too much chilli flakes.

The prompt today asked for The Contents of a Drawer.
You don’t really want to see the contents of my drawers, do you? You certainly don’t want me to sketch them, because that could take until next week to accomplish. What I have given you instead is a sample of the contents of my acrylic paint drawer in my useful IKEA cabinet. I don’t know if the contents of any of these tubes is still liquid, because the last time I painted with acrylic must be pre-covid, maybe even pre-historic! Anyway, it fulfils the brief.

No plans for tomorrow.

Recovery – 22 May 2023

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Today was a day of recovery. No dancing, no red hot feet!

Scamp was out meeting Isobel for coffee while I ran the computer red hot, rather than my feet. I wrote up three days of blog, if you can call yesterday’s a blog. Saturday’s epistle made up for it though.

When she got back, Scamp started on the garden. There were flowers to plant and seeds to sow and tidying up of pots to do. There were snails to capture and put in a bag for later disposal. Our lupins have been covered in snail slime for weeks now but before we went to Perth, Scamp dusted the pot with lots of slug pellets. It wasn’t slugs that were doing the dirty on the lupins, it was snails. How they managed to haul their big fat bodies and their shells up those fine stems I will never know, in fact I don’t want to know. They have nearly all been dealt with. Hopefully the remainder will go for a walk with me tomorrow to St Mo’s. It’s said that snails have a homing instinct. Well, good luck to them crossing the road from St Mo’s!

After lunch I took the A7iii out for a walk in the woods and that’s where I got today’s PoD. It’s a pair of Lousewort flowers (Pedicularis sylvatica). Tiny little things. There wasn’t much else on offer today. I was hoping the warm weather would bring out some damselflies, but none were to be found. I did find a couple of Wolf Spiders squaring up to each other with their little pedipalps raised like a couple of prize fighters wearing boxing gloves. They were a bit quick for me, I’m out of practise at catching spiders on the hop.

By the time I got back, Scamp was sitting in the garden reading with a glass of wine in her hand and I chose to keep her company with my glass and a book. The book is Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv. It is very, very strange. Based in Ukraine around 2011 and translated from Russian!

Dinner tonight was yesterday’s leftover risotto made into arancini (deep fried rice balls dusted with breadcrumbs) and they were really quite filling. We both scoffed them.

The prompt today asked for Vegetables.
The basket full of vegetables I have for you today, carrots, onion, leek and mushrooms, would make a good pot of soup, perhaps ‘Just Soup’, given some water and a stock cube or two.

No plans for tomorrow as yet. Something will turn up, I’m sure.

 

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing – 20 May 2023

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Dancing lesson in the morning, practice session if you’re up to it in the afternoon and the gala ball in the evening.

Breakfast first and, of course, we had too much of a good thing. The breakfasts are very good in this place. Self service and a bit like a works canteen, but the actual food is good, especially the fruit. After that a short rest and we were in to the practise session with a surprise in store.

Jane announced a change to the joyless Joy’s Waltz. She had rejigged it and replaced the Overturned Spin Turn with a Half Natural and an Open Impetus which probably means the same to you as it does to me. The main thing is the replacement is much more doable than the previous overcomplicated manoeuvre. I won’t say I was overjoyed, but I was relieved because:

a) She had been listening and watching us all dancing and saw the problem.
And
b) She had found something that looked similar but was danceable by all.

Later she (Jane) may try to fit in the OST again, but if not, we have a substitute.

There were a group who’d come down from Aberdeen to join us in Perth and they demonstrated their Strictly Fun Dance. It did look like so many of the sequence dances we do, but it did look much more fun than most. We might learn it.

Lesson over we had the rest of the day to ourselves. First things first, Scamp wanted to return the dress she’d bought yesterday. Next we were looking for lunch. We looked at the menu of a posh(ish) French café, called Briezh. We looked, but decided it was a bit expensive for what we were looking for. Instead we went round the corner to a Wetherspoons and had Fish ’n’ Chips with a Gin ’n’ Tonic for Scamp and an American burger with a pint of Broadside for the price of a main course in Briezh.
Next was a visit to an art exhibition we’d seen yesterday. Some lovely paintings, in fact, I was tempted to buy one but chose not to. Some pretentious dire efforts too. Beautiful building which doubled as a church and a community hub. In the exhibition we bumped into a couple of the dancers who seemed to have invaded Perth. It turned out they came from Airdrie and gave us a fair bit of information about tea dances and such around Lanarkshire and beyond.

I bought some coffee and tea from the Bean Shop and we walked around a much more prestigious and even more pretentious gallery outside Perth museum before we dumped the coffee in the boot of the car and then walked along the railway bridge that crosses the Tay then walked down the opposite side of the river and back to the hotel.

Dinner tonight was at our table in the ballroom and was much better fare than yesterday’s. Two of the couples at our table were from East Lothian and I recognised the East Coast accents. It turned out that they were from Pencaitland which was just a mile from Ormiston where my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bob lived and also where we went for our summer holidays every year when I was wee. The other couple were Barry and Cath who we know well from Salsa and tea dances. Lots of good natured banter with them.

The usual professional dancers were giving two demonstrations tonight and then mixed with the rest of us answering questions and just mixing with people. No airs and graces from them.

We danced with the Aberdonians and learned a bit of the Strictly Fun Dance. We might manage to get the finer points of it later, but it’s unlikely we’ll get to dance it with Stewart & Jane. The teachers seem to have an unwritten law about ‘poaching’ each other’s dances.

We finished the night with the Last Waltz finally waltzing off the floor just about five minutes to midnight while others finished the night with It’s Later Than You Think!

PoD today was a couple of wee models we saw today. They’re based on a poem by William Soutar the Scottish poet. I just think they brighten up the south bank of the River Tay.

Today’s Prompt asked for a Garden Tool. This is a garden trowel made with a mild steel blade and a rolled steel handle the two parts are riveted together. It’s used to teach pupils a variety of metalworking skills. These tools last for years if they are looked after, and even if they aren’t.

Tomorrow it’s usually a sad wee dance class in the morning. Only half the dancers are there, the sensible ones having left early.