It's perhaps not come as a surprise to regular readers that I haven't had much to post about during the last 18 months. A succession of lockdowns, interspersed with brief periods of a wary release have taken their toll on many. We've had close family calls with Covid, but (touching wood!) it's not hit directly, but our son-in-law had a brush with it and it was a relief when the horrendous coughing went away without our daughter or granddaughter catching it.
About the only thing I could do was get out the guitar for some practice (a lot of new songs into my own personal repertoire!) and the pencils and paints out for the occasional bit of artwork whenever I felt like it - sadly not as often as the music.
For most of these I couldn't even sit in front of the view whilst drawing it. Most came from images from the Internet which (either by design or because I'm a sometimes rubbish artist) are not quite a total rip-off of someone else's photographic talent. Equally sadly though, I have no idea where many of them are... 3 May 2020. The real bridge had just the two arches. I added another to allow for a gap between the foliage on the left and right banks.
10 August 2020. Lockdown had eased somewhat and we had ordered a replacement window for the living room as the original one opened inwards and immediately hit the venetian blind. In other words we couldn't open it at all. It's the coldest room in the house, only getting a mere sliver of sunshine if it happens to be shining before we get up, but even so... Whilst the workmen had asked us not to breathe out at all or sit somewhere else in the house I sat in the conservatory, itself waiting for workmen to start wrecking and rebuilding it, and did this pencil sketch over a couple of hours. I added a boat - look carefully! - and changed the nature of the building.
7 September 2020. We visited friends down in the village of Dulcote near Wells in Somerset, who have a guest house. This is it. The White House used to be a village pub and coaching inn and has flagged floors, a delicious atmosphere, and a resident ghost who sits supping in the corner "just where you are sitting, John!", Mary commented. Luckily the only beings sitting on my lap were Mary's dog and then later, the cat. Apparently they don't usually show so much trust. "It's like having Doctor Doolittle in the house!" I was told. "Aw, rubbish" I scoffed, "By the way, the goldfish says he wants a worm treat..."
Later that same day, we headed out to Cheddar, where we found a little cafe to have lunch in. The caves were all closed, as were many of the small shops. Fran had a wander as I started another sketch of a row of tiny cottages. It started to rain as I was doing this, gently at first but after Fran had come back to me it came down in earnest and we upped sticks and found refuge under the awning of a pub beer garden where a Guinness helped me complete the sketch!
9 September 2020. The Bishop's Gatehouse, Wells. We ate our lunch overlooking the moat around the Bishop's Palace and afterwards went into the garden through this wonderful gatehouse. There was a picnic area just inside and I sat on one of a few stray chairs at the back of it to do this. A woman at a nearby table came across to talk to me and have a look. At one time I'd have been horribly self-concious at that and worried I'd do something to cock it up. In the event the two sides should really be the same width, the right hand one is much too wide.
18 October 2020. A quick sketch on a Sunday afternoon. I find it so hard to draw human figures, and know I should keep practising. This was quite an attractive photograph - wasn't hard to stare at it for an hour or so! Typically proportions went a bit haywire, her back is a bit long and the miniskirt she was wearing looks more like a pair of shorts...
Miss Franny bought me a huge box of pencil crayons for Christmas and I sat down on the 27th December for around three hours, doing this study of Venice's Ponte Rialto in my A4 sketch book.
29 December 2020. Determined to get a drawing of a human figure right... I do one that looks all wrong! She has a longer back than the previous attempt! Friends of the male variety tried to console me by commenting on my mastery of buttocks...
4 January 2021. An afternoon's sketching of the view from Portofino's square in front of the Church of St George. This is looking in the opposite direction to the famous view of Portofino's approach and harbour and is from one of my own photographs.
25 January 2021. The castle came from an online photo and I've no idea where it is. If anyone recognises it, please leave a comment and let me know.
12 February 2021. Port Mogan on Gran Canaria from one of my own photos, during the post Christmas 2020 lockdown. Pencil in the A4 sketchbook from one of my photos taken in 2007. People! Not looking too horrendous!
24 February 2021. Human figures starting to look a bit more real, though the right eye widened a bit. In actual size this eye was only about 2mm from top to bottom so it was just a slight slip with the crayon. Two days later, the consensus on Facebook was that I should extend down and add the feet. This was a huge mistake as I was already perilously close to the bottom of the A4 sheet and I ended up giving the poor girl tiny feet on very short below-knee legs... You are not seeing that version!
I bought myself a new easel and spent a frustrating few days trying to assemble the thing. The bloke who drilled one piece didn't talk to the bloke drilling screw holes in the piece that was supposed to afix to it and screws just went through the top piece and said a firm "Whoa!" when they reached solid wood halfway through. However it finally got done and I attached an A2 piece of paper and tested out some new pastels on it with this picture of a Cotswolds scene.
30 April 2021. I had bought a set of sable brushes for watercolours and this was my test piece using the largest No.12 brush throughout. Watercolours are more difficult than pastels methinks! This was done on a piece of card slightly smaller than A4. Perhaps I needed a bit more room to work on!
29 July 2021. Going slightly stir crazy at all the time spent at home, we booked a few days down in Great Yarmouth for what should have left a few weeks gap after the release of all restrictions. In the event, the 21st June target got pushed back a month and we found ourselves acting as pioneers. We found that no cafes in the town would let you sit inside no matter what the weather (though no such problem with restaurants) and in nearby Cromer the cafe where we had lunch denied customers use of their toilets sending me and a woman at the next table in her 80s on a long walk with dodgy directions to the nearest public toilets. How inhuman and despicable can you get? If you sell food and drink for consumption on your premises, denying people the most basic human function is akin to torture and abuse. You should remain closed if you feel you cannot allow customers to use a toilet. I was so mad I considered pissing all over the floor behind their counter... This is the Harbour Master's office at Oulton Broad on our last day before coming home.
8 August 2021. One of my friends - an ex-boss in fact - who lives in France, took a few photos of the town of Poundenas on a trip out. I saw these on FaceBook and chose this one to have a go at. The town has several other viewpoints that just cry out for the same treatment. When I get the time...
Tuesday 24 August 2021. A morning walk into Poulton, since 2019 our home town a couple of miles inland from Blackpool, with Miss Franny and our granddaughter, Grace. I sat in the churchyard whilst the other two looked round the shops and brought back ice cream and coffees. It felt so good to be sitting outside and sketching a view from in front of me again. Plus a couple of people commented as they walked past which was nice too. It did cost me dinner in the nearby New Penny cafe.
Thursday 26 August 2021. We took Grace to the zoo for the afternoon and I sat sketching this building - the old airport clubhouse with observation tower from the time when Blackpool's airport was sited here in the 1930s. Amy Johnson flew from it and is remembered in the name of a road near the current airport at Squires Gate. The zoo opened here in 1972, the honours being carried out by much-loved TV presenter Johnny Morris, who rode in on the back of an elephant in pouring rain. This area was once shared by the elephants, rhinos and giraffes (though different species were kept well apart). The zoo no longer has rhinos and the giraffes got a new purpose built environment and more recently the last remaining elephant, Kate, was also moved into a very large new environment where she has been joined by more elephants. The camels have moved into residence here now and this sketch marks my very first attempt to draw an animal from real life. They don't stand still all that much...
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