Israel 323

Here it all started, above the Via Delorosa, looking towards the Church of the Holy Sepulcher;

Jesus walked this way after his arrest about two thousand years ago.

Maunday Thursday is  a strange day, a sort of hiatus before it all started with a bang. Knowing what he was doing and what was before him, them being obedient; His heart must have been filled with terror, yet he walked on!

Today, think about that a bit.

Duncan

 

For our walk yesterday, we visited a hollowed out tree stump which we found the other week, as a result we had a big tripod with us, in order to be able to reach inside the tree and remain steady; thank goodness for carbon fiber equipment (it is much lighter). So  two abstract  photos for today, the upper

 one of the photos is of that stump at Hatchlands, whilst the lower one is of the inside of the same tree stump. The second photo was a little challenging to take; access, light values, and all the technical side of photography and all those sorts of things, but it was good fun to be using a tripod again and taking a photo in good old fashioned sort of way. I did enjoy myself and had a good play. The texture inside the stump could be from the planet Mars, with all the variegating folds and blemishes all over the place. It reminds me of flowing lava from a volcano.

No great photography today; we got soaked in the rain, so the camera stayed in the bag.

Duncan

Good morning and yesterday my mind travels went back to Filey, a small fishing village near Scarborough in Yorkshire. In the late 80's/early 90's I visited this village many times, getting to know the characters in the fishing community quite well whilst sketching their way of life. Above is a watercolor sketch which I did yesterday from a couple of sketches drawn years ago.

The yellow coble on the left of the picture was nicknamed "The Olympic Flame". Apparently its owner would not go out to sea if it was a little rough, for which he was constantly teased, so they called his boat the Olympic Flame, because it never goes out.

There were two restaurant/eating houses of note in the village. The first is known throughout the whole of Yorkshire, for the portions of fish which were enormous. But the second and my favorite, was a snack bar hut at the end of the landing stage, where the locals met. The bacon butties were amazing and conversation lively as well.

We have just received our new dates for the second vaccination for about ten days time; that is good.

Well must get on, see you all soon. Duncan

 Good morning and I am still a little sleepy, but as there are plans for today, (Liz is in an organised mode) so I must make an early start. 

Above is another water-colour of yet another fallen tree trunk, it has been included following such positive feedback about a similar painting of a few days ago. It is also the first work to be placed into my next archival storage book. Each collection of work into the next book is a step forwards into the body of work which I am working on. Keeping up this level is hard work and demands commitment, without; Liz it would just not be possible, she is lovely and a real anchor for me. We have just done our census return, so that was a little different. So now for the next fifty or so, images will predominately be following a woodland theme, a nice excuse to get out into the woods and walk.

So now, having just taken a break from my computer for the church service, its time  to finish this blog, then for coffee, zoom, church, then a photo shoot, followed by a walk, then around tea time, supper with a friend (bubble), followed by a silly DVD. We will end the day by watching and listening to the HTB service on the net. A good day is ahead of us.

Duncan

Woodland  47

Today has been a changeable sort of day, it started with everything for both of us, being difficult and fraught with tension and problems; as the day moved on it developed and became a special sort of day. there is no need to dwell on the problematic bits, we sorted them out for both of us and moved on. In times like those ,it is good to have a wife or husband to lean on a little.

Sandwiches today were Cheshire cheese and piccalilli;y, one of my favorites. The walk was to the south of Ripley, on rather remote and little used footpaths; one of these old paths according to the map was called Kingstone lane; I would love to know the history of that label. Not much mud, only one climb, but one steep decent, which was far  to steep for Liz to descend safely. So we became children, sat on our bums and slip down. Liz denies it, but she did give a little yippee of delight: she constantly astounds me as she toughens up more and more, even if her rear end is a tad mucky. 

The above ink drawing is of a part of the ascent up to Ranmoor Common from Polseden Lacey, a lovely walk and taking this path, a gentle climb. The method of application of the ink is challenging, as it has been in other recent work; however the pen is held very lightly and only allowed to graze the paper very gently, making faint marks on every pass. These marks are slowly built up, layer upon layer; the deep tones take a large number of passes over to attain the deep tones. Hope you like it.

When we got home Liz had a very muddy bottom!

Duncan

 

Having just returned from our daily exerciser, this morning when we were walking at the superb  grounds of Polseden Lacy; were we did had a lovely time. Liz frequently tells me that she does not walk in the wet; well this morning that was proven to be completely untrue. On the way back to the car we were caught in a colossal downpour of hail stones and I mean horizontal bucket fulls of the stuff. Within a hundred yards, we were completely soaked to the skin; I will give Liz her due: she laughed.

However now in a different vein, today we have two images, both looking at leaves and how magnificent they can be. Number one is of ivy growing on a fallen Silver birch log which I saw the other day at Hatchlands, it is a very loose splash it all around water-color. While number two, is what I call a digiscan of a leaf skeleton, showing dramatically how everything in nature is a cycle of birth, growth, decline, death and then a returning to the start. I picked the leaf up this morning above the Chalk Pit at Polseden Lacy, just before the soaking.

Basically a digiscan is produced by removing the top lid off your scanner, then darkening the room and then using the scanner as a camera. PS don't break the scanner!

Have fun Duncan

 

First day back at school for many, but for us oldies living the quiet life continues; so a trip to Somerset is in order, it is virtual, you understand that, don't you!

Liz and myself, when able, attend the New Wine conference each year, where until recently it was held in the Showground in Sheptom Mallet. For the last five or so years we stayed in a superb barn conversion in a little village called Crosscombe, which was situated in a steep sided and deep valley, not far from Wells.The village has a history stretching back as long as we Brits have been in this lovely land; many of the buildings seem to be from this earlier period as well.  Whenever we went out of our lovely barn, we passed this charming, if rather dilapidated farm building. There is something about dilapidated, run down country side building which I find rather attractive; colors are faded, paint is chipped and scratched, plaster is falling off and they look rather splendid. Hope you like it. 

Today we had a walk at Hatchlands and saw what looked very much like a Goshawk. Size and colour were right and location was correct as well; it was in deciduous woodland, but it was very close to nearby coniferous woods. We saw it in deep woodland and this bird flew straight through the branches of this mass of dense foliage, straight onto to something, which I just could not see and then flew straight off again, it was all very quick, only a few seconds, amazingly quick. At first it seemed to be a sparrowhawk, but it was to big, so maybe I am right. But what a sighting, I have never seen one before. That was quite something.

Oh well Liz and myself have a date night tonight. that means that as far as possible, there will be no phone calls, nor any other interruptions, just each other; now that will be lovely.

See you soon.

 

 

Good afternoon and again the subject is being aware of all the amazing artifacts which lie around us and with which we are surrounded. Two days ago we took a walk at Hatchlands and near to the start of the Centenary Walk we were enjoying kicking our way through thousands upon thousands of leaves which lay shewn along the footpaths; very childish and good fun. Then we noticed the leaves and what a marvelous mantel they made for the pathway. A carpet of vivid browns, with tints of yellows, oranges and reds thrown in; if you looked carefully just for good measure there was the odd splash of blue. Out came the camera and then yesterday morning, three hours in the studio to paint the above. Hope you like it.

This morning when walking at Polseden Lacey on the old pathway which goes below the Italian bridge, we noticed lots of chunks of marble rubble stone bits; probably discarded waste from the building of the bridge. On closer inspection many of the stone pieces had a luscious sky blue in them. I checked to make sure that it wasn't old paint speckles or something like that and sure enough it wasn't; as the marble had this beautiful natural blue shade within it. 

Next time you are out try to be aware of your surroundings, it might surprise you, God's a bit like that, He keeps surprising me.

This morning there is a small drawing, about four inches square and a piece of work that surprisingly despite it's complexity, took only a bout five hours to produce. It is experimental and an ink of deep woodland by the side of a path at Hatchlands which Liz and myself passed just a few days ago. The drawing is not fictitious, as just said, it is a real place and was drawn to demonstrate ways of using a pen in a light manner, for example the ferns in the foreground, were drawn by hardly allowing the pen to mark the paper, whilst the trees and scrubs in the middle and background are treated much differently. the pen was still held very lightly, but moved over the same areas many times until required the depth of tone was reached

.

At the moment the weather, in particularly the temperature is very changeable and we never quiet know how many layers to put on. However it is getting warmer and it has been warm enough to sit and sketch a coupe of times this last week; so that is good. We also had good news on the vaccination front, as the vaccinations are realy showing up to be doing their jobs very well indeed. This was shown by independent, non governmental research, as although Johnson is doing a fine job with the vaccinations, his track record of honesty and integrity is somewhat lacking. I do notice that recently there is much governmental talk of the damage done to our economy by the pandemic, at the same time little or no talk is made of damage too the European financial businesses and the trade lost due to the leaving of the European Union.

Having got that of my chest again, shortly Liz will have finished her meeting (zoom), then we are off out for our exerciser along the canal down by Triggs Lock; so I must stop writing now and go to make our picnic.

Duncan