Pulp Extirpation

We all have them but today is not one of my best. It was the next phase of the root canal surgery and I’m feeling sorry for myself. Whilst waiting for the anaesthetic to set the dental assistant asked me what my favourite iPhone app was. After a bit of head scratching I said KitCam and I then proceeded to show her how the app worked. Whilst doing this I found a new function called Split which allows you to mirror the image along the split – this photo was made using that function whilst waiting and I think it is really quite interesting.

So perhaps today won’t be too bad after all especially when the rain arrives this afternoon to clear aware all the pollution that has blown in from Western Europe – what has Europe ever done for us??!! Only it turns out that we are pretty bad at creating our own pollution and that the pollution from Europe isn’t as bad as our own which if we had meet the E.U. standards then a lot of the problems we have today wouldn’t have happened – dam Europe interfering in our right to poison our own population – guess that won’t be the headline in the Daily Mail. Anyway the long and short of it is that my asthma is playing up today as well. Perhaps tomorrow will be better – I do hope so.

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

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Drop Dead Gorgeous Manga Babes

Yes that is exactly the chapter heading says and I suspect it also says a lot about the cultural differences between Japan and the west. However, leaving any cultural and gender politics aside it is fascinating to see how the human form can be broken down into very simplified shapes and then how those shapes can then be worked up into quite complicated drawings – this is not one of them. So later on in the chapter you get drawings such as ‘A Girl and her Tyrannosaurus’ or ‘Valley Girl in Japan’ which are highly stylised yet really quite complicated drawings. I am particularly interested in the limited palette used which I suspect is so that these drawings are easy to print.

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

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Going all Manga

I’ve had this how to draw manga book for a while so this afternoon I decided to have a look inside. Fascinating.

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

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Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end

20020224 - Richard 3rd 20021013-Derbyshire 20021013-Norton Juxta

 

The more I look into the idea of 10 years the more it falls apart.  Two of these images were captured in the 1980’s on Kodachrome 64, scanned into the computer in 2000 and finally remastered in 2014.  Now really is the winter of my discontent.

 

 

 

 

 

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20030906 - D507DSC01627 - Gloucester Cathedral Flowers

I have a number of ideas running around in my head at the moment – one of them is 10 years.  This is a project that will look at my digital photographic career.  Only problem is I have been making digital photographs for longer than 10 years…this for example was captured in 2003 but remastered in 2014.  Still contradictions are all part of the human condition.

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Watching Paint Dry

Photo 01-04-2014 09 00 38

 

So here I go again day two of my teach myself to paint lesson…I am trying to take my time and don’t rush things – lets see if I have that amount of discipline – I’m not that sure myself.

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“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”

Photo 31-03-2014 09 02 01

 

Start of the new week and so a new painting lesson – courtesy of myself and boy am I a hard task master!  Stage one is to het a reasonable outline upon which to paint.  This is no Holbein but it will do for my purposes – after all I’m not going to prick this out onto canvas but rather paint over so the outline will be part of the painting.

The hounds of “famine, sword and fire” are at my heels – for’ard

 

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Watching F1 practice

I must be getting really sad in my old age…just spent an hour or so watch FP1 & FP2. Time to get out and do a bit if shopping I think.

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

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Teaching myself to paint

Photo 27-03-2014 10 39 34

 

 

I know it is the wrong way to go about these things but I have decided to start afresh and teach myself how to paint and try and understand the process of applying paint to a surface.   This is the first stab at the process and already I have started to learn many things which I should have known all along – perhaps the most important one today is that each paint media has it’s own properties and consistencies and this effects how they are applied to a surface.  Time to think and cogitate about this and then build on the lessons.  It is the only way to learn don’t you know.

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Deeper and Deeper I go

Degas 01

 

So having spent a couple of hours in the studio messing around with ideas around Degas what have I learnt?   At the moment not a great deal however after a period of reflection things may well come into shape and new ideas might sprout out of the mouldering pile that is my brain.

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