Tag Archives: art

Holiday UK #3 – Pebble Beaches

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Slapton Ley PebblesExcerpt from L’s diary entry 25th June:

“Bright blue skies! Off to the seaside at Beesands, a very quaint and quiet village with a huge pebble beach. We followed yet more of the SW coastal path over to Torcross where we lowered the average age of the tourists by about 40 years.  Torcross butts up to Slapton Ley, a freshwater lake separated from the sea by a pebble beach…”

Excerpt from my diary entry 25th June:

“Give me a pebble beach and like a child, I feel compelled to collect the most perfectly round pebbles I can find. I LOVE pebble beaches but by the end of our walk, my rucksack was laden and my shoulders groaned under the weight of my collection…”

Today I must mention that it’s my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary!  How fabulous is that?  Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad – in it for the long haul!!

Holiday UK #2 – Dartmoor Bog

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dartmoor poniesExcept from L’s holiday diary entry, 24th June:

“Up on to Dartmoor today via several stops for Amy to gawp at horses and take photos. We a parked at the Postbridge information centre to start the rather boggy walk up to some standing stones with picturesque views of the moors.  We ended up meandering around a peat bog for a bit before giving up and following a wall to the obligatory water feature challenge of the holiday…” NB. We often find ourselves traversing fast flowing water courses on our expeditions.

bogMy response to L’s diary entry:

“I think L has underplayed The Bog.  We were walking for 8.5 miles and for at least 5 of those miles we were ankle deep in bog.  At one point we found ourselves lost in the middle of a vast expanse of moorland (as far as the eye could see) with no visible path in sight.  I was secretly calculating our water rations in case we started to sink into the stinky, relentless bog and had to wait for rescue…”

I must mention that today is my mum’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Mum!

Old people

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I’ve been desperate to create good looking cartoons using Adobe Illustrator.  I’ve known the basics of the programme for quite a while but up until now, I’ve been too lazy to spend the time researching how to use it to its full advantage (and I doubt I will do more than just scratch the surface).

Most of my cartoons are drawn by hand, scanned into the computer, then coloured in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.  My hand is a little unsteady at times and Illustrator is the perfect tool for creating smooth lines and a professional look.  But, I’ve really struggled to find a way to easily create shadows without a lot of faffing about.

Today I spent some time sketching some old people in my sketchpad, before deciding to experiment with Illustrator (with a little help from YouTube).   I came across this little gem, The Ultimate Inking and Colouring Tutorial.    There are some really neat little tricks to help with shading and highlighting, it really speeds up the process and I LOVE IT!  (I’m sure you seasoned artists are chuckling to yourselves…I’m slow off the mark).

So here are three practice attempts – I’ve still got a lot to learn.  The first one was before the tutorial – it was painstakingly slow.  The second two were after I’d watched it several times.

old man_brown

Old Woman Old man 2