Category: Sketching

Jagging in the Rain – 30 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp’s turn this time.

Drove up to The Link and Scamp joined the queue that took her through the different stages of the procedure for getting your booster jag and her flu jag. An experience we’ve both been through a couple of times now. She hadn’t been feeling brilliant earlier in the morning, but after the magic jags she was a lot better and improved throughout the day. It might be her new meds that don’t agree with her.

Of course it was raining all morning, but as we were driving home it did appear that the clouds were breaking and there was blue sky up there. After a light lunch I volunteered to go out and get dinner. Go out with a camera and get dinner, that is. I drove up to Fannyside and gawped at the colours and sharpness of everything. That’s what happens when you have three or four days of heavy rain, light rain and drizzle to wash the landscape clean. Not just the landscape, the sky too seems to get a wash down. All the dust in the atmosphere gets removed and you can see for miles. Late afternoon sunshine does help too, as do the scattered clouds being blown along by a strong, cold, western wind. It’s holes in those clouds that create little spots of sunshine on the land and give it texture. That’s what I was hoping for and that’s what I got today. It was a photo of an old ruined farmhouse on a hillock that got PoD, or rather, it was the lighting on the landscape that got PoD. The hillock and the old ruined farm were just props in the picture. “It’s all about the light”, someone once said.

When I got home, Scamp was feeling better, certainly well enough to enjoy a Bigham’s Fish Pie. I had a Lasagne. Both of them are expensive for what they are, but they’re worth it for the taste.

Watched another episode of Shetland and the plot thickens. After that it was time for Strictly, and as we hadn’t been able to get to the dance class today, this was our dance fix. I couldn’t be bothered with it after a while and gave up to write this and think about what today’s sketch, the second last one for this year’s Inktober, would be. I also listened to a track from A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd. Superb, although I never really understood what it was all about.

Tonight, the penultimate prompt in Inktober 2021 was ‘Slither’. I chose a snail as my muse. In the past month I’ve resorted to Google for some of my images, but this was one of my own photos, for a change.

Tomorrow I’m told we may be going for the messages. I’m hoping for some sun, I’m always looking for some sun or at least decent light, but I’ll settle for ‘dry’.

It rained again – 29 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

And again and again and eventually it did dry up for a while. That is the end of the weather report.

Really dull day again with no sign of the rain stopping. We had intended to go out for lunch, but that never happened. Eventually we settled on scrambled egg on toast. Hardly what we’d thought we’d have, but it was just that sort of day, the sort of day that drags you down. There must be an end to these constant deluges, but it wasn’t today.

Eventually I did manage to go out for a walk with the camera, over to St Mo’s when the rain lessened sufficiently to allow me to take some photos. Of course those photos centred around RAIN. My favourite and PoD was another amalgamation of two shots. Technically it’s called ‘Focus Stacking’. The front leaf was in focus in one picture and the rest was in focus in the other. Load them into Potatoshop and you can make them both be in focus. A little cheat that sound much better when you call it Focus Stacking!

We watched another episode of the Portrait Artist of the Year. It’s always amazing to me to see how these people can slap paint on a canvas and then pull an image from the resulting mess. It’s like the sculptors who chip away at a block of marble to reveal the head and shoulders of a person that they knew was there all the time. As usual, neither Scamp nor I agreed with any of the judges decisions.

I struggled for an idea that would solve today’s prompt ‘Patch’. Lots of ‘patches’ were considered and rejected. My aunties had a dog called Patch that I was allowed to take out for a walk when we visited them. I like him, he was a scruffy little mongrel, but really obedient. I could do a patch on a pair of jeans. I’ve patched a few. A patch on a bike tyre, or a bike repair kit with its patches? All were rejected for one reason or another. I finally chose an eye patch as the most interesting. It’s really just a prop on a portrait of some bloke who doesn’t look like me, but it was interesting to draw.

I eventually wandered off to bed about midnight, without having written this blog, so today is a catch up. I hope the rain stops and the sun shines, so we can go out for a while.

Another wet one – 27 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Where is all this rain coming from?

The rain seems never ending these days. If it doesn’t rain in the morning, it rains in the afternoon. If it doesn’t rain in the morning or the afternoon it’s a miracle. We haven’t had any miracles for a while. But we shouldn’t complain because some places in Southern Scotland have a prediction for 200mm of rain in a day. Thankfully, this far, we haven’t had that amount, but we have two water buckets and a watering can in the back garden. The smaller of the two water buckets has been overflowing for days now, the other bucket is three quarters full and the watering can will be full by now. Then the weather fairies have the cheek to give us more rain tomorrow.

I did nip out with the Sony and the big macro lens in one of the spells of drizzle to get some photos. The best one of the lot was the fuchsia that hangs from a hook on the fence. At least that wee flower has a chance to discard its excess water, the ones on the ground are now waterlogged. The fuchsia got PoD.

That was about the extent of my walk today. A wander round the garden (like a teddy bear) and a walk up to the corner to put the bin out.

Today’s prompt was “Spark”. What do you draw for that? I chose a spark plug. Without these little wonders of technology our petrol driven cars wouldn’t work. I did try to add a spark, but it didn’t look right, so I removed it.

Well, sorry people, that was it for today. Not a day for going out and not a lot that I wanted to do in the house either. Scamp made soup, so at least we’ll have something to eat tomorrow.

Out early tomorrow to take the Wee Red Car for its MOT. Then we’ll wander round the house with our fingers crossed until we get the phone call.

Life in the twilight zone – 26 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not the scary one, just the one where the sun never seems to rise.

Scamp was out early to go to the Post Office in Eastfield which is where she’d been told there was a parcel waiting for her, the one she’d missed yesterday. When she got there the woman in the PO said she didn’t have it or couldn’t find it, but would have another look and would phone her to update her. We didn’t hold out much hope for that happening. We’ve not had a great deal of success with Parcelforce.

Scamp was going out to lunch with the witches later, and I was off the leash. Yesterday I’d a couple of things in mind for today. I was intending to fix a grip on the cooker top and maybe get round to taking up my walking trousers, because they are way too long. If time and weather permitted I thought I might go up to the Carron reservoir to get some photos and some fresh air. One look out the window in the morning put paid to that last idea. Time might have permitted, but the weather certainly wouldn’t. It really looked like the sun had forgotten to rise. The other ideas would be the fallbacks.

When Scamp had left for lunch with Jeanette, I drove down to Wardpark to book Scamp’s car in for MOT. I drove rather than phoned because the sky might have brightened up and I might manage to get some photos, but it didn’t and I didn’t. I just drove home again and started cutting up my walking trousers. It sounds a bit drastic, but it really wasn’t. I had a plan and it involved sewing and cutting and pressing and it worked. The trousers are now a good 40mm shorter than they were and don’t get caught in the heels of my boots. By the time I’d done that and cleared up the back bedroom a bit, because that’s where I draw at night in October and also where I photograph the drawings to go in the blog and on Flickr. Even I get fed up with tripping over cables, although Scamp won’t believe that. I was just finishing and making a late lunch when Scamp reappeared. I hadn’t noticed the time, but two and a half hours had passed since she left.

When I got back from the garage, there was a note to say that a parcel weIt was in the bin store. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or her, but was pretty sure this was the missing one. It was for me, and it was a bottle of the hand wash that I’d been raving about after we left Bombay Cottage last week, or was that the week before? Anyway, here was the very bottle and it was just the same perfume. That was a brilliant surprise! Thank you, Scamp. I’m still not all that clear on the details of the travels of this parcel, but all’s well that ends well.

PoD turned out to be a detail from a vase of flowers that I sat on the worktop in the kitchen, catching what light was available at the time. It needed 20 seconds of exposure to get the shot, but it was worth it.

Sketch prompt was ‘Connect’. Have you ever stopped to count all the different cables and connectors you have? I don’t have the time to do it, but there must be close on a hundred different pieces of wire and plastic that connect something to something else in the house. Then there are all the duplicates and triplicates and … ! These are some of mine.

No plans for tomorrow because the weather fairies are predicting that tomorrow will be episode two of Life In The Twilight Zone

 

Dancing Central – 25 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

But first the doc’s.

Drove Scamp to her appointment with the doc. The doc shook her hand, gave her a prescription for some pills and said she hoped Scamp would feel better. It was a blustery day with occasional rain showers that came thumping down, seemingly from nowhere. We drove to the chemist which is conveniently next to Tesco and while she was in the chemist, I went to get some messages then we drove home and it was just after 10am! Unluckily for Scamp she had just missed the Parcelforce man who was supposed to be delivering a parcel today. Now she’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

We had a late breakfast and I messed about with the computer for a while, bought The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker. Yes, Hazy, you talked me into it and I needed something well written after having ploughed through the latest John Connolly. I used to like his stories, but too much padding, too much history and too little story in this one. After that we watched yesterday’s F1 GP from Austin. Quite and exciting race for once with lots of action and a good finish.

After lunch it was a case of pack up your dance shoes and drive to another tea dance. This one was in Falkirk, in Central Region, hence the cryptic title to this blog. We’d been to a tea dance in Falkirk before the first lockdown, but only one, then everything shut down. That one had been in the Council Offices, but today’s was in a church hall in the centre of Falkirk. Lovely looking church with a reasonably sized hall but the bonus was the live music. A bloke playing an organ, not a keyboard, but an organ with foot pedals and stuff. Apparently he’s an opera singer, but makes a bob or two running tea dances in local churches. He was good, but hadn’t quite got the mark of the clientele. Twice he tried to get people up to dance Scottish country dance tunes. Once couple got up for the first one, but nobody did for the second! Just a bit embarrassing. We did all the dances that I was sure I knew and one or two that I was a bit rust on. Big bonus of this tea dance was that they actually had tea. Gorbals didn’t and that was a black mark against them. Extra big bonus, they had Tunnocks Caramel Wafers and also Snowballs. Scamp was peeved that she didn’t get a snowball. The company was a lot less friendly than other places we’ve been too. Insular or maybe inbred, difficult to tell, but none of the dancers spoke to us. Black mark against them, then.

We had got soaked walking from the carpark to the church, but when we came out the sun was shining. Not so shiny was Falkirk Main Street. If this had been America, there would have been tumbleweed rolling down the streets. Shop after shop was closed and boarded up. These days you only need one or two big shops to close and you’ve started on the slippery slope. It was really depressing. There were a lot of smaller shops on some of the streets off the main street, but some of them were almost certainly on a short let. The only shop that was busy was the big party shop. People were queueing all the way down its frontage, almost all with children in tow, desperate to get their Halloween costumes. We drove home and agreed that we’d go back to the next tea dance in the church, all being well.

Back home there was just enough light to allow a safari to St Mo’s. I got today’s PoD of a spider there. I think that was the last of the light just disappearing.

Dinner was Saturday’s soup with croutons and a pizza to follow. Today’s prompt was ’Splat’. My sketch of a splatted egg got Scamp’s approval with a couple of suggestions that I agree with, but by then it was too late to change things. The sketch this time is drawn on an A2 sheet of cartridge paper. A bit bigger than my usual A5! No eggs were harmed in making this sketch, only virtual ones!

Tomorrow Scamp is booked with the Witches for lunch. I have a few jobs to do in the house and also a prospective drive into the country if weather permits.

 

 

A day to relax and take stock – 24 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s hustle and bustle we needed a day to relax.

Although there was still some work to do, the dishwasher would manage to do the heavy lifting. All we had to do was empty yesterday’s last load and fill it up with the final bits and pieces from the cooking and the eating. Then the living room had to be returned to normal, but with Scamp’s guidance that didn’t take long. By midday we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I say ‘we’, but Scamp did most of the work, as usual.

Lunch saw the watershed and we knew it was downhill after that. We sat and watched last night’s qualifying session for the American GP amazed at the drivers’ skill to navigate the zig zag changes of direction while managing to avoid slower cars in front of them. Good to see Mad Max get pole for today, Sunday although, because the race is in Austin, Texas it won’t be available to us poor souls without Sky Sport until the early hours of Monday morning. We can wait. It won’t make much difference to our life to wait until tomorrow.

In the late afternoon I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got some photos, 49 photos to be more precise. I liked the shot of the larch needles changing colour and almost ready to drop.

Dinner was some soup from yesterday, the remains of the Chicken Cacciatore from yesterday augmented with some chicken thighs from the freezer and a baked potato each. We also finished off the tear & share bread and the wine. It seemed a shame to waste all that good food, and it was also an ecologically sound choice.

Spoke to Jamie later and found out more of the last minute changes that have to be made and the slight alterations to timing that come when house buying. As always, Jamie was very calm about the whole thing, never making a drama out of a crisis. Totally unlike his father.

Prompt for today was ‘Extinct’ and while others were sketching dinosaurs and skeletons and some were even predicting the end of the human race, I chose to draw Sid from ‘Ice Age’. It seemed to fit the prompt and he was fun to draw. Another ink sketch with no watercolour. The ink is still drying as I’m writing this.

Tomorrow Scamp is off to the Doc’s, so Neil, this is her interpretation of ‘Soon’. You were the one who gave her the incentive to do it. Thank you.

Relentless – 23 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Today would be no-stop.

Up early today because, before we did anything today, there was a loaf to make, or at least the dough to prepare. John and Marion were coming for dinner tonight and I was in charge of the bread and the soup. The bread just had to be the Tear & Share. The soup was to be tomato and red pepper, but the prep of that could wait until we returned from dance class. Scamp was ahead of the game having made the main course yesterday and was preparing the Lime Cheesecake while I was kneading the bread dough.

Out a bit earlier for our trip to Bridge of Weir for the dance class. Hoping there wouldn’t be too much congestion on the M8 because to f the COP26 stramash happening across the river at the SEC. Actually there was very little traffic.

Dance class was ok to start with. Strange complicated sequence dance called Mambo Magic. Much, much more energetic and frantic than any I’ve encountered so far. Very disjointed too, as if it had been designed by a committee! Lots if disparate routines that didn’t seem to gel. Even teacher Jane agreed with this complaint.
Next was Tango and a fault finding and tuning of the basic tango. This was very useful because it changed a simple dance into a much more sophisticated one.
Final teaching session was for the Quickstep which is my bête noire of the moment. We’d practised this at home, yesterday and I’d managed to get all the bits in the right place, but today all Scamp’s teaching went out the window. By the end of the session and with Scamp and Jane’s help it began to come together again, but this will need some more practise sessions at home before I’m ready to progress.

Drove home through Glasgow and the only time we met any substantial amount of traffic was just before the Kingston Bridge where it’s usually busy anyway. We stopped at Tesco on the way home, but were still parked and in the house much, much earlier than a usual Saturday. I wonder if all the talk of road closures and long delays had made some people stay at home today or at least choose a different route that avoided the motorways. Whatever it was, it was a pleasant surprise.

Dough was rising for the bread and Scamp was hard at work getting the table set while I chopped tomatoes and peppers for the soup. I was trialing a new method for the soup. Just chop all the veg sprinkle with oil and bake in the oven for 60mins at gas 6. After that, add the stock and a tin of tomatoes and cook for 20mins before blitzing. Much less faff which leaves time for other things, like photography!

PoD was a shot of a single rose stem with one bud and one blown flower. Used Potatoshop to put a nice blue sky (from another of my photos) in the background and there you have it!

Visitors arrived on time and we had a great, relaxing evening eating, talking an generally catching up with everything that’s been going on in all of our lives over the past two years. Found out about the May wedding too.

After the visitors left and the dishwasher was chugging away with the first load, we had a chance to sit and relax for a while. I managed to get the sketch finished and posted just before midnight. The prompt was “Leak” and I drew the leaky tap you see here. A bit rushed and no watercolour this time, but finished (just) in time and fulfilling the prompt.

Tomorrow (today, you realise!) we will probably load up the dishwasher again and try to put the house back to its normal relaxed state!

A lazy start to the day – 21 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

After a quick lunch we were off and the lazy start was behind us.

We set off thinking that the COP26 extravaganza would cause chaos with the traffic on the M8, but actually the road was just the usual snarl ups and then clear. The problem came in deepest Paisley where roadworks closed part of the road we were intending driving on. That meant a long detour to get to the hall where our tea dance was taking place. After such a good start it was annoying to have to start finding a way through the maze of Paisley’s traffic. Eventually we arrived about fifteen minutes late. That in itself was a success, just fifteen minutes!

The hall was very busy with a new group of tea dancers ready to strut their stuff. We both found the floor very slippery, so slippery that I changed from my old shoes to my new black and white shoes. That made it a bit better, but still not right. When you looked at the parquet flooring with the glancing light from the window, it looked as if the floor had been newly waxed. That might account for the problem. The other problem was that we were making more mistakes than normal. We tried Social Foxtrot, we completed two tracks of Ballroom Foxtrot and we achieved success with waltz with whispered instructions to each other. Tango wasn’t as good as it could have been, but it too is getting there. Lots of sequence dances and for the first time I danced the Sally Anne Cha Cha or to give it another name, FIREBALL! because that’s what you’re supposed to shout at the end of each sequence. I didn’t just in case I got it wrong. Two Scottish country dances and a waltz finished the dancing for today.

I was hoping to grab some of the late afternoon sun when we got home, but the traffic through Paisley and on the eastbound M8 was a crawl. If you can find a space in the fast lane to sneak into, you can get up to 40mph for a while, but it doesn’t last. That said, it was better than the M74 beside us was doing, it was almost at a halt, and this is before COP26 gets into full swing with its road closures all over the city.

An hour and a quarter after we left, we arrived home. The light was all but gone, but I managed a few shots taken along the lane down to the shops. A bit of jiggery pokery in Potatoshop and it became PoD.

Sketch prompt was ‘Fuzzy’, and that’s what my little caterpillar is. It was just a ten minute sketch, but it covered the basics and the prompt.

Tomorrow we may go for the messages at The Fort with the chance of lunch there too.

Under the weather – 19 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Literally and actually.

Another wet day but I had a job to do today. I had to fix the broken lock on the bathroom window. Found what I needed at the B&Q website, but of course they didn’t have that cheap model in the store, only the dearer ones. I took one anyway after I’d checked that the screw holes in it lined up with the screw holes in the one I’d removed from the window yesterday. Drove back via Tesco for bread and a couple of bunches of carnations to brighten the kitchen and the downstairs toilet. Surprisingly the fitting of the new handle was simplicity itself after I’d confirmed that it could be used on the left side or the right side of the window, some can’t. Job done.

Lunch was a bowl of yesterday’s soup which was fairly tasty and warm. With a couple of slices of bread to dook in it, it was even better, but I wasn’t feeling too great. Aching shoulder from yesterday’s Covid booster jag and also that “coming down with a cold” feeling. Shivery and aching. That too could be from the jags, the flu jag this time. Scamp had a parcel to post to Skye, so that gave me an excuse to go for a walk with her to Condorrat. Came home via St Mo’s and I had a camera with me, so I took some photos although my heart wasn’t in it and it was raining. Best of a bad lot was a nettle that looked like I felt, washed out. That was PoD.

Scamp made dinner tonight which was chicken curry. Chicken Tikka Masala to be more exact. It was good and hot made from a Pataks kit. Another company jumping on the bandwagon that Spice Tailor started. I still think Spice Tailor is the best for range and taste although today’s offering would give them a run for their money. While Scamp was making the dinner, I was trying out my idea for today’s sketch. The prompt was ‘Loop’. Not the most interesting prompt, but it’s what I had to work with. I finally settled on a Mobius strip which is a loop with only one side. Its inside turns out to be its outside too. Just look at the sketch and you’ll get the idea. Follow the little cars and see where they go. It’s a fantasy Formula One race track called the Mobius Loop and yes, the cars do have to travel upside down. That’s what the magnetic tyres and the steel track are for! Following yesterdays lateral thinking again. I won’t say it’s my best sketch, but it’s different and it fulfils the prompt.

Took a couple of paracetamol after dinner and felt better. They’re beginning to wear off now, but I’ll take a couple more before I go to bed. I might even have a wee hot toddy too.

Hopefully meeting Alex tomorrow for a walk around the West End of Glasgow. That should be fun if I’m up to it and I think I will be.

An afternoon at the seaside – 16 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Off to dancing class first.

I was a bit late off the mark this morning. Honest, it wasn’t a Freudian slip, it was just a touch of brain fade, but by cutting a few corners we did get on the road about ten minutes late. Just as we were driving past the Irn Bru factory we chanced to see some head case in a bright yellow car testing his vehicle’s 0-60 capabilities. Usually this is done of a perfectly straight and level piece of track, like a runway or something similar, not on a fairly busy ring road with a bend about 50m from his starting point. Also the greater than normal chance of HGVs crossing the road just past that bend. I pity the folk who will eventually have to scrape him off a lamp post. We drove sedately on.

Arrived with about five minutes to spare. Today we were tackling Tango and I was given a reminder of one of the finer points of the man’s part, the pull back on the leading foot after the first three forward steps < that’s my reminder to me. It doesn’t have to mean anything to you.> With that fixed we got a thumbs up! We must have spent almost an hour on the tango, I didn’t check. Next was a sequence dance that we’ve done many times, but which I still occasionally get wrong, the Mayfair Quickstep. We did the Bellisima Cha-Cha after that. I think we’re both fairly ok with it now. After that we went on to a real Quickstep. We haven’t done the quickstep with Stewart and Jane, but we did eventually get the first set of steps right. It will need some practise at home to hammer it into my head, but we should have it by next week. Another couple of sequence dances later and we were done. My little head was full.

We’d planned on going to Irvine if the weather was fairly decent after the class and although the little patches of sun that had appeared in the morning had disappeared to be replaced with milky white cloud, we did continue down through long convoluted road the sat nav picked for us and ended up at the seafront at Irvine. We parked near a little trailer selling New Mexican food. I had a beef taco and Scamp had a chicken one with a couple of coffees. The food was lovely. We both really did enjoy it. After that, it was coats on and a walk down to the pier. I took some photos of the bridge to nowhere. It’s a steel bridge with hand burned steel panels on the side depicting different inventors who originated from Scotland. It used to lead across the estuary to an island with a kind of Science Centre on it, partly buried in a man made hill. The bridge had a removable middle section to allow yachts to sail through, but now that removal has become permanent and the science centre has closed. Such a pity. Such short sightedness on the part of the councils. We saw a family walking a strange looking dog. I thought it was a Borzoi, but Mr Google says it could have been a Saluki. It was the shape of a greyhound with long hair and had a tail that looked like a fan. Strange looking beast.

I got PoD on the walk to the pier. It was a view of some folk walking out to the end of the pier with that grey sky above. Quite gloomy. We drove home by a different route, one that I knew and not the twisty turny routes the sat nav prefers. I must check the preferences on that device to see if I’ve set a flag for “Choose the most awkward route.”

Today’s sketch prompt was Compass. I drew my old Silva compass which is about fifty years old and although the clear perspex base is broken, the compass works perfectly. It’s little used now that Google Maps and OS maps online make instruments like this almost obsolete. However, it does not need batteries, nor does it lose its signal, so still useful as a backup.

When we were driving home the rain came on, gentle rain, that started off as a drizzle but was getting heavier all the time. Now, at just after 11.30pm it’s raining properly, and has been for a while.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk if it’s dry, and if it’s not, there are lots of things to do at home.