A GREAT LITTLE FIND.

 Just before Christmas I came upon a small book called 'My Year in Small Drawings by Matilda Tristram.  There is lots of sound advice on making the effort  to draw frequently, and I am trying to do one or two tiny sketches each day.  It is more or less working - some days I forget so I make it up on others.

There are hints and suggestions for topics throughout the book, but I have decided to draw what interests me most though when I run out of ideas the hints are useful.

I started on 23rd Dec. by drawing my coffee mug, carriage clock and wrist watch.  Sometimes I will copy something from a photograph or book, or just draw my hand or a shoe - anything within reach.

Each page in the book is divided into 4cm squares which is not too daunting, and there are 12 squares on each page. I aim at filling three squares every day.  I am already starting to want more space, (which seems to be a good sign), and also wanting to add colour.  So far I have been using a very fine pen and putting up with the wrong lines, but am looking forward to using pencil and being able to correct any wrong lines.

 I have taken a few photos and tried to post them without success, and am beginning to wonder if the fault is with my camera and not with my laptop.  Oh dear - I don't want to have to get used to another new gadget!  I'll have to get one of my offspring to look at both for me and give their advice.

A Bit of Magic.

My daughter was telling me about a film she had seen called 'Loving Vincent'.  It is about the life of the artist Vincent van Gogh and  is presented almost like a detective story with various people who knew him trying to work out why he killed himself.   Far from being morbid it is poignant but magical, as all the characters are costumed and made up to resemble those in his paintings, and all the backdrops and locations are handpainted by a team of artists to replicate the paintings themselves.   It is as though his paintings have come to life.

If you, like me, enjoy Vincent van Gogh's work, you can find this film on Netflix.  I thought it was amazing, and quite beautiful - I have never seen anything like it and was spellbound.    It was made by a Polish film company and I hope they will be recognised for their skill and imagination.

I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  WISH  ALL  MY  BLOGLAND  FRIENDS  A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS  AND  A  HAPPY  NEW  YEAR,  AND  FOR  THOSE  WHO  MAY  NOT  BE  FEELING  VERY MERRY  MAY  THEY  FIND  PEACE  OF  MIND.

Partial Success.

I have been trying out a new way of posting photos and this one was taken about 4 years ago.  I love the lacy effect that the nibbling insects have created in this dock leaf.

I used this as an experiment to see if I could post photos again but it isn't what I was looking for.  For some reason all the more recent photos which are on my camera don't seem to have been transferred onto the laptop.  All I have to do now is figure out why!

It is very remiss of me not to have posted for so long but I suppose I have nothing interesting to report or show you.  Life has swept me along and kept me busy and I am still plucking up the courage to draw something worthwhile.   What is new?   I am hoping it will be like a boil and suddenly burst and I can shout 'Eureka'!

See you shortly.

Treasure Trove.

We are fortunate enough to have an excellent charity bookshop here run by volunteers of the Lions Club, and on my way back from my little walk this morning I popped in.  I found a biography of William Morris by Fiona MacCarthy,  'The sea, the sea' by Iris Murdoch and Susan Howatch's 'A question of Integrity'.   That will set me up for quite a while.   The William Morris book weighs almost 2kg and is 5cms thick!   While reading it I shall count it as exercise!

I have been making books again, but in a very different style from the usual ones.  I take pages out of a no longer wanted book but one that has a strong cover, and cover it with fabric before binding  in my own pages.  The first one has turned out to be a sort of scrapbook, holding bits and pieces too precious to throw away, plus odds and end of pictures of a variety of things I particularly like.  It is not complete yet but is already fatter than it should be.

The second one is a sketchbook full of plain white pages just waiting to be coloured and drawn onto.  I found that I had so many sheets of various papers that it seemed a good way of sorting them out and tidying things up a bit.

 My collection of knitting yarns is gradually diminishing and the pile of Twiddle Muffs for dementia patients is steadily growing.   I must get them finished and off to the hospital.

The shower room is complete and looks so nice.  It is lovely to have everything back to normal again.

I am slowing recovering from the glorious summer weather which just about knocked me out.  I have done things like cleaning windows and ironing during the past week, as well as catching up on lost sleep.  Today is overcast but not sticky, thank goodness, and I have just had to close the window as I felt a bit too cool.

I live in hope of getting rid of the 'wont-post-pictures' gremlin which lives in my laptop and am just waiting for my daughter to stop being so busy before I shout for her help.

Spending time reading the blogs of others is no excuse for not making more frequent blog posts myself but the days and weeks just fly by and become months before I know it.  Maybe I wont leave it so long next time.

Oh, the relief!!

I woke up to see puddles in the road this morning and by the time I was eating my breakfast I was listening to another heavy shower.   It is comfortably cool today and by the look of the sky, there will be more lovely rain to come.   Sorry to those who wanted a dry weekend, but I am revelling in it.

The plumber has been working his magic and my shower room is looking good already.  He wont be back until Wednesday as B&Q can't deliver the shower panel until then.  First of all it was left off my original order so I had to phone for one.   I had hoped to order and pay for it over the phone but that wasn't possible, so it meant another trip to do that.  Then just when I thought it was sorted, I was told that the one I had ordered was damaged.  Hence the wait for a replacement.  Luckily the plumber isn't going on holiday until the week after next.

I haven't been out for three days and am looking forward to a walk.  I don't even care if I get wet.  I am definitely not a tropical bloom - just a regular wild flower!   If you are still waiting for some rain I hope yours will arrive soon.

Still no pictures.

Today is S-Day.   8.30am and the plumber has just arrived to demolish my shower room and refit it for me.  He is a treasure and answers his phone and turns up when he says he will.  I have been waiting for this day since the end of March, when a plumber I thought I could trust first came to see what needed to be done.  He even went as far as bringing catalogues for me to look through to choose the fittings.  I last saw him toward the end of April when he promised me an estimate after the May bank holiday.   That came and went and I phoned several times but no-one answered, and left messages,  but have not heard from him at all.  My son put me onto this new plumber and I am keeping him a secret - he is too good to share!

I have just learned that the heat is supposed to increase next week.  Where can I hide?  If our heat was not so humid I'd be OK but I wasn't made for these very un-English summers.  The grass everywhere around here is bleached to the colour of hay.   So many times lovely clouds have built up, looking very promising, but they drift by without a drop of rain.   I can't help thinking that farmers and fruit growers will have a bad year this year.

My teddy bears have all been distributed to their new owners as my count of great-grandchildren has risen to 8 this year.   Proud fathers, tired mothers and beautiful babies, and one very happy pair of grandparents as the other two pairs were already grandparents.

Production of the 'twiddle muffs' has been slowed right down owing to the hot weather.  My hands get so sticky,  but I have managed to make a couple of books using a new method of construction.   It does entail murdering a perfectly sound book so some of you may find that a bit much, however I only use those books which no-one wants any more and recycle them.  I have found some very useful tutorials on Pinterest.  I wonder if they offer tutorials on how to cope with these rather extreme conditions.