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Dog-walk Sketching: practise and spares.

Drawing, ,

It’s my habit when sketching on the dog walk to always carry a spare pen. Just like you carry a spare wheel in the car when driving or a puncture outfit when cycling. Because if you do only have one pen – it does this.

A leaking biro pen.
The thick black ink managed to creep out of the pen everywhere except at the ball point.

Don’t get annoyed.

I’d found a spot and had brought out my sketch book and BIC biro and had begun to draw. Then the pen stopped. Only then did I notice my black sticky fingers and the Ink leaking from the pen everywhere except where it’s supposed to. I was left in a frustrated mess with an aborted birth of a sketch and nothing to fix it with.

Incomplete sketch of a tess showing a trunk and mossy base.
I started drawing the tree at its mossy base and this was as far as I got.

Continue reading Dog-walk Sketching: practise and spares. →

Dog-walk photographs 01

Photography, ,

A life saver.

Dog walking saved my life. Walking the dog in green spaces sustained me and kept me going long enough to recover from depression. And it was in these places that I haltingly began to draw and take photographs again.

This cat sat amongst the branches smugly watching the dog going ballistic trying to scent out where it had gone.
This cat sat amongst the branches smugly watching the dog going ballistic trying to scent out where it had gone. Can you see the cat?

Miserable git

Miserableness was accompanied by apathy and even though I forced myself to carry a pocket camera I struggled to be bothered to use it. However bit by bit I started to take the odd photograph and slowly I even began to sketch again.

Great locations.

I was lucky in that I had two beautiful woods riddled with paths a ten minute walk and a ten minutes drive away respectively. I had no excuse not to take the dog for a walk. For hours at a time Continue reading Dog-walk photographs 01 →

Blundering on photography.

Photography, ,

I’m starting a journey to get good at photography again. Writing about my blunders on these pages gives me a way to look back and measure my progress.

Some of my OK images from the days of film.
Some of my OK photos made by accident rather than by design, from the days of negatives and viewing transparencies on a light table. At least 12 years before the design studio computer never mind digital photography.

Blunders are the best way to learn. The bigger they are the bigger the lesson. At the beginning they will be huge and I expect to learn lots. But when my photography gets to being OK the blunders will be harder to find and I’ll begin to Continue reading Blundering on photography. →

When you stop drawing.

Drawing, ,
Doodled-ideas-inspired-at-meetings.
Doodles from way back the nineties when I was a laid back chilled hipster designer – even in the face of imminent high profile immovable deadlines.

I have a drawing habit. I’ve always doodled prolifically – on napkins, backs of envelopes, margins of agendas, reports, coffee lids, whatever.  In discussions and meetings, whether in boardrooms or cafés, no one has ever objected. When the drawing stopped it was a shock. That was when I realised I was seriously ill.

Doodles done on agendas and notepads.
My doodles from late back in the first decade of the new millennium. I’m now working as a visual communications lecturer in the education sector – and still cheery although there are warning signs of frustration such as the legs taking the chopped torso for a walk.

Continue reading When you stop drawing. →

Scottish Words Illustrated stalled in 2012.

Drawing,

I’ve made drawings all my life from as far back as I can remember. Even just holding a pen for me is like Linus and his blanket. I cannot remember a day when I didn’t doodle or draw. When it stopped it was a shock, and that was when I realised I was ill.

Child drawing on a rock with a rock.
I drew all the time when a child and I would draw on any surface available as all children do. As I grew to adulthood I kept on drawing but I did curtail what I drew on out of communal courtesy and whacks from my granny.

That was in September 2012 when I also stopped updating this site. One day I was making drawings, the next day I wasn’t. No decision, no drama, no emotion. Continue reading Scottish Words Illustrated stalled in 2012. →