An Uneventful Sunday – 31 May 2015

I’d hoped to get out cycling again today, but the weather was against it as predicted by the weather report last night. High winds, gusty high winds which is worse and squally rain. Up at 8.00 to put on my dinner – pork osso bucco in a red wine sauce. Why such an ungodly hour of a Sunday morning? Well, it was so it could be slow cooked for about 6 hours. After that, I did a bit of painting. Just a couple of sketches. See below. I don’t see them setting the art world afire with their beauty or demonstration of skill, but they’re mine and I’m quite pleased. I’ve seen fit to display them below. Please don’t download them and colour print them. Giclee dear, giclee. Printing is for letters and spreadsheets.IMG_2576-Edit- blog-151.jpg

Dancing later this afternoon at the Garage and for once I really did enjoy it. On the way to the Garage, I passed this lane and decided to add it to my album entitled “Peein’ up closes and lanes” on Flickr. The title comes from “The Copper’s Song” by the late Hamish Imlach. Just another wee bit of nonsense. When we came out, I saw a better shot, but there was a bloke pacing up and down the lane and I didn’t want folk asking any awkward questions. “Here mate, whit ur ye daein’?” “Is that a camera or a fone?” “Gonnae gie us yer fone mate or dae ye want me tae gie you a dooin?'” It is Glasgow after all and Rangers had just lost an important match to Motherwell, so discretion is the better part … etc. the photo needed a bit of post processing, it being from an iPhone, not a ‘real’ camera. Did levels and stuff then used Sergé’s settings for shadows and highlights. Then I noticed that the sky was plain white. Chopped a bit of believable grey cloud from another photo and pasted it in in Photoshop. Looked much better then.

Got home to much more peaceful weather and even a bit of late sun. First of June tomorrow and snow predicted for high ground. Oh dear!

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Glasgow Flaneur – 18 May 2015

I decided to go in to Glasgow today to pick up my monsterpiece  and Fred’s masterpiece from yesterday.  Weather was very mixed with bright sunshine one minute and torrential rain the next.  Bought myself a couple of watercolour marker pens from yesterday’s demo – yes, I know I was scathing about them, but maybe I should be more open to new innovations.  Anyway, for whatever reason, I decided to give it a try.  I also got one of the reservoir brushes at Fred’s recommendation.  To round it off I got a trio of fine line black markers.  £20 spent, just like that!

Alley Glasgow

After yesterday’s investigation of the wee alleys, I extended it to include one taken from just off Exchange Square looking towards Buchanan Street.  I’d decided not to take  formal camera, so relied on my trusty iPhone 4.  The best camera you can have is the one in your pocket!  So true.  I liked the effect of sunlight after the rain shining on the street and the white tiled bricks.

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The other pic is from Exchange Square and, because I was shooting into bright light, the highlights were blown out, so I dumped the shot into Photoshop and copied a sky picture into the blown out area.  I used Darken mode and then filtered the street pic so that the sky only affected the light area and not the buildings.  Photoshop is not my favourite editor, that accolade must go to Lightroom, but it’s useful for simple trickery like this.

Pink Dummy

Pink Dummy

We had a walk around the west end of Glasgow today. Heard a Canadian police pipe band practising for the world championships which begin tomorrow. Walked past the bowling greens used for the Commonwealth Games and that’s where I saw and photographed the Pink Dummy. It looked quite incongruous sitting on the black cast iron spike with Glasgow Uni tower and the Art Galleries in the background. It was on then to Usha’s, a great little vegetarian Indian restaurant on Byres Road.

Quite a nice way to spend what was technically my first day of retirement.

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