Simon's Blog

Scale

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Guthlac

Some more images of the Big Hole at Croft. The screen grab from Google Earth shows where the image was taken from. The whole itself is around 1km across and probably at least 200 metres deep. Now I know there are much bigger quarries in many places all over the world but this is still a big whole and just gives you some idea as to what man can do when it wants to.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Posted in General | Tagged Big Hole, Croft, Deep Time | Leave a comment

On top of the world

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Guthlac

What a beautiful morning it has been, in fact the week looks set fair so this morning I went out and conquered the local mountain – Croft Hill. This makes it sound like a great achievement and I suppose on one level it is. However, it doesn’t even qualify as much of a hill apart from the fact that compared to the surrounding countryside it literally sticks out like a sore thumb.

Of course I also had a bit of a ulterior motive. The hills figures in my local history research as well as my long term photographic project “Deep Time”. Anyway, it was wonderful to be on top of the hill surveying the world around – however most of the hill has been consumed by one of the biggest holes in Leicestershire leaving just the rim. This is somewhat ironic as the rock that created the hill was first created in a huge volcano some 500 million years ago. If I had stood where I did then I would be in the middle of a magma chamber – not the best place to be.

However, this furtherest from my mind as I stood there on the hill above the birds. Instead I was thinking about how the hill used to be before the rock was removed. Then the hill was a common where people used graze their cattle and sheep. This will never be able to happen again because, well, most of the hill no longer exists.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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Posted in General | Tagged Croft, Deep Time, Historic Research, Leicestershire | Leave a comment

Coining a new word

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Guthlac

Some of you are already aware but my son recently passed his viva to become a Doctor, not a medical Doctor but a real Doctor. I was at an exhibition opening yesterday when I was talking to the artist Robert Luzar and his charming wife, who’se name, I have to say, has escaped me…should you read this may I say I’m very sorry for my failing memory… about all things PhD – he’s just about to suffer the endure the viva ordeal in the near future – when I was asked “…what was your son’s research about?…”.

“Festivology” was my reply. I then explained that this was a made up word by one of my son’s friends but I think it is a wonderful word so I have decided to coin it. I have checked Google and well there is a website called Festivology – but nothing on it relating to the study of festivals at a high academic level. There are also a load of stats saying that there are no stats for this site. But I am going to claim the coining of the word in the sense that my son has spent studying making festivals more energy efficient. So when the OED coming looking for the true coining of the word Festivology they will have come here to my little blog.

A bit pretentious I know but that is what we proud fathers are.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted in General | Tagged Festivology, Robert Luzar, The Mark, Viva | Leave a comment

Hugh Laurie for the new Doctor

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Guthlac

I know it is a bit of type casting, well his father was a doctor, and anyone outside of Britain well always think of Laurie as a Doctor anyway – House was never shown on terrestrial TV so he is not that well known for this programme here and anyway we’ll always know him as George in Blackadder. But wouldn’t it be a great for Hugh Laurie to be the new Dr Who – just simply wonderful. In fact it is character just made for his comic and acting skills.

Of course it will never happen, well probably not well….I live in hope.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted in General | Tagged Blackadder, Dr Who, House, Hugh Laurie, Lieutenant George, Prince George | 2 Comments

Copyright Removal by Facebook

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Guthlac

Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed that paintings I’ve posted to Facebook have had the copyright warning removed. I’ve not changed anything in the way that they are posted to to Facebook so one can only assume that Facebook has done this.

Now it is very easy to see a evil motive on the part of Facebook, very easy indeed. But it might be something much simpler, such as…well I’m not sure. But it is worth noting for future reference.

This is the final incarnation of the FU series as I want to move onto something else. Perhaps it is fitting to post this image along with the removal of copyright information from an image. Perhaps.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted in General | Tagged Copyright, Digital Painting, Facebook, Francis Underwood, Francis Urquhart, House of Cards, Ian Richardson, Kevin Spacey, photoshop | Leave a comment

Enough Fu’s for a while

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Guthlac

I think I’m all FU’d out.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Posted in General | Tagged Digital Painting, Francis Urquart, House of Cards, photoshop | Leave a comment

Is this really painting

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Guthlac

Just were does digital painting fit into the artistic endeavours? I have asked before in this blog whether it is art and of course the answer to that is yes. However, is it painting or something else? I guess to answer this you have to ask what is painting far more than whether Digital Painting is similar.

So what is painting? In a nutshell painting is a mean by which pigment is applied to a surface. Traditionally the pigment is delivered to that surface in an oil based medium or chalk in the case of pastels. In the 20th century this was supplemented by acrylic medium. The debate between which is the best medium is in many ways sterile apart from when considering the techniques. To the view of the painting it is the final result that matters and anyway all paintings, no matter who painted them are constructed in the viewers brain.

So from this perspective digital painting is painting or is it printing, after all the only way to move the image from the digital to the real is by printing the image onto some form of surface.

The reason this came about was when I was discussing my work with the tutor that runs my life drawing course. Initially he thought the works were painted in the traditional sense. He was somewhat taken aback when told they were digital. However, after thinking about them for a while admitted he hadn’t even considered using the computer to make a painting..so perhaps it is painting after all or perhaps not. Whatever it is I get satisfaction from making the images.

So as for the FU work… It continues and the invertible happened…I had to see what it looked like to combine the old and new FU on the same screen. It produces an interesting image…now this is something you can’t easily do with traditional painting (ha ha)

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk