Category: Sketching

The Weather Fairies Lied – 16 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

16-oct

They promised us sunshine.  I think they must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

It started off dull, but we were expecting that.  We knew it would brighten up around midday.  However, when the wee hand was at 12 and the big hand was also at 12, the weather was much the same.  It stayed that way with the occasional bright spell through the afternoon.  I risked a half hour walk later in the afternoon and got a fairly decent portrait of a swan and a shot of a ‘Black Panther’ salute from a bush before the rain put an end to play.

Drove in to Glasgow in bright sunshine, but the sun was low and distracting.  One of those days where you wish it was dull like in the morning.  It might be boring, but at least there’s nothing to blind you.  Salsa was very energetic and very, very enjoyable.  I think Scamp was wondering what was coming next a few times when I started to string two or even three half moves together in a sequence.  It must be really hard being a follower at times.

img_3449-flickrTonight’s Inktober sketch is of some Lisianthus flowers in a vase on the table.  I keep wanting to call them Lissajous which are a totally different kettle of fish.  As far as I can remember, they were produced on an oscilloscope when we were studying AC current at college, back last century some time.  Google it, that’s the best idea.  Anyway ‘flooers’ as I call them are sometimes a picture of last resort, but these ones were quite a challenge.  Pen was a blue Linc Saffron from the Pound Shop.  Quite high quality rollerball pen, made in India.  It has a tendency to smudge when wet, but dries to a water resisting finish, at least the black does.  I’ve been using them for years now.  If you see them on sale, buy a pack.  A pound well spent.  Paper was my favourite Pink Pig sketching book.

Not sure what to expect from the weather tomorrow, but hopefully it will be better than today.

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

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15-oct

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today.  Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

  1. It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
  2. It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
  3. It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then.  Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops.  Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car.  It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag.  It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway.  Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government.  Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive.  Whatever next?  They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving!  Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home.  The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out.  I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch.  It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector.  That’s all they did really.  They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise.  Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers.  Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on?  It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire.  I digress – as usual.  I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot.  I had something in the bag at last.

img_3445-flickrToday is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in.  Pass this and you’re on the home stretch.  I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same.  Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

Sketching in Town – 14 October 2016

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ma143224-flickr

We took the bus in to the town today and then went our different ways for an hour and a half.  Me to do my sketch of the day and Scamp to wander round the shops.  Yesterday I had a bit of a hiding place, ensconced beside a wall in img_3442-flickr-1the church yard of the old church, you could even say I was hiding, but today was drawing in the middle of Glasgow.  No walls, no church yards to hide behind, just me, a sketch book and about half a dozen pens.  I got some strange looks, but nobody stopped to ask what I was doing, which was a great relief.  I suppose I did have one hiding place, one wall, the wall and hiding place of Inktober which I guess I could use as an explanation for sketching in the open air in Glasgow.  Either that or a daft auld bastard with too much time on his hands.  Yes, that would work too.  Sketch wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be, but I’ll keep trying.  Another sketching day beckons tomorrow.

Today’s photo is of a wee lane just off Queen Street.  I think it unlikely that Nicola had ever seen this lane, let alone stayed in it.  Such is the hyperbole in Glasgow at the moment.  I’ve taken this shot before, but this is a different crop to remove the two windows above this one and exaggerate the squalor of Queen Nicola’s Lane.

Lunch, when we met up again, was at Paesano Pizza in Miller Street again.  Excellent pizzas.  When we left there, the rain was on.  Up until then it had been dry and fairly bright.  Like I said at the start, we’d travelled on the bus today and on the road home I was pleased that we had.  Traffic was backed up and hardly moving as we crossed the bridge where I would have been exiting the M80.  I’d have been caught up in at least three miles of standing traffic.  Not a good way to end the day.  In addition, I had the opportunity to have a glass of wine with my pizza.  You can’t risk that if you’re driving these days.

Altogether a worthwhile day.

The Sound of Silence – 13 October 2016

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ma133222-flickr

He came!  He actually came and within twenty minutes the aerial was down and dismantled.  The aerial man gave us back the sound of silence.  To paraphrase Stuart MacBride’s heroine Detective Chief Inspector Steel, “Seventy five quid plus VAT? My sharny 1 arse!”  This guy did the job and we thank him very much … we did pay him too.

Earlier in the day, Scamp met her aunt and managed to establish the identity of a great many people in a sixty year old wedding photo.  It made me think that in today’s world where so many of our photos, even wedding photos are not printed, how will we perform a similar task in the future.  Will we still be able to view those videos on their lovely shiny DVDs engraved with the movie highlights of today’s wedding groups?  Will the photos that are printed using ink on ‘archival’ paper last for sixty years?  Will the resolution of the full frame CCD be as good as the old fashioned 6×6 TLR?  Not a chance.  The other thing we need is to record the names and fit them to the faces of the people in those photos.  I realised too late, after my father died, that I’d lost touch with all those people whose faces I saw in the old photos.  They were also dead, but they had also taken their identities with them.  What I urge you to do is to record, preferably in ink and on paper, the names of the faces in your old photos, and if you don’t have physical photos, print them out on the best quality paper you can afford.  It’s not for you, it’s for the ones who come after you.  They are the ones who will be left scratching their heads after you can’t be relied upon to enlighten them.

Today’s PoD was taken on the east of Fannyside Moor looking towards Slamannan.  It’s a great place for Big Skies and this certainly was a big sky.  I like it because it’s a place where you can just watch the clouds rolling past without cars constantly zipping past.  The only traffic today was a lady on a bike who was riding a tail-wind.  I hope she had already cycled the head-wind part of the route and was on her way home.

img_3440-edit-flickrToday’s Inktober drawing was of the church in Cumbernauld Village and is a building I’ve been meaning to draw for some time.  It really is the most awkward shape with bits apparently added on at different times in its history.  The windows, especially seem to have been placed wherever the builder found a space for them.  Only the tops of the upper windows line up properly and some have lots of small panes of glass while others have fewer, larger panes.  In all, I was pleased with the finished sketch, probably even more so because I sketched it in the open air.  I’m not French, so why should I call it en plein air.  That’s just being a poser, or should that be poseur?

Tomorrow is unplanned as yet, but it will not include listening to the crows landing on that aerial or dreading the screech of it rotating in its rusty bracket.  The bracket is gone, the pole that held the aerial has been recycled and the aerial itself is in a skip.  I love the sound of silence.

  1. Befouled with dung.  Merriam-Webster ↩

Another day waiting for the aerial man – 12 October 2016

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12-oct

The bloke who was going to take down that bloody aerial failed to turn up today.  Different bloke from the last time, different day, same result.  Now he says he’ll be here tomorrow.  Do we believe him?

Went out early for some photos in the sunshine in St Mo’s.  Got one of Mr Grey preening.  Unless he’s lost a lot of weight, I don’t think this is the real Mr Grey, more likely it’s a body double.  The real Mr Grey has probably flown south for the winter and he’s arranged this substitute to make it look as if he’s still here.  The body double probably even collects the real Mr Grey’s Giro.  Yes, I know that we don’t do Giros any more, but unemployed bird still use them, because they don’t do internet banking.  Anyway, the green leaves were growing from a storm felled tree.  There must have been enough continuity between trunk and roots to keep the transfer of sugars and starches.  The landscape is from St Mo’s and is of clouds breaking over the Meikle Bin above and beyond Kilsyth.  The wee spider was climbing a tree and if you look closely at the Flickr version, you will notice that he’s got his safety rope securely fixed to a branch.  Even spiders have to be careful these days.

img_3438-flickrI’ve been following “The Constant Doodler” and today’s Inktober sketch is my first attempt at his signature One Line drawing where his pen never leaves the paper until the drawing is finished.  It’s much more difficult than it looks.  Try it sometime and you’ll discover just how much planning is required before you start.

Other than that, it was another dull day after the promise of the morning’s weather.  There was a bit of rain in the evening and more if forecast tomorrow.  Maybe that will give the aerial man another excuse to avoid the demolition of the bloody aerial.  But then you never know.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll be celebrating the removal of this piece of roof architecture.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

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11-oct-3

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing.  I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten.  The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day?  We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out.  Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that.  It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland.  Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour.  We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling.  What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road.  Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes.  Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull.  Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on.  Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back.  Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot.  More snails up trees.  It seems that they favour Ash trees.  Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot.  I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot.  It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly).  Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was img_3436-flickrlying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject.  I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness.  It’s all about confidence I think.  Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch.  Made some more fruit scones tonight.  I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out.  Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class.  It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher.  Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting for Kizomba to begin – 10 October 2016

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10-oct

Sitting in the STUC building after another slow run in to town. Not much fun, but at least I’m in a better mood than last week and more prepared for the slow drag.

Physio said there was a definite improvement again this week again, but he still made me in to the human pincushion. Three weeks until the next appointment.

Finally got yesterday’s Flickr uploaded this afternoon. To the eagle-eyed, congratulations if you noticed the swap of the Inktober drawing.  Once I saw yesterday’s on the computer, so many things were wrong with it, too many things in fact, so I did another, more calculated version in pencil first and then with ink on top.  After that I rubbed out the pencil guidelines.  Today’s Inktober isn’t done yet,  I’ll do it later and add it in to the blog when I get the chance

Today’s shots were just grabbed when I was making dinner. The coal tits must have been waiting for the feeder to be refilled because they were down as soon as the back door closed. The crow just looked so depressed sitting on the fence in the rain and I managed to capture the raindrops too.

[Later that same day}
Ok we’re home now and Kizomba tonight was equally good, although it was moves we’d done before ie. Forward Travel with Cha-Cha and Ladies Saida.  Kizomba seems more like Ballroom dancing than Salsa or Bachata to me because you have hand movements and foot steps too and they must co-ordinate.  I still find that difficult, but I’m sure it will get easier with practice.

It was a day of mixed fortunes weatherwise.  There was sun, it was cold, there were cloudy spells and rain showers too.  A wee bit of everything except (whisper it) snow.

Pictures are up on Flickr, Blog is written, Mosaic is in place.  Just a bit of sketching to do and we’re done! So, here it is.  Hope it was worth the wait.  Hands are fiddly to do, but they’re patient, they don’t img_3434-flickrmove unless you ask them to.  They’re always there and although they look like five limbed octopi or spiders, if they’re drawn badly ( I don’t think this one’s too bad ;-\ ), they’re always happy to sit for another sketch … or five.  I even got the twisted knuckle in my pinky to look like it is in real life.  Such a pity I couldn’t spell Inktober!

Embra – 8 October 2016

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8-oct

Embra was the choice today.  Now I won’t go in to the semantic arguments, the place is called ‘Embra’ and that’s it.

The train was fairly busy, but not excessively so – there’s a reason for this sentence.  As usual we got off at Haymarket and walked up towards the tea shop.  It was shut!  I should have checked his website, it was there in black and white, or red and white actually.  Go there, you’ll understand.  At the top of the road was the Exhibition Centre and also an enormous queue of middle aged and older folk.  Behind us too was a long train of people of that same demographic, most of whom had filled the seats on the train.  When we got to the Exhibition Centre the explanation was plain.  It was a Tesco wine tasting.  The early arrivals were already getting pissed oops, sampling and this lot seemed to be waiting for the first lot to be poured out the door.  We moved on.  Coffee in Cafe Nero then a walk through the farmers’ market.  I got some hogget for dinner tomorrow.  I suppose this is where farmers’ markets win.  Hogget is a lamb between a year and two years old.  I’ll taste it tomorrow.

On the subject of food, we went to a wee French place on the Grassmarket for lunch.  We’d been there a few months ago, well February actually, I hadn’t realised it was that long ago.  French Onion Soup again for me – creature of habit and Toulouse Sausage with mustard sauce and mash.  Scamp had Crayfish in a Garlic butter, a very garlic butter followed by Chicken Supreme with six thrice cooked chips.  Foodies? Us?  Surely not!  Both meals were voted excellent and I’ll say it again, we’ll be back.

Walked round to John Lewis and went back to 1984.  Not the date, the book!  Apparently the St James Centre is being … refurbished … reimagined. Perhaps demolished is a better description.  All the shops are now closed and shuttered, except John Lewis.  They didn’t get that memo, it seems.  It appears that it will remain like that until 2020 when, overnight, a new great new ‘retail opportunity’ will rise phoenix-like from the ashes.  Whether it will include John Lewis we’ll have to wait four years to find out.  For now, it feels as hopeless as the novel 1984 did.

Got the train home and, if you remember back to the second paragraph, first sentence of this epistle, it was a fairly busy train in the morning.  The afternoon train to Glasgow was mobbed, by a much younger contingent, mainly young men dressed in tartan and with lion rampant flags tied round their necks.  Yes, Scotland were playing football in Glasgow.  It turned out they were playing Lithuania (I think it was a Lithuanian school team – a primary school team).  The fans all seemed excited and were guzzling Becks like there was no tomorrow.  It might have been to induce a coma that would prevent them from seeing the game which was due to start at about 7.30pm.  This was the 3.30pm train.  The game ended in a 1-1 draw.  It’s easy to become cynical about football fans, especially Scottish football fans.  Too easy.

One sketch done for Inktober.  I’m happy with it.  Done in public in Princes Street Gardens.  Another step forward.

Coffee Time – 7 October 2016

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Coffee with Val and Fred today. Fred was his usual self, but for once, I think I beat him in sketches done, just beat him, but it counts. Val was just Val.

Got some tips from Fred on sketching and gave him some tips on filling up a Kindle. As usual he had some CDs for me.

In the afternoon I went for a drive looking for photos. That’s where the landscape came from. Also, I got a sketch done. Previously, I’d started, then aborted a sketch of Auchinstarry Quarry. Then I started the drawing of the house. It was meant to be a preliminary sketch, but as I worked on it, it became firmer and more detailed and finally it was the sketch. Unfortunately, it was on the same page as the aborted sketch. That’s what the Tippex covers. In future I won’t skimp on paper. It’s the cheapest part of the sketching process and it is stupid to skimp. Learn by your mistakes I was told. That said, I remember reading that only fools learn by their own mistakes, wise men by the mistakes of others. Be wise.

Scamp’s out at a Witches Glam Night. No Halloween this year, it’s been brought forward and it’s a Glam Night instead. That leaves me with a half bottle of wine, three bottles of beer and an almost full bottle of whisky. That should do for tonight!

Heading somewhere that sells tea tomorrow. Long Leaf tea, not the floor sweepings I got last week.

Robin – 6 October 2016

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Went out for lunch today at Vecchia Bologna today. It seems that the restaurant has dropped the Vecchia part. It’s now just Restaurant Bologna. Vecchia must be too old fashioned 😉 Lunch was the usual excellent quality. I had the pate and Spaghetti del Chef. Scamp had mussels and the spaghetti. Scamp drove today, which was great because I could watch what was passing the side window instead of being totally focused on the car in front. Saw some more of these hay bales disguised as figures. Today’s was on the Carse of Stirling and they were made into a cow and a wee man. It looks like they are all made by Young Farmers. Unfortunately, I forgot I wasn’t driving and didn’t take a photo.

Today’s photo was taken much earlier in the morning when I spotted this wee robin queueing for its breakfast. I’d taken a few photos when he turned and caught the light, showing off the texture of its feathers.

Today I tore up the oil painting I’d done the other day. It just didn’t work tonally, on a colour basis or in terms of composition. So, basically it was crap. It had to go. However, it had performed its function of getting that landscape out of my head.

Which brings me to today’s sketch which is in absolute contrast to yesterday’s. Today’s was a detailed sketch with no attempt to record the image in my head and reproduce it on paper which is what blind drawing is all about. I’d originally intended to draw part of Doune Castle for today’s Inktober, but decided on something a bit simpler. Doune Castle is still on the list of things to sketch. I like buildings. N D’Ag posted an interesting YouTube video on Facebook on how to draw two point perspective and I may try that out some time.

I was a bit better organised today and got most of the heavy lifting completed early, which means I may go to be on the same day I got up … maybe.

Weather was lovely today with lots of bright sunshine. Looks like more of the same tomorrow with a little more cloud, just a little.