Heroic Jools to the Rescue

I have been rescuer extraordinaire this morning. Jay rang me at about 7.20am in Penelope Pittstop style asking for "Heyulp!" (he denies this ever happened, claiming I am inventing the womanly cries, but I swear it's true, kind of). Poor baby had got a puncture in the dark and rain on the way to work, so I upped and drove over to collect him and dispense him at work.


Which brings me to my observation for the day. All vehicles ought to have a spray gun full of dayglo paint mounted on the bonnett. This should be let loose over the discourteous drivers of the world, allowing us to a) vent frustration and b) mark the culprits as the arsepits they are. One driver in particular inpsired my wrath this morning, cutting me up and then clinging an inch behind the car in front, thus not allowing any of the cars in the subsequent three queues into the lane. It's an unwritten rule of polite driving that one lets in a vehicle from the feeding lane, but not this guy. He was seemingly unaware of any other road users and I hope he has violent indigestion all day as well as a plague of bowel destroying diarrhea.


Since I was out already I ventured to the Wednesday flea market in town.  A sorry gathering that was. I could have been there with a million quid in my pocket and still not been drawn into temptation by even one item. It was a short little sojourn all in all and I was back home by 9am having a cup of tea.


I Ebayed early on this morning and got a few bits that tickle my fancy for my artwork (shrink plastic and some permanent marker pens). I've also called the local toy shop, J. R. hartley style, and discovered that they do indeed have one of those blower thingies that you attach to felt tip pens and spray the ink around. All for the princely sum of one pound. It's funny how you get used to art shop prices for this sort of thing. I am quite delighted and shall pop down there later to pick one up.


Yesterday I remembered my old ventures into paper marbling. In the absence of oil paints I decided to try it with spray paint instead. Apparently it can be done with watercolour or food colouring on a bed of shaving foam, but that's a little too messy even for me. Anyway, the acrylic sprays worked fairly well, especially the metallic ones. On the down side, the house now reeks of paint fumes and I am rather bespeckled in a rainbow of colours. This time I remembered to lay newspapers down and remove my watch and rings, which is astonishing really, since I usually only notice my mistake after the fact. The added bonus here is that I have swept all the mess straight into a bin bag and behold, it's as though nothing ever happened. Apart from the sheets of paper lying everywhere drying of course.

My plan is to scan in the marbled patterns and alter the colourways for a design I'm working on. It's for a textiles competition I want to enter and I am really drawn to the swirly qualities of the images I have. I may overlay watercolour studies on top here and there to give it the oomph I'm after. I was thinking about this when I went to bed last night and my mind obviously didn't switch off, because I was awake at 3am with ideas swimming round in my head. I didn't go back to bed until 5, so I shall more than likely be cantankerous later on.


I did some life drawing yesterday. I've been gearing up to this for weeks. I used to adore the classes I took at college and university, but I realised it has been at least 12 years since I last drew a figure with any consideration. I haven't forgotten how difficult it is, so I have a healthy nervousness about it. I decided to watch some tutorials online as a refresher and it was excellent to see a new teaching style. My old tutor, John, was the best and I always think of him when I'm drawing, wondering if he would approve. I'm not sure he would have liked the newfangled internet instruction clips, but I found them ever so inspiring.


In the absence of someone to sit for hours posing for me, I took photos of Jay to work from. John would not have approved at all of me drawing from anything but life, and I offered him a little apology as I sat here. I did a couple of sessions, both about an hour and a half each and I am really pleased with the results. I'm concentrating on foreshortening, which is excellent to do from photographs as it happens. I probably won't upload them anywhere yet. I might put them on my website once I've got a whole batch to post, but we'll see. it's definitely more for the drawing practice than anything else and I'm not sure people want to look at life drawing (I do, but the general populace, I dunno).


So, after an already eventful and fruitful morning I think I'm going to treat myself to an hour of telly. I recorded Shameless last night, my guilty little pleasure (though it does make me cringe something terrible). A cup of tea and a chill out is quite the tonic.