Videos online

13°C, clouds- mostly


More cycling today.
Photobucket: have made a massive upgrade to their free accounts. It’s shot up from the origonal 25Mb to 1 gigabyte. Aaannnnd, it will accept video now. the video clips are converted to the Flash format ( *.flv). I suppose it’s a shrewd marketing move on their part, they can sell DVD compilations to users.
Nevermind, I can still make use of it to side-step my own isp’s refusal to provide more web-space. shame on you Claranet.

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Hamstrung tight

13°C, +


Ouch: my hamstrings hurt. They have toghtened up and gone all achey. It’ll be Ok if I do lots of toe touching (mine that is). It’s Sunday, so as any past visitors will know, it’s cycling-day. Only did 56 miles today but that’s on top of quite a cumilative distance last week. Holidays are good aren’t they? Good times are upon us: I have a new camera- which I’m still excited about. It’s now got enough internal memory to store 6,375 pictures if they are really tiny ones.
thanks to PicStop.

Walrus: Opened up an old model to add a few finisheing ddetails to the 3D. It’s about ready for mapping and texturing. As I’ve said before, this plane was designed by Mitchell – the same bloke who did the Spitfire for Supermarine. It’s a more recent design that the Spit’. but has a canopy that looks like it’s from a holiday caravan.

“in the shed”

8+°C, clearing & light winds.

Dog trouble: Rosie is a dog that barks a lot; it’s loud too. She likes to bark at the nieghbour’s cat the most, it’s so exciting that she jumps up at the window while making that terrible racket. She has the technique of opening the door to the living room making it hard th keep her out of there, the room where she barks most. She thinks that barking at that cat is the best fun you have have with your coat on.
We’ve tried many things to restrain her, the latest being "to the shed!". That is shut her in the outside loo for five minutes then let her out. She always comes out looking a bit sheepish- which, if you had a poodle you’d understand.
I wonder though, what she thinks when I go to that loo and shut myself in. Does she roll her eyes while I’m in there?

A long hungry wait

10°C


Eat out at a restaurant last night; Joe Delucci’s in Lichfield. Our table was booked for 20.15 for 12 of us celebrating a friend’s birthday. We placed out orders at about 20.40. The starter arrived an hour later, though it was delicious. The main course was another hour after that. By then I was dizzy with hunger, when it did arrive I had to ask for cutlery a few times before I got it and was so hungry I started eating risotto with a steak knife.
We coluld have gone over the road to a pizza takaway while we waited,  eaten and digested that without spoiling my apetite for the sit-down meal.
 
Never again.

Camera – the winning

6°C, it’s snowing now!

Painting: The SubSveins picture is now complete and posted in the "Oil paintings finished" section. It’s the second one( or at least until I finishe another one) – press the square to restart the slideshow.
 
Won: I got the older camera of the two Sonys. See the bigger picture in the previous post.
I hope I made the right decision with that. The one I got is more versatile, but the one I didn’t feels more natual to use. Oh well… 
On the subject of photography, below are some photos of dramatic skies taken with  my current 2 mp camera. 


Aviation Art: interesting website(Robin Smith). It seems that the best painters of this gentre began as landscape painters.
And another one, Wade Meyer– an especially interesting page, he describes the technique. Drawings of aeroplanes with the slightest errors of geometry can look hideously wrong.

Cameras, the bidding

5°C, Hail


Cycling: 51 miles, got home just as the first hailstorms started.

Camera shopping: bidding on eBay for a Sony digital camera.
There are two that really appeal. The lower one, which is the newer model looked perfect in the shop I visited yesterday. The only thing is- it can’t record video clips. In most other respects, it’s a better camera. On eBay generally selling for £100 more.
 
The two cameras are compared here:
 
 
 
There’s a really detailed review on this american website of the other camera high up on my wish-list. Thus
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Eeeé

8°C, less wind, fewer showers, still sun.


Linseed: Used a No.2 brush- eeek! the picture has earings, eyes etc. the cheek needs another glaze, something odd has happend with the gradients there. Nevertheless, it’s going in the right direction.

It’s good to be over that "purple-patch " that stopped me painting in the middle of term. We break up for Easter tomorrow.

Banshee

4 to 9°C, clear & bright. But there’s a long streak of mustard brown coming over from Rugely power station.


00.40am. Woken by the most chilling, piercing screaming from an almost unnatural sounding source. It echoed around the brownfield site back there in the icy air, in a complex mix of baby-crying, injured animal sound  with wolf-howl urgency. I suspect foxes. Not  fox, there were two sounds intermingling. Perhaps a pair of foxes intermingling .
It echoed for real around the yards and still does in my head. A sticking thought.

 
Linseed: SubCutaniuous has hair now. It’s ginger, which is more complex than it seems. It took some working up- with cadmium orange (obviously) B.Umber, T white and chrome yellow. And, since I was on, I put another glaze on skin tones, just to work up the lustre. What fun seeing it develop each day- I like this one.
 
As before, I will pass on the photograph today, you’ll have to wait.

Glass drop

7°C


Laurie anderson:

  Langue D’Amour
Let’s see. Uh, it was on an island. And there was this snake.
And the snake had legs. And he could walk all around the island.
Yes. That’s true. A snake with legs.
And the man and the woman were on the island too.
And they were not very smart.
But they were happy as clams. Yes.
Let’s see. Uh…then one evening the snake was walking about
in the garden and he was talking to himself and he saw the woman
and they started to talk. And they became friends.
Very good friends.
And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he make little noises with his tongue, and his long tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And this woman liked this very much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.
What did the snake say? Yes! What was he saying?
OK. I will tell you.
The snake told her things about the world. He told her about
the time there was a big typhoon on the island
and all the sharks came out of the water. Yes.
They came out of the water and they walked right into your house
with their big white teeth.
And the woman heard these things. And she was in love.
And the man came out and said: We have to go now!
And the woman did not want to go. Because she was a hothead.
Because she was a woman in love.
Anyway, we got into their boat and left the island.
But they never stayed anywhere very long.
Because the woman was restless. She was a hothead.
She was a woman in love.
And this is not a story people tell.
It is something I know myself.
And when I do my job, I am thinking about these things.
Because when I do my job, that is what I think about

 
Photo: The whole view from the back of the house is visible in this little blob of glass. something odd is happening in msn spaces. Often when I try to upload a picture to a post, no picture appears, instead I get two blank "drafts".

click clack

10°C, strong wind & heavy showers


Cycling: those cables did the job. Nice clean gearshifts at last.
66 miles.

Linseed: Wasn’t going to post a picture today, but having put in another hour, it’s clearer where this picture is going. The blue veins will be pulled right back, the colour needs to be quite strong for now so it’s ready for the next frotte. Also, I plan to change the profile around the chin.
I’ve noticed that pictures at this stage don’t show changes as obviously in photos posted online. Perhaps tomorrow a close-up then?