I came across this ornate cannon, and others like it, when I visited the quaint and whacky village of Portmeirion in North Wales. Portmeirion sits in the estuary of the river Afon Dwyryd and it's cannons sit along a harbour wall guarding the village from attacks by boat.
JWJarts - Encouraging Beginners
Hoping to inspire and encourage those interested in drawing or painting to have-a-go.
Friday 3 November 2023
Cannon
I came across this ornate cannon, and others like it, when I visited the quaint and whacky village of Portmeirion in North Wales. Portmeirion sits in the estuary of the river Afon Dwyryd and it's cannons sit along a harbour wall guarding the village from attacks by boat.
Friday 27 October 2023
Turtle
Sunday 8 October 2023
When is a stamp, not a stamp ....
.... when it's a Cinderella.
Almost since the beginning of postage stamps, there have been 'stamps' produced that are not official Postage stamps. Often referred to as 'labels', these non-postage stamps became known as "Cinderella's". The term was introduced by early philatelists because, like the fairly tale character, these were downtrodden and inferior when compared to proper postage stamps.
Though Cinderella stamps have no intrinsic value, and are essentially worthless, they can still demand high prices by collectors if they are sufficiently rare. To many, like me, the interesting stories behind these 'labels', are what make them collectable. Here are just three examples from my own collection:-
Cinderella stamps .... of little value but far from boring.
Friday 29 September 2023
Artistic Licence or not?
My neighbour recently moved out of the area. She'd been here many, many years but we've only known her since we moved here, almost 5 years ago. I thought it would be nice to do her a drawing of her bungalow as a memento of her time here. I popped outside with my camera and took a photo to use for reference. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the sun was shining brightly.
Though I was initially quite pleased with my effort, the more I looked at it, the less I liked it. At first I was unsure why but then realised it was because of the shadows. The reference photo was taken on a very sunny day with strong shadows and, as usual, I stuck too rigidly to the reference. Those dark angular areas were spoiling the shape of her house.
Unfortunately for my neighbour there were some delays with her move but that afforded me the time to do the drawing again. This time I used our old friend 'artistic licence' and I imagined the house without the shadows. That left too much white paper so I decided to draw in the brickwork, which I don't normally do other than a few small sections hinting at what might be there. Doing so has separated the house from the white of the paper and allowed the shape of the building to have more depth and dimension.
I was much happier with the second version so that is the one I gave her, and she was delighted. I'll be really interested to hear how you all view the differences, and which of the two you prefer.
Sunday 24 September 2023
Log Cabin - Part 2
Monday 18 September 2023
Log Cabin - Part 1
Another project that I completed recently was to restore my Dad's Log Cabin. He made it for me in 2009 when he was in his 92nd year. The above photo shows it standing in a small clearing beneath a small pine tree soon after he gave it to me. My friendly Robin took to it immediately. So it stood outside in all weathers for over a decade and was now looking very much the worse for wear. As can be seen from the photo's, the 'logs' on the roof had rotted away and the wood underneath was far from good.
It had been suggested to me that it would be easier to build a new cabin from scratch, and it would...... but that's not the point. I wanted to keep Dad's cabin going as long as possible. It's not about the cabin per se.
When I was packing our belongings at my last house I knew that one day I would be wanting to do this so I pruned my old Pear tree to get as many long straight branches as I could. It is the tree that supplied my father with the wood he needed to make the cabin in the first place. The furniture removal men couldn't believe it when they found a bundle of branches amongst the packing. :lol:
I cut 8" lengths of branches, finding the straightest pieces I could. One end of the branches was too thin, and the other end too thick, so only the middle section was usable.
Next I had to split them all in half along their length and that proved much harder than I'd expected. I discovered that Pear wood is very hard (harder than cherry) and difficult to work with. The only way I found of splitting the branches was to use a very sharp knife and knock the blade down through the wood with a hammer. Annoyingly the knife blade often followed the grain so I didn't get an even split.Monday 11 September 2023
Shire Horse and Dray - Part 2
Wednesday 6 September 2023
Shire horse and Dray - Part 1
Thursday 24 August 2023
"Maud": Finished for now
The curved piece for the stern split as I was nailing it into place so I had to make a new one. This time I've not used nails but glued it in to place. The boat isn't going into water so there's no need to worry about it getting wet.
The next step is to stain the whole thing and then give it a good waxing and polish.
Thursday 17 August 2023
Model boat - starting the rebuild
The story of the boat so far ...