There was a time not long back when the ‘[w]itless brand managers or evil cultural terrorists’ that have infiltrated the venerable BBC started butchering this sacred music.
Read more about that sorry episode here. Fortunately – or so it seems (watching snooker today, on the iPlayer) – ‘Drag Racer’ been restored to a more natural state.
It’s great hearing from the horses’ mouth, about Doug playing and recording all the parts himself, on an early four-track ‘domestic’ tape recorder.
I really like this film. Part of the so-called ‘Revisionist Western’ movement, it starts out seeming quite pedestrian, but gets pretty gritty and rough.
Newman is Hombre.
The cast is good. As is the acting. The locations are great. Script and direction are ok. The basic plot is that …
I did an early shift today. Again. Same as yesterday. Quite pooped.
Got home early enough to have a cheap n’ cheerful ‘Spoons brunch. We even had a pudding, in celebration of Teresa (& I) finally using her printing press.
Back home, out in the garden, in glorious sunshine. Bliss! Did a little art tweakage, on some previously unfinished pieces.
Actually did some work on them at the pub, as well:
Cadaverous colours?Apple coloured phallic thumb!Four on the go…
It was just two degrees Celsius, when I was getting up and leaving for work, around 5-6 a.m. And it felt like zero. Now it’s allegedly 16°, but feels more like 21°!
This is the best of my first baby steps in printmaking. Two card plates. They’re supposed to align, roughly. I got the alignment all wrong!
My two plates, & several impressions.
Getting the amount of ink on the plates right is key. Soaking the paper onto which you’re printing is also important. Although how you do that – a misting spray, perhaps? – on multiple layer prints? I’m not sure.
The card plates.
It’s early days for us, of course… Day one, to be exact. But what fun! And we’ve got a lot to learn (and re-learn).
Trying further attempts.
I scribed more linear ‘detail’ on the main plate. But forgot to re-shellac it… doh! And getting the inking right!? Nowhere near getting that right, yet.
The definition of the hand is much better.Weirdly crap. But also the best aligned.
The above is the nearest I got to getting the plates aligned as intended. Sadly the inking and printing are altogether more sketchy and random.
The fruits of today’s printing labours.
So… not one of these has come out as intended. Bug it’s all good. All learning and experience. We were both quite slapdash in our printing today. But enthusiastic.
I do love zooming in on and cropping my art works. I feel the process yields new and unexpected but usable imagery.
I’d like to experiment with printing processes – perhaps collagraph and monoprints? – and see if I can achieve something in that line with this imagery.
There’s something a little bit Blakean going on here, I think. That’s definitely something to explore further.
We’ll have been here nine years, this summer. And the magnolia has been growing over the Green Room for about five years. Will this year be the first to see it in proper full bloom? We do hope so.
Teresa looking very summery.Sat in the Green Room.Nice bright shadows…
It’s nice to be out in the morning. With the Sun casting her shadows westwards, over the pond.
Sunshine snackery.
Coffee and pastries. Very nice.
The mini-cherry blossom.The maxi-cherry blossom.
And here’s a gallery of lovely garden pics.
There are still several large areas that are a hopeless mess. Such as this, by the house and blue shed:
Needs tidying up!
There’s a helluva lorra work remaining to be done. But, nevertheless, the garden is looking and feeling very lovely.
