Monthly Archives: Dec 2005

New Year’s eve

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6°C, westerly, some sunny bits, some wet.
47½ miles- At last! I’ve needed a ride all week- now I’m sated.
 
I don’t really need a new year’s resolution this time, usually I do. Previously it has been the same one- sleep more. Now I’m getting 6½ to 7 hours a night! Yeay! I feel much better for it too.
 
Today is a second longer. This year has a "Leap second" to adjust time to suit variations in the Earth’s rotation. Look out for an extra "pip" as the radio/TV broadcasts get to 23.60 hrs.

Paint & decorate

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4°C dropping to -4 or worse!
It’s taken until now finding time to get on with that painting. Domestic stuff has filled my day, painting, assembling white goods, assembling flat-packs from Ikea. I should get paid for this; it’s my holiday you know!
 
Now I’m off to do something useful….
Finished one! Twohats is done, below is a closeup but if you want an overall view, it’s in the Finished Paintings section. It’s the first one I have done on those canvas boards- you know the canvas stretched onto hard cardboard.
Seems like good stuff – especially after adding a layer of gesso – I judged the surface to be a bit coarse.
That leads me onto the next problem- when it comes to mounting the picture- erm… how? Presumably I have to get some routed wood and mitre it to fit. Sounds ok, but lacks control on exact framing, the mitre limits the edge overhang to the same amount on all sides.
 
Still- it looks ok though. Aaand… I returned to the folded arms picture. Maybe this can be used to the pink/green idea discussed recently.

leaden roads

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4 dropping to 0°C
Snow is on its way. Another Christmas done, and getting back to normal now.
Rode out to Measham and Twycross Zoo today, often the Elephants are visible from the side road, but not today. There were visitors though; I’m told that the only day that place is shut is christmas day itself.
Too much rich food, too much central heating. No painting done since the 23rd.
45½ miles today, again the roads looked like lead (the metal), occasionally smeared in redish silty mud. Fields green.
Graphics tablet: I’m tempted to put Corel Painter back on the try this out. There are a few things I need to check out with colour anyway. Green & pink!

Midwinter

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10°C, clouds up quite high.
It’s mid-winter, yesterday may have been the shortest day, but either the afternoons get shorter or the mornings still lighten later, I can’t remember which way round it is.
OK just found it: daylight hours. Currently, sunset and sunrise are both getting later. the worst dark mornings are around the 2nd January. 12 December has the worst sunset time. The two cycles are out of phase by about 3 days.
 
Talking of cycles: 33.4 miles on muddly lanes = nice warm feeling with the urge to sleep deeply.
Painting: Twohat has a new hat. It’s getting a bit ripped in places. The faces are still terrible, I feel like going back to the previous method ( orange+white+B. sienna), it seemed easier to introduce deeper colours in shadows. On shadows- it still lacks the "self-shadowing" effect that marks out the more realistic pictures; yep- that’s the key for this one!
Oh well, too tired to decide now.

Flashy

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10°C. dry
Tecchies installed the new version of Macromedia Flash (v.8) on a few machines on the school network today. It’s part of the whole Macromedia Studio. Having a short period to play with it, I’d say it’s vastly easier to use than the one I have played with before. I feel encouraged to actually learn this app. properly now.
 
I have something to show now. A slideshow that displays pictures from one of my sketchbooks. These files can be locked so that the contents can’t be extracted. I can also easily change the pictures, so perhaps it’s a good idea for my web-site’s splash page.
Sample slideshow:->See here
 
Oh yeah- and it’s term’s end now. I’m going to drink some tea.

Cold, dry and dusty

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56 miles on the bike, it was dry and the roads white with salt. Gutters are even whiter with ice from overnight temperatures of -4°C. It seems more tiring when the temperatures are low, swo I decided to keep the distance cycled quite low.
-1 to +4°C, clear dry and icy , later- rain.

Plumes

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7°C
News disaster shock. The oil depot that blew up on Sunday morning is a remarkable story. Not just because of the incredible pictures , but also the incredible news sotories that are bing published about it:
Daily Mail "Apocalyptic Scenes"
Daily Express "Hell on Earth"
Do we really get the newspapers we deserve?
"Environmental disaster?", I’m not sure. Most of that black stuff is carbon isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean it will get washed out of the air when it rains? If this explosion hadn’t happened- the fuel would have been burnt extremely efficiently which releases CO2, which doesn’t get washed out when it rains.

I realise that locally – it is a disaster, but globally maybe not. I need some expert info on this.

How winter should be

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8°C,

70 miles, no ice, but there’s mud everywhere. Really dark mud, full of leaves even though the trees stil have most of theirs,  dried &  brown.
It’s been a dayfull, 5 hours of cycling ( if you include cafe stops) and about that much again working up this animation for the charity video. the frame below shows a near-done preview. Some of this involves finding where various settings are. Now I know how to deinterlace. That stripey jagged look in the background is now gone. the firey bits look much better as of this evening.
 
remember the Sparrow killing story? Here’s some followup.
The organisers argued the killing was justified, as more than 100 people had worked for a month setting up the dominoes

Will it? Won’t it?

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10°C; lot warmer

Will it or won’t it arrive before christmas. I may as well cancel that book order I placed with Amazon in September, but curiosity spurs me to find out exactly how long it does take.

Dear Customer,

We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order [**********].
We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed.
Christer Bergstrom, Andrey Mikhailov "Black Cross/Red Star: The Air War Over the Eastern Front"
Our current estimate is that it will take an additional 3-5 weeks to obtain these items for you. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

It’s been 3 to 5 months so far!P>

Tchoh!

Made dinner with some packet stir-fry yesterday. It said "ready to cook in 6 minutes".

Why wait 6 minutes before you can cook it?