Power appears to be back on

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Guthlac

Yippee

For the past half hour or do I’ve been working on this sketch of two men wrestling. I’ve taken it as far as I can without redrawing the whole thing.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Power Cut…Again

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Guthlac

Easter comes and Easter goes but it seems that another power cut makes things just a little more frustrating. I know this is a bit rich but power cuts are really annoying. We have been having problems over the past 9 months when we have suffered 5 cuts. Today things went off just around 9am and they still haven’t sorted the problem. I have spoken to the power distribution company and their engineers on the ground and the problem is they just don’t know where the problem is located. The best they can say at the moment is that it somewhere under the road near to my house – however, they can’t tell more until it goes again. So today we have had intermittent power all morning and as I write this the power is off again but thanks to the iPad and local wifi hot spots I am able to keep in contact with the outside world.

My friends laugh at me when I say that Internet access is as important now as electricity but it is. I have now been using the WWW since Windows 95 was launched – almost 20 years no – and so my life revolves around what is and what is not happening on the Internet. That seems very say but it really isn’t and allows me to have a much richer life.

Let’s hope that the problem is resolved once and for all today – I’m not holding my breath and that the battery on my iPad lasts – currently it is at 85%. One thing I can still do in the daylight is draw and paint and thankfully as the days are longer the light will last much longer.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Warning – Not for Lovers of Penguins

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Guthlac

It is Easter Sunday again and that means it is time for Easter Eggs. I must admit it is a long time since I actually bought an Easter Egg just for my wife and myself so this year we splashed out a bit on a really nice egg. Only problem is it has such a cute face that I hate to break into it (don’t worry this won’t stop me in the end). So we have consumed part of the back to start up with and no doubt we will work around to the front in due course. The only thing that is stopping me really pigging out is that I looked at the calorie count for the egg – not good, not good at all. Such are the problems of my life.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Summer Son

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Guthlac

IMG_001365

I have no idea where this came from…I just sat down this afternoon and started to draw – before I knew where I was she had appeared on the page.  Exactly what the painting is about is as much a mystery to me as anyone who might come across this image.

Push the button – if you are ready for me…

 

 

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Crossroads – fastcar

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Guthlac

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I seem to be finally attacking my little sketches with a bit of colour – although this one is starting to look rather disturbing – not such a bad thing – it is almost an expressionistic work – although it isn’t.  In truth it is a bit of an experiment with colour and mixed media –  a mix of water colour, gouache and digital reprocessing which I thinks add to the disturbing nature of the image.   Just exactly what is this woman and what is she doing here and where has she come from?  I’m sure I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

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Face

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Guthlac

Something from the recesses of my sub conscious…I think it was loosely inspired by Courtney Love…very loosely

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Prevarication – a curse of the age

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Guthlac

iPhoneography -IMG_000378 iPhoneography -IMG_000487 iPhoneography -IMG_000490 iPhoneography -IMG_000875 iPhoneography -IMG_000246 iPhoneography -IMG_000254 iPhoneography -IMG_000329 iPhoneography -IMG_000333 iPhoneography -IMG_000203 iPhoneography -IMG_000209 iPhoneography -IMG_000215 iPhoneography -IMG_000171 iPhoneography -IMG_000194

As I get older I find that some days I just can’t get anything done.  Earlier on today I was trying to think about how to paint a tree and all the energy I had built up trying to think about this evaporated just a morning dew.  Now I’m left not really wanting to do a great deal.

So instead I sat down and cleared out some old images off of the iPhone and surprised myself with some of things that I found – see above.  The images were captured in 2013 but have sat in the KitCam app just waiting to be worked on or deleted.  Well as I couldn’t summon up any interest in painting a tree I worked on them for a while.  It was actually quite rewarding.

Over coffee I discussed my difficulties with my ever patient wife.  As usual she was able to come to the core of the problem – I just don’t get any enjoyment out of trying to make drawings/paintings etc of landscapes,  for me it is the human form not landscapes.  I have spent too many years trying to make landscape photos and this seems to have totally corrupted my motivation to make drawings of this subject.

 

 

Well such is life.

 

 

 

 

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Just how do you draw/paint a tree?

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Guthlac

I have no real idea yet…hopefully something will come along to help me.

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk

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The addiction of Pinterest

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Guthlac

Pinterest

If you haven’t discovered Pinterest then perhaps you should.  It is a great way of storing images that you find on the Internet in one place to use as a resource.  There have been one or two copyright concerns and it seems that Pinterest has got around/sorted these.

I can’t say that I’m the greatest expert on this site…far far from it…but if you want a place to save images from the Internet then this is a great way to do it.

BTW if you are interested this is my Pinterest site.

PS

Having just read the Wikipedia entry on Pinterest it is clear that even though I’ve been using the site for several months I have, as usual, come late to the party and should any reader come across this Blog they may well already have discarded Pinterest for some new and impossibly better system.  If there is such a thing then I guess I’ll become aware of it two years later.  Such is life.

 

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Photo shoot on the Tube

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Guthlac

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Yesterday I spent the day in London with some friends and a great day was had by all.  On the tube back to pick up the car I started to capture and make some images with my iPhone 5s using the KitCam app – you have to do something to pass the time.  Fun was had all around and some of the images are actually not bad at all.  However, when the images are viewed on the bigger screen suddenly what looked great on the small phone screen start to fall apart.

This got me thinking about the usual baloney that is spurted out, usually around this time of year, about what the iPhone 6 or 5z or whatever name Apple come up with for this year’s iteration.   As far as the photographic part of the iPhone, perhaps the second most important element after the Internet connection, it will always be a cheap and not that useable camera – great in certain circumstances but push it beyond its tight envelope it starts to show the cracks very quickly.  Now I love it when this happens as I feel you can use this for creative possibilities but it doesn’t make it a great camera in the conventional sense.

This doesn’t mean that the iPhone isn’t one of the most significant cameras to have ever been created – far from it.  In fact I would suggest that it, along with the Box Brownie and the first SLR camera, has changed photography in so many ways that each can be seen as epoch markers in the near 200 years of photographic development.  Of course the iPhone would be nothing if it wasn’t for the Photo Apps but none of these would have existed without the iPhone.  Don’t get me wrong I love the iPhone as a camera and some of the images I have made with my series of cameras have been some of the best images I have ever made.  It is just that as we move towards the the latest benediction giving to we unworthy and unwashed  by Apple the Internet will be slowly melted by hot air generated. Such is life.

So I’ll just continue to use my iPhone with KitCam and have a great time.  By the way the Tube is a wonderful place run an impromptu Photo Shoot – especially on a sunny day as the slightly dirty windows brilliantly filter the light and ad atmosphere.

 

It’s too late baby, too late….

 

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