What a muddle: I left my sketchbook at home today, today of all days! What with a period five meeting, I needed that book. In the end I cut some paper in the art department.
The face was from a  meeting, but the hand was drawn in Sch. Assembly this morning.

Turpentine: Restarted the portrait as decided at the 60 mile point yesterday. Unfortunately, I can’t show this one, so I’ll talk about music instead.
Albinoni: Adagio in G- cond: Herbert Von Karajan.

My copy of this is on LP, bought second-hand in about 1990. There was a glut of classical LPs as people "upgraded" to CD around that time. They were all in beautiful condition, clearly fastidiously looked after by previous owners. Anyway, Adagio in G is a well known established piece, but this version is magical. It has all the power, tension and swings in rhythm that carried me away this evening. I was so moved. It left me gently shivering at the end.
Luckily the next few pieces on the first side are good too and follow on well: (the Vivaldi :Concerti for Flute and Strings, and Bach’s Orchestral Suites). They both fit in on well so let you back down to earth by the end of side..

I’d better to, I have that slightly sick feeling in my throat from the strong smell of turps in this room.

I’m painting daily of late, playing with watercolours and finding it
rather fun. It’s a surprisingly precise medium despite all of the
blobby washed puddles that many artists work with. I’m using it for
portraits, something I am honing about now.
I’m getting there too.
The
route through works like this: do portrait sketches a few times to
discover the "issues"- the things that can go awry. Play with the
details in close-ups, as well as drawing from memory, this serves as a
warning. By now, you get to know where erronious elements can creep in.
Sketch it again in colour several times working away from the
dependence on tone until you understand the colour.
Only then, draw it up onto the canvas.

A day to think, talk and just to be. The company was fine and conducive. A day to raise my heart.

I thought it was the dust that made my throat feel dry & sore. Grain harvest dust does this every summer during cycle rides. It’s worth taking a detour to avoid combine harvesters because of the discomfort after getting a lungful. It’s a horrible feeling – as if your lungs won’t open full stretch; is that what it’s like for asthmatics?
Anyway, that’s not my problem, I have a good old fashioned cold as of this morning. Pity, because I had another cycle ride planned.

22°C, warm, light SW wind and 3/10 cloud.

Funny how: looking at that picture of the underpainting on the silver screen shows up how out of proportion it is. Oh well, another layer has gone on it today- the body shape should be better; but you’ll have to wait for a photo.

Assassin’s Creed: has no "difficulty setting". It appears to be adaptive, that is- the difficulty adjusts to the players gameplay. Perhaps the number of "deaths" is calculated somehow. The result is a reduction in the number of opponants seen in a city. Or at least I think so- firstly I speculated on the characters dissappearing on replay because of some randomised coding in the game.

Vilhelm Hammershøi : (1864-1916),Interesting exhibition in the VA, London. See Michael Palin. There is a common bridge with Fantin LaTour- not the plant pictures though. There is a very calm melacholy about all the pictures I have seen, the muted colours and natual light that is seen lees often these days. We’re used ot artificial light and the flat tonal surface that gives, this however creates a deep 3 dimensional space which couldn’t be done with geometry/perspective alone. The pictures are quiet, very quiet, full of thought and perception; it’s a time for contemplation.

52 downloads: overnight, 10 hours that is. I can’t imagine the River Angara will be as popular as the Chernobyl scenery files were, fewer people will fly to an area that’s not very famous. Chernobyl will have been puplicised by a few FPS games set there over the past year or so (CoD4, Stalker). River Angara is probably largely unknown, but its ommission is glaring should a flight simmer stumble upon it. One forum writer said it was also missing in the previous version FS9.

Cycling: hedgerows full of Angelica that has taken over from Cow Parsley. Elderberry trees are in flower and lots of Foxglove, deep purple/pink and dominant along some roads. Artemesia is most noticable on bridges, especially sandstone bridges- clearly they don’t like standing water. I did shoot a picture, but the camera focussed on the background: stupid automatic cameras, give me manual control! the picture below is probably Mugwort, (A. Vulgaris).