Sketching tutors

When you are in a webinar and you are listening to people talking, why not sketch them? I don’t get much chance of doing portraits of people at the moment and so I take them when I can. Our webinars require students to have their mic and camera switched off, and only switching the mic on if you want to say something. When you are in a group of up to forty students I guess it makes it easier to hear what’s being said and it’s less distracting. I make notes, but I can’t help wanting to draw…

So if you are ever in a zoom meeting with me… Beware I might do a quick sketch of you too!

No don’t use your computer hooman!

I will sit here hooman

Till you notice me.

You can’t type here hooman.

I won’t let you see!

If you use your keyboard,

If you touch your mouse,

I will chase the wires

Dance upon the desk.

Watch out I am jumping

On the computer keys,

Padding up and down them

Hooman- I’m here. Please,

Take some notice off me

Don’t ignore the cat,

Or I’ll press a button

And Delete all that!

Bathroom sketch, urban sketchers

5. 30am sketch

Five thirty am Friday. Had a frantic day yesterday getting my stuff submitted to college. Followed by a five mile walk (not walked that far for years), then called in Sawadee Thai taste for a snack so didn’t get home till late. My legs are aching so much it woke me up. Don’t have any pages left in sketchbooks so drew this on a blank card.

Thursdays prompt was bathroom or bedroom for urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge. Well I’m late because it’s Friday. But at least I did something. Note to self buy more sketchbooks.

I am learning

Have to say I’m still irritated with WordPress, everything seems so slow. Pages take ages to load, but I’m going through the same process over and over again to find a path through the new editor. I keep taking wrong turns, looking for tags that don’t seem to exist once I’ve posted them. How are you all doing? Am I getting on your nerves?

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Finding things to draw.

No Urban sketchers challenge today so I drew a friend (we met in a cafe to discuss art today), it’s not a brilliant because I got the eyes and nose too big. You can see the grain of the paper, it’s a handmade sketch book and the paper is thicker than I normally draw on. It’s grey because the day was very overcast. This was taken with a light on, but it didn’t illuminate the photo very well. It was good to draw a person again

The other one

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Our boy cat having a stretch in the bathroom. He had been ill but he’s a lot better now. For the moment he sleeps in the bathroom on a towel because it’s a lot cooler in there. Not as much sun getting in. But sometimes I will find him in a patch of sunlight, curled up and warming himself. Cats have characters. He’s chilled. Our female cat is lively and loves chasing things. Sometimes they chase each other. A mad half hour. Then peace descends again.

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Aurora

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The sun is starting to wake up after Solar Minimum. Apparently there was a coronal mass ejection from the sun yesterday. This means that a twisted magnetic line of energy had broken and exploded with plasma coming out of the Sun. The energy can fly out in any direction but sometimes the CME heads towards Earth, then the magnetic feild around the Earth shields us. Except at the poles. Its like when you put iron filings on a bar magnet. You can see the magnetic field lines and the way the iron filings follow them. The magnetic lines dip down towards the magnetic poles. This is what happens at the North and South poles of Earth. The energy from the sun is channelled towards the poles and excites the gasses in the atmosphere. I think Nitrogen glows green and Oxygen pink? I’m not sure.

Anyway there has been a CME from the Sun and the chance is there might be some Auroral displays in the next few days.

Almost a disaster!

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I decided to type my work in PowerPoint because I struggled with word documents jumping around and the text ending up half way on one page and half on another.

PowerPoint relies on slides, so you have to fit your text into a space which is of limited size.

I’d created a new one and went to start typing, and bam! A page of text just disappeared. What? Where? For some reason I couldn’t see the back icon, I couldn’t restore the page! Panic!

Then I remembered that I had copied the text into a word document because I couldn’t find a word count on PowerPoint!

Phew. Restored slide. Lesson learnt. Now all I need to do is stop the cat jumping on the keyboard!

Writing my Manifesto

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I decided to place some text in my writing while I actually decide what I want to put in my college manifesto, (sometimes you see pieces of Latin put in a document so you can tell how much space your writing will take up) . It has to be about me, to explain what I should be doing to support myself as an artist and illustrator and also how I can support other artists. So I intend to look at things like a Universal income for all. I know some countries are trialling it.

I know some artists who are on very low incomes who have had a slight uprating of their benefits, which has helped slightly, but are still living a hand to mouth existence.

I want to look at what is happening to arts in schools. Perhaps I should be doing workshops with pupils? The lack of spending on equipment, especially in the poorer schools, must be having a detrimental affect on children’s lives.

Finally, I have to think about supporting more community arts groups. I’m determined to support the Arts in a more productive way. Perhaps using my skills as an illustrator. We will see…

In a bubble

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I’m tense all the time. My hubby went out walking today with some friends and I stayed in ostensibly to get some college work done but really I want to keep away from possible infection. I don’t like it though. I’m constantly tense. I get pains in my shoulders from holding them tight all the time. I’ve tried to book some physio because I’m getting pain from a pinched nerve in my arm and shoulder…  But there are no free appointments. Hubby says he will pay, but I’d rather trust the NHS than go private?

So the tension continues. I’ve even found myself rocking backwards and forwards to comfort myself. I don’t think I’m depressed just physically reacting to the pandemic. Stay safe everyone.

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