Author Archives: essiep

Scaffolding down

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18°C, wet then dry, 73% humid.

Scaffolding: the house is now uncaged: I really hated having that surrounding us; it was ugly, restrictive and blocked the TV antenna. The worst bit for me was sleeping in another room because the window couldn’t open against a steel pole. Sleeping with a window closed is really quite unpleasant.

Left-handedness: I just marked some coursework which has to be bound by the pupils. This one had put the binding on the right-hand edge so pages opened to the left. Sitting with it on my desk, leafing through pages as I mark while checking against the criteria booklet justified my decision to accept that presentation gracefully. It was actually easier to mark- so thanks to Catherine W.. I hope your handedness is accepted by the others.
We can be this flexible with art-books too- the books are symmetrical and I issue stickers for name-writing. For a few years now, the left-handers are informed that it’s fine to put the sticker on the "other cover" so it opens to the left. I have started to do that myself with sketchbooks. A practice I intend to expand on- why not do it with ring-binders.

Eternal damnation

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19°C, rain.

Homecoming: Got home tonight to find the dogs barking energetically at the door. It was that "intruder" bark- each barkworthy event has its own bark. In this case there were a pair of smartly dressed young men who had the aura of religious loonacy. My opener was very blunt-
Who are you then?
in a smarmy US voice "we’re from the church of god" (or something similar)
so I sent them off with :
"I’m not interested- go away"
Then they did. Result!
 
I really was not in the mood for that delerious starry-eyed smarmy nonsense.
Music:
Lisa Gerrard- Mirror Pool
I’ve had this album for years, but rediscovered it recently. There is something sublime about it- especially when the male voices fill the background- such restrained power, paced out and volumous. Breathtaking.

Scaffolding

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19°C,

Builders: we are surrounded by scaffolding. There is a new roof above, dust on the garden and some delicate delightful flowering plants crushed out of existence. On the upside, despite the high cost of the kind of house repair, there is a new loan in the bank. It pays the builder, and also means that my hirepurchase car is actually mine now. Final icing on the cake is that the monthyl repayments are for the same period but fewer monies each month.
Good innit?
 
Notice the tree in this picture. It was blown down in a January gale. But look closely – it’s growing still- it has leaves and pollen things. Look even closer and you can see Rosie the poodle having a poop.

in the shadow of leafless trees

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24°C, clear as milk

Hike: Hartington in Derbyshire is a good place for a hike, just a short one today- only about 2 miles. Today is even hotter which explains a certain oddness in the landscape- hot, sheep sheltering in the shadow of leafless trees. Though deep blue skies are overhead, the landscape is bathed in a milky light from thin mist.

Audale

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16°C, !; C=41 miles

Odd the things you see when out in the countryside. See photo below.
 
Turpentine: this is going to take longer than I thought. The picture (to be posted later) doesn’t look very different -which is inself, no big deal. Today’s session was spent working out the anatomy and pose of the main character. Something worth persisting with to get this right which affects the success of the whole picture for the next week or two.

Into The Woods

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12°C, grey gray day

To celebrate the end of term:
 
Just ordered this, by the lead vocalist in Arab Strap. The sound clips are promising, click the picture to go to the Amazon page with the samples on.
 

Don’t look right

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8°C, cold NE wind, warm sun and a struggle between them to decide the temperature. C=69 miles

Pain in the neck: it could be a pulled muscle, trouble is it locks solid when I look over the right shoulder so I have ot look well over the left instead.
Isle of The Dead: this Böcklin painting came to mind when I rode past a small fishing lake today. See the photo below. It might be a picture depicting the River Styx with the character Charon in the boat in white, but then maybe it’s not.
 

iPod clone

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9°C, dull grey clouds.

I have it: a 4Gb mp3/4 player. It’s half the price of  an iPod, stores twice as much and will play wma sound files as well as video, text and photos. the downaide is the very awkward controls, changing album folders, or modes is the oddest process- it makes no sense at all.
 
Here’s a good animal story.(click the picture)