Robbie and I

It is a fact that most British gardens can boast their own resident Robin, and mine is no exception. I can't ever step into my garden without Robbie whistling out a greeting and hopping into a prominent position where I can see him, and he can keep his eye on me. I say "keep his eye on me" because that's just how it feels.

I have two Apple trees in my garden that are the last remaining evidence of a small orchard that used to exist here in what used to be a Victorian Kitchen Garden. Regrettably, both trees have become hollow inside and are unsafe. We have therefore made the decision to take them down and plant 3/4 new fruit trees in their place. It doesn't need me to tell you that this wasn't going to happen without some very enthusiastic involvement of Robbie .... Site Supervisor, Health & Safety Coordinator, Project Manager and Buildings Inspector.

A week ago, I headed outside armed with my Chain Saw and Pruning Saws and set to work. And as I was sawing away at the first of the trees I was sadly reflecting on the fact that these weren't just trees. Okay, so they haven't produced very good fruit for several years now, but the Bees love the Apple Blossom in the spring, and so do I. They provide structure and height in the garden and there is nothing finer than sitting in their dappled shade on a hot sunny day, especially with a beer close to hand.

As I was felling the first tree today, Robbie sat in the other watching my every move and he was more vocal than usual, if that's possible. It took me two days to cut the trees down to just a few feet from the ground and get everything stacked tidily, but Robbie was with me throughout. I actually found myself talking to him and sometimes he would tilt his head as if he was actually listening.



But it was in his management roles that he excelled.


He inspected my wheelbarrow (look closely) ....

Warned me of poorly stacked (strewn) piles of cut branches ...

Monitored how long I took for tea breaks ...

And closely inspected the finished works.

I don't know if this little chappie is just being naturally terretorial and worrying about what I may or may not do to HIS back yard, or whether he's genuinely curious and interested in what we humans get up to, but whatever his motives, he's great company in the garden and a lot of fun.





Circumstances, coupled with an inability to set my mind to anything, are preventing me from getting on with any art right now, though I do try to get round the blogs I like to follow as and when I can. I took my camera for a brief walk in the park the other day so I may come back and bore you with a few 'Birds on the lake' photo's one day soon. Don't say you haven't been warned. ;-)

Horse and Carriage

First of all, an apology to my fellow bloggers. I just haven't been able to get round all of your blogs of late due to family commitments. Following a recent illness and a few days in hospital, my elderly parents (87 and 94) have reached the stage where they can no longer manage to live in their rather large (for them) 2-storey house. So I am heavily involved in driving across town every day to deal with the things they can't manage and I'm also house-hunting to try and get them a smaller bungalow close to where I live. I'm as enthusiastic as ever to look at your creations and I'll get to your sites as and when I'm able.

Wanting to continue with my art but seriously lacking time, a couple of weeks ago I decided to start a new pencil drawing because I knew this would be something I could work on a few minutes at a time as and when opportunities presented. And this is what I've been working on ......

If any of you have ever visited Cockington, in Torbay I know you will have seen this local horse and carriage. It actually provides a valuable service as it is a fully licensed Horsedrawn Hackney Carriage and offers a taxi service from the seafront in the nearby town of Torquay, along the country lanes to the Blacksmith's Forge in Cockington village. 

I underestimated the amount of detail in the carriage and chose A4 paper (Daler Rowney Heavyweight paper 130lb 11" x 8"). I'm thinking it might be nice to do the drawing again but much larger and I'm contemplating doing a series involving different carriages. In readiness I intend to research carriages and try and identify this one but if any of you know what type of carriage it is please let me know.

Merry Christmas!

Whenever I venture out into my garden, the true owner of this plot of land follows me around as if checking that I'm not going to do anything that will upset or violate his tiny kingdom. Sometimes from high in a tree, and sometimes on the ground and dangerously under-foot, my friend the Robin is ever present. But annoyingly he seems to have an uncanny knack of knowing when I am armed with my camera and what it is for because he teases me no end by posing and then hopping away just as I'm about to release the shutter. This shot is one I took some time ago as he rewarded me by posing nicely on the upper branches of one of my tall conifers. Had this shot included some snow I would have used it for a seasonal digital card, but instead I decided to use a photo I took of 'Dick the Wick', one of over a dozen loyal Gnomes who tend the mountainous regions of my large rockery.

I thank all of you, my blogging friends, for the support and encouragement you have given me throughout 2012. It means more to me than you can know. I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, peaceful New Year.

Sheepish looks.

Like so many of us this time of year, I'm afraid I just haven't had the amount of time for blogging that I would like. I've attempted to get round a few of the blogs I follow but I'm doing very well. If I haven't visited YOUR blog recently, please bear with me ... I'll catch up soon.

I've also had no time whatsoever for my art. I haven't touched a brush or a pencil for weeks. Actually, that's not quite true. I did find myself with a little time last week to do something so picked up a small 9" x 6" pad and selected a photo from one of my recent walks. Some of you will remember my encounter with the flock of sheep and this is taken from one of those photos. I don't usually try and paint animals so this was quite different for me. It was fairly quick and 'wet' (by my usual standards) and I enjoyed watching the colours blend. I must do more of this sort of thing.

One small matter I'd appreciate some help with is the 'miniature' pencil drawing shown in my last post. I am completely stunned by the wonderful comments from you all. When I knocked out that small sketch I had no intention of producing a keepable drawing. It was just a few minutes sketching and as such I gave no thought to paper or placement. As you will see from the attached photo, the sketch is stuck at the top of a scribbles page in an A5 sketchpad. In view of the good comments it has received I've decided to keep it but think it may get lost (thrown away) if I leave it where it is. The only idea I've had so far is to cut it out and mount it into a very small photo frame. If anyone has a better and more original idea, I'd love to hear it.

Not enjoying painting ...

... but I'm not talking about THAT sort of painting. I'm talking about painting doors, window frames, skirting boards, etc. We're giving our living room a serious make over. I've always wanted a smooth flat ceiling yet every house we've ever owned has had the old-fashioned Artex stippled ceiling. On a few occasions I've stripped the Artex off myself and put up a textured ceiling paper. LOL ... that's fun if you've never tried it, papering a ceiling. However, this time I decided to have the job done properly so we had a tradesman in to re-plaster the ceiling for us, and it looks great. While I had the walls stripped of wallpaper I took the opportunity to run in some electric cables to give us some extra power points.

The best bit is that we've also decided to refurnish the room so it's out with the old 3-piece suite and in with something new. We are having two 2-seater Sofa's, one of which is an electric recliner and a 'special' chair for me. I have ordered a real Stressless recliner by the Norwegian manufacturer Ekornes. It's not a cheap option but once you've sat in one ..... hmmmmm.

Anyway, it's all coming together well and the end is in sight, which is a good thing because I haven't touched a brush (art type) or a pencil for weeks. The new furniture arrives next week and I've decided that the very last item to be put into the newly decorated room will be MY chair. So this post is by way of a warning that I'm likely not to post again for a while because once I'm in that chair I'm not moving for at least a month.

Because I have no art to share, I've decided to do something that I've been thinking of doing for a long time but never seem to get round to it .... share with you one of my other hobbies, photography. I have a Sony H9 Bridge camera with Zeiss lens and 15x optical zoom. It's a very versatile bit of kit but not in the same league as DSLR, which is something I'm thinking of getting very soon. I've never really been able to justify the cost of a good DSLR with the few opportunities I've had for photography, but now I'm retired things should be different ... if I can ever drag myself out of that chair.

A selection of my photo's are in a slideshow in my sidebar, and here are a few others. I hope you like them.

    

Good for the soul

Some times, for no particular reason, we just can't summon the enthusiasm to paint or draw. We've all experienced it. Some call it 'artists block' and others just that they aren't in the mood. Some times lifes little problems come along and knock us off track. Some of us are more resilient than others but we all have a point beyond which the pursuit of our art seems trivial and unimportant by comparison. This is where I am right now.

However, fearful that my 'mood' would only deepen the longer I allowed it to, I made the decision to spend a short while doing something arty even though my heart and mind just wasn't in it. Not wanting to think a great deal, nor get involved with setting up my stuff or looking for something to paint, I opted for the simplest, quickest solution and the medium I am most comfortable with. I picked up my sketchbook and a water soluble pen and took down from the wall a Wildlife calendar that had been sent to me last Xmas by my good friend Ingrid (Ochil Art). I sketched what I saw before me without any thought as to whether I would apply water later or just abandon it when I'd had enough. As I forced my pen to sketch shapes on the paper I felt more at ease with what I was doing and I started to get more absorbed by the art rather than other things.

The end result is far from a masterpiece (classic understatement) and some of the dark areas are too dark because I didn't give enough thought to how much ink to lay down to give me the right tone, but none of that matters. A little over an hour after I'd started, I put my pen down feeling more satisfied and relaxed than I had for many days ... and keener than ever to pick it up again.

Bloody cats!!!

I arrived home from work this evening to see the tell tale signs of a problem I detest. There were a number of feathers strewn across my front lawn. After I'd parked the car and dropped my briefcase into the hall, I went for a look round. Sure enough, I found what I'd expected ... a headless, well mutilated body of a pigeon.

Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to witness the activities of a pair of pigeons from their courtship, through their intimate moments, nest building, egg hatching and finally first flights of the fledglings. The pigeons always hang out on pairs and I was acutely aware of this pigeons mate standing forlornly in the middle of our drive looking lost. As I cleared up the remains, the lone pigeon sat quietly on a nearby fence ... still ... watching. What was going through it's mind?

I know what was going through my mind!!! If I knew which of my neighbours had allowed their cat to exercise it's natural instincts in my garden, I would have taken the mutilated corpse back to the neighbour and told them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine!!!

My apologies to any of my followers who are cat owners, but I am seething right now. So much so that when I sat down a few hours later to pickup my sketch pad and pen, there was only one thing on my mind.

Zebra

Considering my next drawing/painting I reflected on how much I enjoyed drawing the Leopard with all of his unique markings and tried to think of another animal whose markings made it unique. There are several, but rummaging through some of my old photo's for inspiration I found this chappy.


Some years ago my family and I were driving slowly around the Woburn Safari Park here in the UK when a small herd of Zebra strolled aimlessly in front of us. It was a great photo opportunity. Zebra's are very social animals spending all their time in herds and they live in small family groups much as we do. Each animal's stripes are as distinctive as fingerprints, and no two zebra's are exactly alike. I'd like to think even this one's own mother would recognise him. LOL.

Leopard

When I came across the photograph of this big cat, I felt I just had to have a go at drawing it. Thoughout the process I've been thinking of this fine animal as a Cheetah, but I've been looking at other images on the net and am fairly sure this is a Leopard.

I know some of friends will tell me I shouldn't mention my mistakes but my blog, web site and art forum are aimed at beginners who may well find themselves in the same situation one day, so for them here are two things I could have dealt with better.

Firstly, I was working from a colour photo so I converted it to greyscale to help me get the tones correct. A leopards markings involve a brownish-goldy colour and black spots. By converting to grey, I lost the goldy colouring completely. Had I referred back to the colour version from time to time I would have noticed this. The second mistake was leaving the white whiskers until last. I completely forgot all about them and by the time I got to them they would have been difficult to do, so I opted for black whiskers.

I also used hard pencils for the first time. My normal selection is HB, 2B, 4B, 6B and 8B. For this drawing I  used 5H, 2H, HB and 6B. Fewer pencils but a broader range. I had expected the hard pencils to not produce a very black line but was pleasantly surprised.

Different pencils and two serious mistakes ... am I disappointed? No ... I am three more step along this wonderful journey of discovery.

I saw him .... and he saw me.

Pencil on Smooth Surface Cartridge Paper

While strolling on the beach in Torbay last year I saw this Gull standing at the waters edge picking things out of the water in his beak. I took out my camera, as you do, and took a few shots. With some 'in the can' I moved in closer ... and then closer still. He seemed quite happy to continue 'fishing' for his dinner, though when I was framing up this shot, he did give me an inqisitive stare. Out of all the shots I took of him, this is the one I like best.

I'm not very good at identifying birds but though I've been referring to him as a Seagull I suspect this chappy is more correctly known as a Herring Gull. I'm happy to be corrected if anyone out there knows for sure.

Second attempt

Well here is my second attempt at drawing the white German Shepherd. This time I decided on a head and shoulders portrait as there are more tones around her ears and muzzle. I was desperate not to have to shade in a dark background in order to make her look white and I think I've achieved that to some extent, though there are some parts of her that I'm less pleased with. She's a very 'fluffy' dog and I found it difficult trying to capture the softness of her fur.

I again used Bristol Board and I have mixed views of it. It is heavy and very smooth, which makes it tollerant of the eraser, but it lacks 'tooth' which results in very pale tones. The jury is still out as far as I'm concerned and I'll reserve judgement until I've used it some more. The light tones could just be me trying hard to keep the subject white.

PS - I've just visited Crystal's site and looked at her Labrador on Bristol Board. Can't fault the medium there - it's wonderful.

One that went wrong

Both my blog and my web site are aimed at beginners. Not because I think I can teach anyone anything when it comes to art, but because most beginners need a lot of encouragement. Beginners get things wrong and that can be soul destroying. I suspect many beginners have given up before they've even started, just because that first effort turned out poorly and they decided they weren't capable. I like to show beginners that it's ok for things to go haywire and that no picture is a bad picture, as long as we learn from it.

In that vein, here's one that went badly wrong. It is a graphite drawing of a white German Shepherd and so I decided a grey background was necessary to help the subject stand out on the paper. I decided to use Bristol Board for the first time. I'm not the bad workman blaming his tools and I make no excuse for the quality of the drawing, but for some reason I did have a lot of trouble shading the background and I just couldn't achieve the smooth, even tone that I was trying for. All of my horizontal pencil lines were clearly visible, so I decided to go over again with vertical strokes. These were also visible so I went over again with diagonals. The more I did, the worse it became, and in the end looked like the scribbled mess that 4-year olds produce (with apologies to 4-year old's).

Having decided the picture was ruined I consoled myself with a 15-year old malt. I pondered on my drawing and decided that rather than discard it I would think about how it might be salvaged in some way. Rubbing out the background didn't work as I couldn't get a clean enough canvas, so I decided to add 'scribble' on top of 'scribble' to create the impression of field and trees.

The end result is still awful, but it is better than it was. It's not good enough to give to the dog's owner so I shall start over and try and get it right next time. I learned as much about drawing, pencils and Bristol Board during the rescue process as I did before it all went pear-shaped. So my message to beginners is don't be afraid to attempt a 'rescue' when things go wrong; even if it can't be salvaged, find a way of finishing it off that adds to your drawing/painting experience; and don't be ashamed to show your effort to others, nor afraid of the feedback that may come as a result.

Now it's back to the drawing board to start over ... although I may attempt a head & shoulders portrait this time.

Excited about this one.

I haven't enjoyed any art or posted to my blog for quite a while because I simply haven't had time. I had a long-overdue garden project to deal with that involved moving a concrete slabbed path, and I also got roped in for changing my daughter and son-in-law's bathroom suite. Throw on top of that my usual day-job and planning and arranging a special weekend for my wife's 60th birthday, and important matters like art just get pushed onto the back-burner. Whatever online time I've been able to find has been directed into trying to maintain some sort of presence in my art forum.

One piece of bad news is that my wife developed a rather nasty mouth infection leading to a massive absess just days before her special weekend. As a result we've had to postpone our trip, but it will still go ahead in due course. It won't be the same, not being on her birthday, but at least she will still get her treat.

While all this has been going on, a friend of my wife's has approached me to do a drawing of her brothers dog. I popped down to her house the other day to take some reference photo's and fell instantly in love. What an animal this is. A white German Shepherd, with hints of gold here and there, a fine brown nose and the bushiest bushy tail you could ever imagine. I have never painted an animal portrait before though have done reasonably well with graphite. Consequently I'd not thought of using anything other than graphite ... until I saw the dog. I took 66 reference photo's and have no idea which pose to use, but as soon as I saw the colouring I realised that graphite was never going to do justice to such a fine animal. I'm always happy to hear suggestions and advice so feel free to give me your views. In the meantime I'm in 'think' mode. I've often wondered about buying some Bristol Board and having a go with coloured pencils ... maybe now is the time.

Gulf Challenge

A short while ago, Sandra included me in her Gulf Challenge. Here is my effort.

Gulf Challenge

One of my followers, Sandra, invited me to take part in the Gulf Challenge. I have agreed though available time is an issue. Still, I will get there.

In the meantime, I remembered this photograph I took a while ago of a Black Headed Gull. The Gull's expression says it all. Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Red Breasted Friend

While moving some conifers in my garden I was joined by my friend the Robin. An inquisitive little chap, he was forever getting under foot. Mind you, if I put down my spade and picked up my camera he would hop it. And so we played our cat and mouse game all afternoon. I would do some digging while he dodged my spade, then he'd hide in the trees while I held my camera. In the end I finished my digging and cleared away my tools ready to go indoors. My playmate then sat on a tree and sang and I like to think he was thanking me for a couple of hours of fun.

Rosie

This is a pencil portrait of 'Rosie', a German Shepherd owned by a friend of ours. I drew Rosie when she was a puppy but the only reference photo I had was of her looking into the bright sun with a very significant squint. I considered drawing her eyes open but they are so important that, without some reference, I was worried it wouldn't look like her.

Now she is a teenager. It's interesting drawing her without the fluffiness she had as a pup. Regrettably, the best photo of her had closed eyes again, but this time I had other photo's with eyes open that I could refer to.

I was in the process of scanning the image when my friend arrived. We were talking as the scanned image of Rosie scrolled down my monitor. My friends face was worth it's weight in gold because I could see for myself that she'd recognised Rosie straight off.

Song Thrush

Last week, a very good friend came to visit. The weather was absolutely fabulous as Britain basked in week-long heatwave hitting temperatures around 32 degrees. Although we went out to see a few local sites, a great deal of our time was spent in the garden. We were eating breakfast on the patio, enjoying a midday snack in whatever shade we could find, and wining and dining into the evening. But the biggest joy was this Song Thrush who would arrive in the tree tops whenever we ventured out, and would sing his heart out for hour after hour.

Though not the sort of subject I would normally paint, I can't wait to have a go at painting this shot.

Sad or angry?

I have a keen interest in trying to take photo's of birds in flight. I think it's the challenge of getting the shot that appeals to me. Sadly, I'm not very good at it. My Sony DSC-H9 does a pretty good job of zooming in with it's x15 optical zoom, but focusing is a major challenge. Birds invariably fly faster than the auto focus can lock on to them. I've tried setting the camera on manual focus but then you've got to be extremely lucky as to whether or not a bird passes at the predetermined distance. Small apertures to maximise the depth of field only serve to slow down the shutter speed and high ISO settings introduce image noise. As a result of all of the above I have scores of blurred, out of focus, under-exposed, noisey near-misses, and no worthwhile photo's to be proud of. That said, that is the challenge, and one day I shall catch a bird just right and the hard work will have been worthwhile.

This is one of the best I've taken so far. I don't know if this Black Headed Gull is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders or if he's just pee'd off with my camera in his face everytime he flies past. Whatever the reason for his misery, this photo is worth keep for his expression alone .... photographic merit seems irrelevant somehow.

Matt Dillon

No, not the 60's hero of that great TV Western 'Gunsmoke', but the name of this Tabby cat.

Matt Dillon belongs to .... correction ... a good friend of mine belongs to Matt Dillon. One day, Matt wandered up to my friends home and decided he liked it. We have no idea where he hung out before that and assume he may have been living rough in a semi-wild state. Whatever his past was, he soon adopted my friend and has made her home, his home. He has already shown the local hound who the boss is. When she was telling me the story a few weeks ago, I couldn't resist the urge to draw him and she kindly sent me a photo to work from.