What else do you do when you’ve got a few minutes to spare? Why not rummage around in the archives and see what you come up with? Well that is just what I did this afternoon and I found this originally captured back in 2008, was it really 6 years ago? I sometimes really wonder how many other crazy images I might have captured and not even looked at. No doubt some day I will get round to looking a bit harder.
Week 4 of the pastel class more ideas, more exploration. One of the great things about any class, that is if they are any good, is that you get the chance to experiment around a theme. This painting is nothing like any of the people on the class produced – they mainly stuck to the ideas that the tutor was suggesting – me well I have never felt happy doing that so I adopted the ideas being discussed and I think the whole thing worked out quite well. (BTW the photos are really poor quality but that doesn’t really matter)
For shetland ponies everywhere.
So that is that…the problems that have beset the European club rugby are all but sorted out and we can all go back to enjoying the game we love. So says Owen Slot in today’s Times newspaper. In this gushing piece it would seem that every one at an official level is ready to sign up for this brave new world. All great. What he doesn’t mention is the one thing that has brought this matter to a head – whether BT Sports are willing to do a deal and thus allow the English clubs enter the competition. For those of you not aware this whole thing came about because BT Sports paid a huge amount of money for the exclusive rights for live coverage of English premiership club rugby and next year this included their European matches. Currently the rights for this are owned by Sky sports but if this agreement goes through those rights will no longer exisit.
So why isn’t the continuing problems of TV rights not mentioned in Slot’s article? The most obvious answer would appear to be News Corp or whatever name the Murdoch organisation now has. News Corp owns The Times newspaper and are the largest shareholder in Sky or BSkyB. So it isn’t too much to suggest that somewhere in The Times newsroom there is some form of edict that says any news must be spun in the most favourable light for Sky Sports and hence Murdoch. I do hope that this is not the case but it is very difficult not to draw that conclusion.
When you contrast this report with the report in The Guardian you see what I mean. Whilst this is upbeat about the probable signing off at the Union level it also mentions that there is still much to be agreed about the TV coverage of the European club rugby games involving English clubs next season. When you see terms like ‘cautious opptimisum’ and ‘it will take compromise on both sides’ you know that there is still a long way to go. This is especially so when the person talking about ‘compromise’ is the Sky Sports representative. As things stand they have no control over the English club teams and so any compromise will have to come from BT Sports.
I hope things do work themselves out and that some form of deal can be done between the TV companies but I suspect things are not going to be plain sailing. Remember, if England doesn’t take part then France may not and this whole house of cards will fall down. Even if France does take part the competition will be devalued from a commercial point of view.
Everything is awesome…sort of, maybe, perhaps, lets hope so.
I suspect it may well be a product of getting old but another visit to the dentist has meant more root canal surgery plus a big dent in the bank balance! Not sure which is more painful – ha ha. For those of you who have not under gone the procedure – I hope you never have to – it involved a number of visits whilst the dentist has rummage around an fixes the problems with your nerve and saves the tooth. Of course a cheaper option would be to have your tooth ‘extracted’ but I’ve already got two teeth missing so I think it is better to keep hold of the rest.
The only plus from this is that my dentist is wonderful and friendly which does help. Just wish my teeth would let me see a lot less of her!
Just a few more doodles – this is a really interesting development to try and incorporate in the drawings/paintings I make.
Lady Madonna…baby at your breast
Yesterday I bought some very interesting Liquitex paint marker pens and this morning I thought I would give them a bit of a run out and I have to say they do seem to be interesting.
Light is such a wonderful thing. It allows the photographer to change change the mood at a stroke. However, Photoshop also allows this and when the two are combined then the opportunities are endless.
So I give you two views of Borth one sunny early spring morning. Can’t get my head around this reality thing.
I believe technically when you create an image with oil pastels then it is classed as a painting as opposed to a drawing. So this morning I was at my art class and created this portrait. The tryptic shows the development over the the hour or so – although it must be said that the photos don’t do the painting any justice – they do provide a record of hour it was created.
It is a very long time since got my hands dirty with my oil pastels and I have to say I really enjoyed the experience. It goes without saying I would now change things but that really isn’t the point. This is something I created in a finite amount of time and as such should stand on its own merit. If I wish to improve on the work then I should make another version – this time with no time limit…perhaps I might.
Dry the Rain
Not too long ago I was a wildlife photographer and the one golden rule was …it must be real… There must be no faking – colour balance and saturation were about the only things you could change. As I progressed I started to realise that this was in the end totally defeating because you can never really answer the question of what is real.
Of course in the world of photoshop things can be moved around very easily in an image and wildlife photography is meant be capturing the real world os placing a creature in the image that just wasn’t there is a bit naughty – but what if you acknowledge the fact that an image has been manipulated what then?
One of my favourite wild life photographers is Nick Brandt yet all of his images are manipulated and don’t really reflect reality if you had stood where Brandt had stood to capture the image. For a start they are in black and white – possibly the biggest manipulation from reality you can get unless you suffer from some form of vision impairment.
I honestly don’t know this rambling blog is going other than to say reality is not all it is cracked up to be when creating an image. All artists distort reality to their own vision and I think that I am so much happier not longer sticking to the rules….it is also a lot lot cheaper!
Promise of a nice day – new car what better than to go for a day out at the coast. It turned out that the weather was even better than expected and we had a great time walking along the beach at Borth in Wales. Very good for the soul.
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