Category: Sketching

Just for a change, the sun shone for a while this morning – 10 February 2024

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It didn’t last, but it was a sign of things to come, hopefully.

We managed to get out early today, well, early for us at least. I suggested Stirling as the place to go and off we went. I’d checked the battery in the A6500 and it was in fairly good order. I checked the SD card and formatted it. Then we left for Stirling and halfway down the motorway I realised I’d left the camera bag (with camera) on the sofa in the house! Never mind. I had my phone with me that would see me through the amount of photos I’d take.

After cruising around a busy Waitrose car park we finally chanced upon a space and squeezed ourselves into it then we went for a walk round Stirling. We both wandered round our own collection of shops and agreed to meet up later, which we did. Scamp suggested an M&S curry deal for dinner and I agreed. Dinner bought we asked each other, did we really want to go for a coffee? Neither of us were all that interested, so we walked back to the car and dumped the dinner in the boot then went to see what we could find in Waitrose. I got a rolled breast of lamb that will hopefully become my dinner tomorrow and Scamp got a couple of nice pieces of fish. Paid and added the takings to the growing pile in the boot, then made someone’s day bay nudging forward into the long, long queue of folk cruising round looking for a free space. A delighted looking woman in a van was happy to take ours and we drove home.

It’s funny the way weather works. When we were driving towards Stirling the sky ahead of us was much lighter than that behind us. When we were driving home in the early afternoon, the light ahead of us was much lighter than that behind us again! How does that happen?

Back home I went for a walk in St Mo’s WITH the camera this time, but got nothing interesting, so I walked down through the muddy wilderness behind St Mo’s to the shops and bought a load of stuff we didn’t need, but which was well received when I got home.

PoD was a quick phone shot in Stirling of three folk sitting on a bench, each texting on their phones. It’s entitled “Happy Tappers”.

Today’s prompt was “Ash”. This tree might soon be a thing of the past with Ash dieback being so rife these days. In my own street about half a dozen trees were felled in autumn last year. Some of them weren’t even ash trees, which brings into question the integrity of some of the tree fellers the council employs.

Today’s prompt was ‘Ash’. I always liked playing with the ash seeds when I was younger. We never called them Keys, we called them ‘propellers’ because of their shape and also because of the way they spun when they fell from the trees. Let’s hope some clever folk can devise a way to save the trees and staunch the damage done by the disease.

Dinner was that curry and it still looks like the lamb breast will be tomorrow’s dinner for me at least.

No real plans for tomorrow. Maybe Glasgow Green.

We did lunch – 9 February 2024

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Just an ordinary lunch in Brodens. It was that sort of day. A day for good filling food and a glass of something to wash it down.

I admit that I suggested it because it was Friday and for no other good reason. Also, Scamp had raved about the Fish ’n’ Chips in what used to be The Masonic Arms in Condorrat and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Well, the fuss was all about the slab of Peterhead Haddock in Breadcrumbs served with hand cut skin-on chips and the Breadcrumbs have a capital ‘B’ because they just made the fish great in both our opinions. It didn’t quite knock their Steak Pie off the number one pedestal, but it came very close. The lunch of champions.

The weather was awful. A bitter east wind driving rain that was horizontal at times with no letup all day long. Now at about 11.30pm the rain is tapering off a bit and the wind isn’t howling as much, but it’s still pretty cold.

I did some renovation work on yesterday’s project, but I think I may have to do a ‘Ribbit’ to quote Hazy and rip it all out and start again. Pity, it looked quite good, but it just didn’t work.

Today’s prompt was Charcoal. I hate charcoal. The only time I’ve used charcoal sticks is on an evening class on portraiture in college at the town centre. I found these fragile bits of burnt twig too messy to work with and spent more time cleaning up the paper than putting charcoal on paper. I still have the box you see here with about five of the original twelve sticks and a lot of charcoal chips. Charcoal isn’t for me (and neither was portraiture), so I’ll draw a rather grainy smudged line under it and say no more.

We watched an uninspiring episode of Death in Paradise that had an over complicated plot line and the usual almost ready to retire actors, making a few bob. That is one of the things that keep us watching. “Who is that?” and “What was she in?” Today’s guest appearance was Sean Maguire who was ‘Teggs’ Ratcliffe in Grange Hill from 1978 to 2008. A couple of my readers may remember him. Allegedly he was also in Eastenders, but we never watch is so we can’t verify that.

Basically that was it. PoD was a photo of a bunch of pink carnations with a very old joke tagged on to them. When we were walking back from Brodens I made the conscious decision not to go out for a walk in St Mo’s. I may be daft, but I’m not stupid. Neither did I want to catch a cold from the rain and that vicious east wind. I think I’m with Vixen in the avoidance of bad weather brigade.

Tomorrow looks better say the weather fairies. Not sure I believe them yet. We’ll wait and see.

Another busy day – 8 February 2024

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Where are all these busy days coming from? The week seems to be full of them.

Scamp was out this morning to have coffee and a blether with Isobel. I had things to do. First thing was to get a birthday card for my brother and post it. Fairly easy walk to Condorrat. Got the card, wrote it in the post office and posted it. Hope he likes it.

It was a raw, cold day with a freezing east wind. Never a good direction. I had a walk in St Mo’s and took some photos. I was tempted to try my camera on the ice trick, but I felt the ice was just a tad too thin and settled instead for a hand held shot with the camera barely touching the ice. The only problem was that I couldn’t see in the screen if my target box was on the subject I wanted to photograph. One of those rare occasions when I longed for my old Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark ii it had a fully articulating screen which would have solved my problem. Still I did get one of the shots I wanted and with a bit of work in Lightroom it became PoD.

I walked down to the shops and bought some messages for tonight’s dinner and some flowers we didn’t desperately need, but which brightened the house. The walk back was colder than the walk through the park and I was glad to get home to a comfortably warm house.

After lunch and after finding out what Isobel was on about today, I started task three which is still under wraps, but it was a blast from the past and took up most, if not all of the daylight hours. It’s five years since I’ve done anything like it. It involves a lot of lateral thinking, that’s all I’m saying.

Dinner was paella and I thought it was pretty good, although Scamp, the food critic said it wasn’t my best work.

Today’s prompt was “Fawn”. When I saw it I wondered if I could get away with a washed out pale brown swatch on a page of the sketch book. However, I settled on a sketch of a young deer. A real deer, not a Bambi look-alike. I went out this morning looking for one, but they were all otherwise engaged. Maybe, in retrospect, the town centre was the wrong place to look. I was quite pleased with the final ink sketch. It also met with Scamp’s approval.

The day just seemed to get eaten up today. All my rambles accounted for around 8500 steps. Not amazing, but at least I’ve been keeping fit this week with mountain climbing, dancing and now walking in a bitter breeze from the east.

Tomorrow there’s snow in the forecast. Hopefully they’ve got it wrong, but I’m not counting on it.

Mountain climbing and lunch with Shona – 6 February 2024

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Today we were taking Shona out to lunch.

Scamp and I had planned to take Shona to Cafe Bothy. It’s actually called Coffee Bothy now, but we prefer the original name. It’s a great wee restaurant in a place called Blairlogie in Clackmannanshire. Isobel was the first one who found it, being guided by her granddaughter and Isobel introduced us to it. Shona had never heard of it, which isn’t surprising as it’s in the middle of nowhere on a farm off a single track road. Shona had Fish ’n’ Chips, Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese and I had Mince ’n’ Tatties. All with the apostrophe correctly place before and after the n you’ll notice! That was the main course. We all opted for cakes rather than pudding afterwards and it was Strawberry Tart for Shona, Cream Doughnut for Scamp and a Gypsy Cream for me with coffees to follow of course.

Fed and watered, Scamp suggested we drive to Dollar park for a walk. Unfortunately we couldn’t find it and instead we drove up and up and up a steep single-track road to a car park for Castle Campbell instead. From there we walked up and up and up, then down the other side. We had walked up the hill many years ago, but we’d forgotten just how steep the climb is. The two ladies gave up, when it looked like we’d have to wade across a ford, but I was determined to get a photo on such a beautiful day. As it happened, I didn’t need to ford the burn because there was a bridge tucked away out of sight from the road. I did manage to get up to the top, and got the photo I was hoping for, but I was really knackered after it. The castle wasn’t open. It doesn’t open until April. We may go back then and if we can get parked again, we might take our time and go visit the castle properly.

I walked back down the hill from the castle then over the bridge and up the hill on the other side wondering all the time what kind of vehicle the custodians must have if they travel that road every day to open up. Whatever it is it most certainly isn’t a wee blue car! The drive home was scenic, but I didn’t see anything that was any better than a castle among the trees with a rushing burn beside it. Very ‘Outlander’.

We dropped Shona off at her house with time to spare before Ben came home from school. Driving into the sun was strenuous, not that I’m complaining because the sun was shining, far from it. But I decided I needed to clean the glass in the car inside and out. When I got the Juke I got a big bag of useless spray bottles as part of the ‘deal’. I used the Bug Remover spray and the Seagull Crap remover too, but I remembered as I was driving home, peering through a grey windscreen that there was Glass Cleaner in the bag. I found it when we got home and cleaned all the windows inside and out. I also cleaned the wing mirrors. Hopefully that should make driving less of a bind.

The prompt for today was “Plum”. Being a generous person I added a couple more plums to the singular fruit that was requested and just to be sure they were fresh, I ate half of one. That’s what you see here. Believe that and you’re softer than these plums look!!

Alex had to cancel our photo walk this week because he was needed at home. Hopefully we’ll get out next week. This week was tight anyway. Just one of these weeks when everything piles up.

Tomorrow we may be going dancing in Motherwell. Scamp has been talking about it for weeks and we really need to go there to see how good it is and if it’s an alternative to Glenburn.

Busy, busy, busy – 5 February 2024

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Out just after 10am for an appointment with the sister at the health centre and the day had begun.

It was just a check-up to see if my there had been any sided effects after removing a blood pressure pill from my collection. The sister was happy with the results so far and asked me to make another appointment in three months time. Other than that, she was happy to discharge me.

Drove back home, picking up a loaf and a couple of jugs of milk on the way. Time for a coffee and then I was out to pick up Val and take him to Costa for a coffee and a blether with Fred. The blether lasted for just over two hours and many and varied were the tales that were told, but when Fred’s conversation turned to politics I started putting my jacket on. Val seemed to cotton on to the fact that the blether was over for today and we all walked out into the wind and the heavy rain that had been with us for a few days now. I dropped Val off at his house and then made my exit before I got totally soaked.

Back home I felt a bit sick. I blame it on the ‘coffee’ in Costa. It was good for a couple of days, but it’s back to the floor sweepings again . I knew it was too good to last. I’d taken a few shots of some succulents in the morning and thought I could make a PoD of them, but I was just wasting my time. Instead I used a phone camera shot of ‘Nelly’ the Pleiospilos Nelii looking quite relaxed in her new painted pot. I’d sent the photo to Hazy, but with a bit of a crop it made a decent PoD too.

Today’s prompt for EDiF was “Cream”. I chose the Ice variety of cream and rather than have a neat, tidy, delicious looking ice cream cone, I picked the one that’s half melted and runs down over your fingers, making you wish you’d accepted the offer of the paper napkin. It’s also the time when you realise the ‘wet wipes’ are in the car and you can’t open the car door without without making a bigger mess. Ah, life is full of problems, isn’t it!

That was about it for the day. Short and sweet today. That’s just the way it is sometimes. Tomorrow looks better than today, with a light breeze and the risk of some sunshine! We may take Shona out to lunch.

Catching up – 4 February 2024

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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.

A blustery day again – 2 February 2024

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Very windy during the night, but it did calm down a bit in the afternoon.

I’ll admit it. It was a lazy day, although we did walk down to the shops to get some things for tonight’s dinner. I suppose it was a February day with wind, rain and overall, not that cold. I spent most of the morning backing up January’s photos onto a 4GB external drive and then finding that I didn’t have enough space on my 2GB drive to do the second BU. I’ll maybe need to get another external soon.

After lunch we walked down to the shops for potatoes, bread and pineapple tarts. A little Friday treat. We walked back up past St Mo’s school, then Scamp walked home while I went round the pond a couple of times. PoD was a gorse bush with a little wee yellow flower on the top. I hadn’t realised until recently that gorse bushes aren’t only evergreen, they also flower all year round. Dangerous looking sharp spikes on the bush.

Today’s prompt was ‘Copper’.
“Think out of the lines”, the lady admin said, so for once I did what I was told. Police (Polis in Scotland) are sometimes known as Cops or Coppers, so I chose a Scottish Polisman’s hat as my solution to today’s problem. Sketched in pencil and lined in with fountain pen and black ink then blocked in with a Pentel black brush pen before finishing off with a Posco white brush pen. I quite liked the monochrome effect.

I suppose that was about it for today. I’d intended writing to Alex, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I don’t see us going far tomorrow, but you never know. The weather
may improve and pigs might fly.

 

 

Now that’s Dancin’! – 2 November 2023

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A more successful day on the dance floor.

We spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about Neil’s return to school and his new inhaler that makes a noise. A simple idea that sounds (no pun intended) like it will work! It was good to hear that they hadn’t suffered any damage from the gale force winds they’d had recently. Also good to know that Hazy and Simonne are willing to compare and contrast some holiday homes for next year. Hopefully they will find a good one!

Later I started the ‘new’ computer and after entering my password only about ten times, I think I’ve ticked all the required boxes at last. Touch wood, it seems to be settled down now, still the same operating system and version as it was before the crash, and it’s unlikely that I’ll try installing the update again. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because I’ve used the external SSDs to drive the computer that causes a conflict with the software the update is trying to inject into the system. If I want an update, I’ll have to do it the long way which takes about four hours. It’s not worth it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

We drove to Glenburn Community Centre for today’s tea dance. Quite a small group to start with, then more and more folk joined in. We managed two tracks of Waltz Nioli and although they weren’t faultless, they were pretty good. We even did a couple of Joy’s Walz later in the afternoon and it was looking good too. Best of all, we managed two tracks of Quickstep! Something I’d never have thought I’d do. That was all down to a combination of Scamp’s and Kirsty’s teaching. Thank you both. These successes were won at the loss of the sequence dances. I just couldn’t get into the rhythm of them. Similarly, the Salsa we danced was pathetic. We used to be so much better than what we danced today. Still, progress was made on some hard stuff!

Back home I went for a walk, even although it was almost dark. I did get a couple of photos which were just presentable and no more. One heavily edited one made PoD. Along with it on Flickr are a couple of photos from Fannyside from last week. They’re much better.

Scamp and I are hoping to speak on the phone tomorrow to someone about the complaint we’ve made to the Ombudsman. It looks as if things are moving there.

Other than the above, not much planned for Friday. Scamp may find time in her busy schedule to meet June, Ian, Shona and Isobel for coffee after FitSteps.

 

October’s almost over – 31 October 2023

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Another bright morning and a cold day to follow it.

I think we just sat in the warm living room and looked out at the world outside for a while. We also stood at the back window and watched the antics of a couple of magpies struggling to find a way to get at the fat in half a coconut shell that’s hanging on the rowan tree.  It’s a cheap bird feeder I bought intending it for the bluetits to feed on.  However one of the wily magpies found a way to hook the string that holds the coconut with its claw and pull it close, meaning it could plunder the contents in comfort.  The others were still flying up, taking a peck and falling back down.  I think they expended more energy than they gained from the fat.

Scamp wrote a letter to the Gas Ombudsman, complaining about the terrible wait we’ve had to get a gas bill.  Nobody seems to know why we’ve not had a bill and any correspondence we get for British Gas is basically a photocopy with the date changed from the last one.  The smart meter is working for the electricity bill, but not for the gas!  Maybe we need someone to come out and read the meter! We’ll see what the Ombudsman can do to jolly them along.

After lunch we walked down to the shops for the makings of a stir-fry and some potatoes to make Potato and Leek soup.  There were a group of ‘workies’ cutting back the bushes at the front of the house.  I didn’t envy them their work in the cold breeze that was blowing.  We felt it too on our fifteen minute walk to the shops.  I’d intended leaving the bags with Scamp on the way back and going for a walk in St Mo’s, but they were quite heavy, so I walked home with her and then went out again to see what I could find. Not a lot was the answer, although I did startle a deer in the woods. It saw/smelled/heard me long before I noticed it and it was away like the wind.  I tried taking photos of some fungi but few of them were interesting, then I found a curvy looking flat topped mushroom just as the sun shone through the trees on it.  I think I missed the best of that light, but was happy with the image I did get.  That became PoD.

Back home the workies had finished and I could smell soup, so the potatoes had been used! I made a cup of coffee and uploaded today’s photos then worked on them for a while.  Then I remembered, or was reminded by the computer that there was an update to the iMac’s OS, so I put it in.  About an hour later I was walking past the computer and noticed the screen was still black with a white progress line half way along its slot.  Not long after an error message flashed on the screen.  The update had failed for some reason. On a normal week, I’d already have made a backup of the OS and would just have overwritten the OS with a new one, but I hadn’t made a backup and I didn’t want to risk losing the data as well as the operating system.  I tried a Safe Mode start and everything was still there, but I decided I’d wait until tomorrow to do a backup and then replace the OS.  Computers are a pain some times. Dinner was the stir-fry and it was quite good, but nothing special. Soup was kept for tomorrow.

Today was the last sketch in Inktober for this year.  The prompt was Fire. Instead of an actual fire I chose to sketch the vehicle that hopefully would be responsible for stopping a fire. It’s based on a Dennis F8 Fire Engine 1955. The group this year with a couple of headbanger exceptions has been really good and well behaved.  That made my life a lot easier!

I think a dance practise will be called for tomorrow.  Other than that, we may well be sheltering from the predicted rain!

Glorious Light! – 30 October 2023

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Today was a much brighter and much colder day than yesterday.

We watched the Mexican GP and it was a fairly lively affair with the home boy, Perez going off at the first bend after attempting an overtaking manoeuvre that was always going to end in tears for somebody. After bouncing his car around on the run-off area, he took it back to the garage and said “It’s Broke!” In Mexican I presume. Of course the golden boy won the race as Scamp had predicted he would.

Today was Monday and Monday is a day for doing shopping. Nothing fancy, just the messages. The boring stuff like bread and cauliflower, rice and coffee, fruit and onions, essentials. Plus a bag of jam doughnuts and a couple of bottles of wine. Because man cannot live by bread alone, and neither can woman! Tesco shopping it was today. We talked about going to Morrisons or Waitrose, but neither of us were interested in travelling far afield. Sometimes it’s better to stay local.

When we got back it was lunch time and that meant the rest of the soup I made yesterday. It was thicker today and the taste was stronger. Just the thing with a slice of bread ‘dooked’ in it. When that was done I waited long enough to see what the weather was going to do later in the week. Then got my boots on and my jacket with the inner sleeve still damp from yesterday’s soaking and drove over to Fannyside where I thought I’d get some autumn colour from the trees. While I was off in the country, Scamp was brushing up the leaves in the garden, in the sunshine.

The light was nothing short of amazing today. After yesterday’s rain had cleared the air, you could see for miles. I was heading for the old ruin of Jawhill Farm. The farm wasn’t really the centre of attention today, it was the trees that were the stars. They were that lovely rusty gold colour that leaves get just before they fall and the sun was getting low in the sky picking out the textures in the farmers’ fields. Blue sky overhead with just enough broken clouds to give a bit of interest to the scene. These days don’t come often, so we have to make the most of them. It’s a pity the cold east wind was really cutting. I was glad I’d picked the heavy Bergy jacket, rather than my fleece.

On the way back to the car I passed three cattle, two cows and one bullock in a field. I just had to have a picture of the bullock. Its coat was almost the same colour as the leaves I’d been photographing and it only had one horn. I don’t know what the story was there. The farm house made PoD, but the bullock got second place.

Today the penultimate prompt for Inktober 2023 was Rush. I duplicated it and it became Rushes, Bull Rushes. I’ve been reading some comments about the prompts this year being a bit too obscure and I have to agree. There have to be better prompts than the ones we’ve been given recently. For the past few years these one word prompts stump a lot of people who then give up on the whole thing. Anyway, today’s sketch was done in fountain pen and a water wash to get some shading.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but the weather looks good, but cold again.