Category: Still Life

I like Thursdays – 9 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Thursdays are generally good. All the time in the world to do things. Why then am I still writing this blog at almost 11pm?

Spent most of the morning clearing up the back bedroom. Now it looks a bit better and the rubbish went into a black bag. Well, most of it anyway. Some was spared for a while, I’ll put it in a six month virtual box. Anything left in that box after six months will go into another black box. After lunch I took the black bag along with a clutter of plastic pots and containers, some paint pots neutralised with soil and compost and took the load to the tip.

Then went for a walk along the Luggie Water. First time I’ve been there for quite some time and with a bit of occasional sunshine, the green leaves down there were gleaming. PoD was a trio of fern croziers starting to unfurl. So many hues and shades of green if you care to look.

The topic for Every Day in May was “The first thing that comes to mind when you wake up”.  I chose Breakfast.
A plate of muesli and a large mug of Assam tea. I foolishly chose to use the Paperchase A5 sketchbook because I’d used one a year ago and it worked well for me. Unfortunately Paperchase have changed their paper and the pages in the new sketchbook are much more absorbent than the previous one’s. That’s why there’s a fair bit of ragged edges to the shadows. The paper isn’t properly sized in my opinion. Such a shame.

Tomorrow we have nothing planned. We’ll just have to see what turns up.

May the Fourth be with you – 4 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

The weather fairies warned us that today would be cold with a wind from the Arctic bringing the possibility of sleet and snow. It did feel cold when we woke and despite the blue sky and sunny spells, the temperature didn’t rise much. Since we had nowhere in particular to go, we just had a day at home. Sometimes it’s better to stay home at weekends and do your travelling on weekdays when other folk are working.

Scamp was about to throw out some tulip flowers when I saw the beautiful texture and colour of their petals glowing in the sunshine. I set a camera on the table and taped a bit of tracing paper behind the flowers to allow light through, but soften the view of the living room. It took a few shots and a lot of changes to settings before I got the shot I wanted.

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I finally decided that one shot wouldn’t do the job. It needed too much depth of field and the only way I was going to get it was by taking at least five shots of the subject. One at the very front petal, one at the extreme back petal and at least three in between. Actually it took seven shots. The technique is called Focus Stacking and takes ages to post-process. The more shots you take, the more accurate your final shot will be, but the more time you’ll be stuck in the computer deleting bits of the different layers. Luckily ON1 2019 has focus stacking built in and the hard work is done for you. Like all AI things, it does need some human intervention to get it exactly right. That’s what I did … for about two hours, but I think the final image was worth the effort.
</Technospeak>

Scamp made her version of Minestrone soup for dinner and I made a lovely Tear ’n’ Share bread to go with it. It was a bit like a focaccia but with tomatoes in it and less oil. It should have had mozzarella in it too, but we only had green and blue mozzarella with a Use By date of the middle of March, so we decided not to use it. The dough was really sloppy but the bread was lovely and so was the soup.

Today’s challenge on EDiM was Star Wars Day. The closest I could get to it was the heads of four Lego Troopies. Just pen for a change and a challenge.

Tomorrow we may go dancing at the Record Factory.

Going our separate ways – 4 March 2019

Posted on by Zogman

I took the chance to slip the leash today, for a little while.

Scamp had the second gig of the year at Stepps and, as she didn’t need a roadie so I set off early to visit a new camera shop in Glasgow. The satnav lady knew where it was and got me there without a problem. They didn’t have the tripod I was looking for, but I didn’t really think they would have. It’s rather a niche model and I’ve read conflicting reports about it. I just wanted to have a look at it first hand before I parted with a hundred smackeroonies. The bloke in the shop couldn’t have been less interested:

“Do you have a Benbo Trekker tripod?”
”No. You have to order them from the website.”
“It’s just that I’d rather see it to make sure it will do what I want before I commit myself to buying it.”
”Yeah.”

Obviously not going for salesman of the month then?

Drove back in the general direction of Home using the satnav again. Because of the one-way system return was not the reverse of going, in this case, but the satnav lady knew this too. Once I was on the M8 heading roughly east I switched the satnav lady off and let her go back to sleep. Drove past Home and onward to Stirling where I turned off and took the back road up and over the Tak Ma Doon road, stopping near Loch Coulter to grab some shots to make a panorama later and also a grab shot of the straight road that looks as if it goes all the way to the Ochil Hills. The panorama became PoD. From there it was a lovely run in the springlike sunshine all the way home. Piece ’n’ flat sausage for my lunch and then after I’d dumped the images on the computer, I started today’s apple picture. It looks reasonable and hopefully you’ll be able to check my progress (or regress) soon on the website when I post the first seven. It’s an enjoyable task the painting and drawing of the apples, or at least it has been so far. May even branch out into ink or acrylic later. For just now it’s basically pencil and watercolour.

When Scamp came home I made a delicious tuna pasta. I say ‘delicious’, because we both agreed it was. Don’t know what I did differently this time, but I think it may have been some posh tomato concentrate. Must look for more of it the next time we’re buying Tesco.

Energetic beginners class in STUC and an advanced class where I couldn’t put a foot right. Every move a disaster. Even worse, I knew most of the moves. Just couldn’t get the moves into my head right. I think I just need to think less and go with the flow some times. Must practise Agamemnon this week to get rid of the rough edges. Still lots of laughs.

Tomorrow we have a free day. I think we may be going plant hunting again, although the weather looks rough. We’ll wait and see.

A Plan – 18 February 2019

Posted on by Zogman

On Mondays you have to have a time management plan.

Time is especially precious on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mondays because of Gems and Salsa and Wednesdays because of Ballroom and Salsa. That’s why today I tried to allocate time to activities that had to be completed. Some have to be tackled in daylight. Painting and sketching are the important ones for good natural light. Photography too, but it’s not as demanding of natural light as painting. Other things like posting images on Flickr and Facebook can be done under room lighting. With that in mind, I set out a plan of operations:

  1. Photography in daylight when there’s a bit of sun too, if possible. However, the actual taking of the photo doesn’t take all that long, so it can be done when and if the conditions are favourable.
  2. Painting and Sketching take a little longer and need some time allocated to them to make sure I don’t over run.
  3. Making dinner is determined by which classes we are going to and posting stuff online can be done any time.

So, started after lunch and got some photos taken just before the rain started and in a little pool of sunshine. Today’s PoD was one of the first croci to poke its head out of the compost. I liked the effect of the raindrops on it.

Next, today’s subject for sketching and painting was a couple of herb jars from the kitchen and a tin of Pimenton pepper. I’d had a go at the pepper tin years ago and liked the shape and also the fact that it should have a decent set of perspective lines. The finished article wasn’t really to my satisfaction because the perspective wasn’t correct, but I like the rendering of the glass jars and their contents. I tried a second drawing, drawing only this time, of the two jars. It was much better graphically, but didn’t have the watercolour effect, so the first painting won the day. All the artwork was done upstairs in the back bedroom while Gems practised their songs. Good headphones with noise reduction are a godsend.

After dinner we drove in to Salsa. It used to be the one class I could completely lose myself in if I was having a bad day at work, but since last week’s announcement that it was being terminated in four weeks, it’s lost a lot of its appeal. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the dancing and the repartee, but it’s like I’m losing an old and trusted friend. I think even if it is reprieved, it won’t be the same. The trust would not be there any more. Hard to explain in words.

The class before ours, the beginners, were doing Sombrero. What Scamp calls the first time they are really dancing. It’s true the whoops and yells when Jamie demonstrated what they were going to learn made me smile. It almost made me smile as much as when you lead a beginner through the apparent maze of the move and they realise they’ve just done it! They did it. Well, most of them did.

Our own class were very vociferous in their condemnation of the decision to axe the Advanced class and several proposals were put forward to avert it, but I felt all the time it was a fait accompli. It was going to go ahead, no matter what we felt. Of course it was left to Jamie to fend off the questions. Shannon was obvious by her absence.

Tomorrow we’re out to lunch.

The dug’s away tae Hamilton – 12 January 2019

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Tae buy the wean a bell.

It was a dull morning, but it didn’t matter.  We were off to Hamilton.  Not “Tae buy the wean a bell”, but to have a curry in the Bombay Cottage.  We hadn’t been there for years and then my brother mentioned that he and his wife were going there and we decided we’d try it again to see if it still retained its former high place in our memory.  It did, and it still does.  Surprisingly, even after twenty odd years some of the original staff are still there!

After that, we were driving home when I suggested we go for a coffee at Robroyston, and that’s what we did.  Two flat whites and two pieces of sweet stuff, because it was the weekend.  When we were driving home from there I could see the light on the hills starting to shape up nicely, but knew that if I chased it, I’d be too late.  Sometimes it’s better just to watch it than try to capture something that doesn’t represent it at all.

Back home, Scamp started to tidy out the “Towel Cupboard”,  although it holds more electronic bits and pieces now than towels.  That’s where we found the film canister with some processed slide film.  Three short 12 exposure strips which I’ve now scanned and stored in Lightroom.  Lots of memories.  Some of places that are no longer there.  Some of people who are no longer there.  Some of people who’ve grown up.  All of them interesting to us.  Glad I found them.  One of the images found its way into today’s PoD, along with the film strips and an old Zenit 12 SLR.  Quite a lot of work creating the finished image, but I won’t bore you with the details.

I used the small Manfrotto tripod to shoot the basic shot.  I had to make myself a new tripod screw because I lost the last one during the week down the Luggie Water.  Tonight’s was made from a 1/4″ Whitworth bolt and a small piece of a brush handle.  Quite proud of my work!

Tonight’s entertainment was “Sing” from Netflix, because there was nothing else worth watching on terrestrial TV.  What a find it was.  Just a bit of fluff, really but the animation was quite excellent, much better than some of  the crap that was on over Christmas.  Really enjoyed the music too.  It’s not often we both laugh out loud at something on TV, but we did tonight!

Tomorrow if the weather is bad (and it’s forecast to be) we are booked to tidy out the entire “Towel Cupboard”.  That will be a difficult one.