Dark And Moody Happy Me

I took this picture today.

It has everything I'm looking for for my next drawing. It is industrial and architectural. It has a strong perspective and lends itself to be portrayed in a dark manner. It's far and away removed from the practise work I have been doing which has included a watercolour of a tree on a field's edge.

What I want to be doing is drawing and painting. The two can sit side by side but I can't make that work. It doesn't work in my head so it'll never work on paper. The drawing part I'm happy with. Hours and hours of working my pencil has paid off. I've been re-united with my graphite stick and I couldn't be happier, we work well together.

I've come to the conclusion that painting will be something I do for fun, maybe I'll get better, maybe not. So how do I quell the need to bring brush to hand? The answer is water soluble graphite sticks and ink. I can use the graphite in the same way I always have but with the option of getting a wet brush and further blending and experimenting. The ink was a happy coincidence. I read a blog called 'Drawn To Life'. Sian who writes the blog was working with ink and I thought I'd give it a go. I liked it. It's like watercolour but less forgiving but I seem to have got used to that quite quickly.

So I have settled at last. Graphite, water soluble graphite and ink. Now that I'm comfortable I've raised my own standards and in doing so my work will be larger and take more time which I like the sound of.

There will be results and I'll post them here just not in quite the volume of the last six months.

By the way Sian's 'Drawn To Life' blog is worth taking a look at whether you're thinking of getting artistic or you already are.

Slow Burn

So who fancies a game of chess?
This is me sending out an open invitation to a game of correspondence chess. I'll explain then you decide if it's for you.
For a start it's really quite old fashioned. It's all done via snail mail on postcards. I've designed special postcards because the official correspondence chess ones require way too much information. This is a game, not a test! The rules are quite simple. You and I play chess at our own pace, no clocks, no pressure. There's also no space for technology. No using a chess computer of any sort. My brain against yours. The games take as long as they take. You make your move in the time it takes for you to do so, same for me.
So there you go. If you like the idea then comment on this post or if you have my email address then contact me directly and we'll start a game.
I'll go first and be white for our first game but after that we'll come to a decision somehow.
This is life in the slow lane.
It'll be fun.