Bricks and Mortar and Water – Part 2

This is Part 2 (Part 1 here), which may or may not extend into Part 3 (spoiler: it will! (spoiler: most likely but no promises)).

Anyway, I arrived at the aqueduct, and was duly impressed:

Here’s an attempt to get the full length in one photo.
© rq, All rights reserved.

Getting closer to the brick texture here.
© rq, All rights reserved.

View from the other end – it was definitely a shifting light kind of day.
© rq, All rights reserved.

Of course, where possible, I have to climb onto things, so here’s a view back towards the mountains. I walked quite a distance across the top, but not all the way – some few metres along, the arches seemed slightly too damaged to risk (that mossy-grassy patch in the photo, actually), and my formerly brick-laying Lithuanian colleague agreed.
© rq, All rights reserved.

There were also figs.
© rq, All rights reserved.

Now I don’t actually remember what I was going for in this photo…
©rq, All rights reserved.

… but my Lithuanian colleague was kind enough to take a photo of what I looked like taking it.
© rq’s Lithuanian colleague, All rights reserved.

A window into the world.
© rq, All rights reserved.

That’s all for Part 2, then – Part 3 will take a closer look at the decrepit brickwork and the arches, because there’s a few interesting things, if you like that sort of thing. :)

Excuse me, I’m a Little Horse

Kestrel’s little horse is looking better, bit by bit.

Progress! I thought it might be interesting to see how the layers of fine pastel dust build up. People who have never done this before don’t realize that it just takes time and patience; you don’t have to glob the pastel on there, thin tiny layers are the way to go. The nice thing about pastels is they are very slow and you have a lot of control, but it takes many layers to get a nice deep rich color. I’d also like to point out that I changed the markings from the living horse a little bit. It’s one of the nice things about painting; if you don’t like where a particular thing is, you can just move it over a little, or add on an extra blob here and there! 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

©kestrel, all rights reserved

©kestrel, all rights reserved

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Aaaand… now it’s time for some details with acrylics! Acrylics kinda scare me because they are very fast. They dry out so quickly in my area I sometimes can’t even get the paint on to the model, because it dries on the brush as I’m trying to apply it. There are products that slow down the drying time on acrylics and I am using them here.

Although the acrylics are perfect for details, you just can’t get that same degree of blending and shading as you do with pastels. Some people use an airbrush for the blending, but I don’t have one, so it’s pastels for me.

©kestrel, all rights reserved

He’s starting to look like a horse now. In case anyone wonders, eyes are about the last thing you do. It would be very sad indeed if you did the eyes, got them perfect (NOT easy, especially at this scale!) and then the model fell over into a puddle of paint and ruined them. So, you save them for the very last. They really help to bring the piece to life.

It’s starting to look like I’ll be able to get him done by the deadline!

It’s a Damned Yellow Composite

Nightjar has sent us some bright yellow flowers to brighten our week.

Today’s flower is a… well, let’s call it a DYC, Damned Yellow Composite. I can never tell them apart and it’s not really important. And I also can’t identify the flies (I think?) that are visiting the flowers, so it’s all around an ID fail from me. I still hope they cheer you up!

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

Nearly every day, Jack and I walk up the street to the high school around 11:30 in the morning. It’s when the kids get out for lunch and Jack likes to greet as many of them as possible. He’s well-known among the crowd, and as we approach, people will begin to call out his name. Jack wades in amongst them and works the crowd like a pro. He looks up and tries to make eye contact with everyone, moving slowly through the tangle of legs, stopping for an ear mushie here and a bum scratch there. He loves it when someone bends their face to his and always rewards them with a drooling, sloppy kiss. But this week, no matter how slowly Jack walks past the school, or how longingly he gazes, the kids don’t appear.

This morning, instead of another painfully slow walk past the school,  I took Jack to the park, figuring that the antics of the ducks and geese would catch his interest for a while. I was wrong. Jack wasn’t the least bit interested in the politics of the pond today. No, he wanted to go to the playground where there were a few children on the swings and climbing equipment. We walked around the edges of the area, and no one wandered over to say hello. I explained to Jack that it’s because of coronavirus, but Jack’s feelings were hurt. Before we left, he took a seat by the bicycle stand, and I could see that he was reluctant to leave. He gave his best smile to the crowd and one little girl pointed at him and asked her mother if she could pet the doggy. Her mom said yes, and hand in hand, they walked over. We kept our social distance, but Jack slowly padded over to the child and stuck his big nose in her small hand and she laughed. Jack lit up like Christmas and nosed her again, and the two of them spent an enjoyable few minutes just being a kid and a dog having fun. It was a delightful bit of normal in these very abnormal times. Thanks, Bubba.

Corona Crisis Crafting III: Tools

Yes, I didn’t only stock up on resin, but also on tools, though admittedly I’d have bought them anyway.

The first one is a tiny foldable workbench. I still don’t have a workshop and if this lasts long enough for us to clean up the cellar we’ll also be busy digging up the garden and planting potatoes. Anyway, shaping resin mechanically makes a hell lot of dirt, so I prefer doing it outside anyway.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The top plates can be moved together or apart and the little plastic thingies are cramps you can use to hold your stuff.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Works surprisingly well. For the next part I removed the cramps and unpacked item #2: a plate to fix the jigsaw to:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Oops, it looked better in the thumbnail. But you get the principle. This is so I can cut some larger pieces of resin. In the end I will get a bandsaw some day, but for now this will have to do. First object: a wannabe dragon egg.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

It’s got a piece of burl at the bottom and some gold flakes in the resin. As a container I reappropriated a milk box.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I figured that every bit of resin I could remove with a saw would safe a lot of sanding later and girl was I right. It worked OK. As expected the vibrations were bad, especially when the angle at which I cut got small and of course holding the piece with two hands was not always possible. I will also add that I’ve got a very, very good jigsaw and the blade was new. Still a success.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Today I unpacked another toy, eh tool, a plate grinder. I only have a belt grinder that is meant to be handheld and therefore a pain in the ass. This is something completely different and seriously makes sanding so. much. easier.

So here’s the remaining pieces before and after sanding:

©Giliell, all rights reserved: Bog oak and red resin

©Giliell, all rights reserved “Old something” and nails

©Giliell, all rights reserved: Burl and resin

BTW, if you ever want to ruin some sanding paper quickly, try having hot glue on your work piece:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And, finally:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The eggs aren’t perfect, but I’m happy with them. The one with the nails was hell to sand because they would heat up and burn your fingers on the other side of the piece…

Now for my favourite (cough, cough) part: sanding and polishing…

 

You Need a Steady Hand To Do This

Kestrel has decided to enter a painting competition for a micro mini model horse and she’s bringing us along on the journey.

There is a novice model horse painter contest coming up and I want to enter. The contest is specifically for the category of “micro mini” resin model horses – this is 1/64 of live size, and these little horses are made by a sculptor who then either casts or 3D prints them, depending on who is producing them. I’ve painted only 4 of these micro minis and I’m going out on a limb here – this horse is not done, so I have no idea at this point how he will turn out. I need to hurry though – entries close the last day of March! 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Here is my painting area cleaned up and ready. I have pastels, acrylic paints, the model I’ll paint, some water, my glass palette, various brushes, a tiny piece of flexible sanding paper, a blade to clean the palette and toothpicks, which I use the way some would use a palette knife. 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Now for safety! People are supposed to breathe air, not pastel dust or paint fumes, so here is my respirator and a pair of gloves. I also wear a visor on my head that goes down over my eyes, and glasses under all that. Hopefully no one comes to the door while I’m so accoutered… The model has to be scrubbed down with something like Comet. Paint won’t stick to finger prints, grease, or dirt, so from now on I won’t touch this model with my bare hands, I’ll always be wearing gloves until I put the final finish on him. 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

My model is already “prepped and primed”. The little donkey resin is not; he has holes and flaws in the casting, seams and rough areas, and all of that has to be filled in, filed down and fixed so that he has a perfectly smooth surface for painting. After the prepping, I spray the model with primer, in this case I used white primer. 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

I’m using this horse as my reference for how the markings will look on the finished model, although I’ll paint the marking as she is in the summer, all shed out and slicked off, not all hairy and dirty like she is here in the spring. Fortunately she lives right here at my house, so if I get stuck on how exactly a marking goes, or the right color, I can just go outside and look. (Plus I have about a million pictures of this little horse on my computer!) It’s very important to use a reference photo or photos. People show these models, once they’re finished, and the judges know very well how a horse should look. If I just made something up, I might accidentally put markings on a horse that are genetically impossible, and that would get marked down in the show ring.

I can’t take photos while I’m painting, so just imagine me putting the first layer of pastel on the model.

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Now I go to my spray booth, to put a layer of fixative on that first layer of pastel paint. The spray booth has a super powerful motor that pulls air through the filter, up through the hose on top and out the window. That way I don’t have paint all over inside the house, there are no fumes inside the house, and I can paint even when it’s cold or snowing/raining outside. The reason the model is on a piece of tape is because these tiny little things don’t weigh much at all, and as gently as I puff the fixative on the model, it will blow right over, possibly messing up the paint I’ve so painstakingly applied. You can see the white primer I used on the filter of the spray booth. I truly am a novice painter; this will be the 5th model horse I’ve ever painted, and that spray booth is brand new.

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

That willow tree is getting fuzzy. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Well, we didn’t go for our pancake breakfast at the sugar shack over the weekend because it’s been cancelled for this year. Most things have been cancelled around here. Schools are on indefinite March Break, including colleges and universities, and almost all gathering places have shut down. Tai Chi classes have been cancelled, and so has pool therapy. The Senior’s centre, the library and the Cineplex theatre have closed their doors, and the live theatres in Stratford and Toronto have cancelled perform into May.

There have been no Covid 19 cases in our city so far, but there have been confirmed cases in 2 places only 30 minutes away. Mr. V is over 65 and has a wonky heart, so he’s at risk, and I’ll be 60 this year, and my chronic shingles and fibromyalgia increase my risk, so we are self-isolating as much as possible. I did make a trip to get a few supplies early Saturday morning, and that was a bit of a shock. I started at Wal-Mart early Saturday morning and found they were completely out of bread, meat, onions, potatoes, beer, yogurt, pasta sauce, canned and frozen vegetables, dried beans, rice, coffee, juice, butter, ice cream and toilet paper. Entire rows of shelves were laid bare, and people with lists were wandering around with empty carts, looking lost. There was a weird atmosphere about the place and I felt as if I’d stepped into a Stephen King novel. I walked out with supplies for Jack (which were also getting low) and nothing else. Next, I went to No Frills and had a bit better luck. I found a package of ground beef, some sausages and a pork roast, but supplies were limited, and there was no chicken at all. They did have most other items on my list, with the proviso that you could only take 1 or 2 of most things. Thankfully, toilet paper was not on my list (we stock up when it’s on sale) because they also had none left.

I have a friend who says that the reason toilet paper is going so quickly is that every time someone coughs or sneezes, a dozen people shit their pants!

Jack is blissfully unconcerned about Covid 19 and asked to go to the park this morning. I was ready for a bit of fresh air, too, so we piled into the car and went to see the ducks, who mostly look to be paired up for nesting season. The pond was completely free of ice, thanks to a few days of above zero weather. We walked down to see the geese, which were plentiful and aggressive. They charged Jack and me a few times, but Jack planted himself into a stationary lunge and growled a deep, soft, low growl that quickly turned them around. He seemed disappointed that they didn’t come closer.

After the pond, we walked around the gazebo, and it was quite exciting to see that the tulips are up a few cms. Every year the city changes the colours of their bulbs, and I’m always anxious to see what the plan is for the year. The city buys thousands of bulbs directly from Holland every year, and at the end of the season, they sell them off cheaply to homeowners. It’s part of the city’s overall beautification plan, and it does spruce up neighbourhoods, We also found a few “fuzzy” willows, some big buds on the trees by the stream and a colourful Choral Bell with a feather flag. There were a few people out and about, and we all smiled and gave a wave, but everyone kept their distance. Thank Cthulhu, that it’s still safe to go outdoors, otherwise Jack and I would go stir crazy.

It’s tulip time. ©voyager, all rights reserved

The mini daffodils have arrived. ©voyager, all rights reserved

It might be love. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Look at the size of those buds. Leaf day is coming early this year. ©voyager, all rights reserved

A Feather Flag. ©voyager, all rights reserved

 

 

Wild Hyacinths

From Nightjar,

After last week’s wild daffodils I bring you more spring bulbs… wild hyacinths! Well, kind of, I think these are actually squills (Scilla sp.) but they belong to the same family and I’ve always called them that. They’re everywhere right now. Two of these photos have a bonus little spider.

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

The rest of the pictures are below the fold in case any of you don’t want to see the spider. I happen to think the spider is adorable, and the rest of the photos are gorgeous. The light in the second to last photo is breathtaking.

[Read more…]

Corona Crisis Crafting I

Ok, this is cheating a bit, because I made the pieces over the last two weeks or so, but it’s still something pretty that you can make indoors.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The necklace turned out very elegant and beautiful and I’m wondering what to wear it to, once we can go out again and support our local restaurants. It’s ten individual resin pieces with Bohemian glass beads to separate them. here are some of my favourite ones:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

Spring is Coming

And it doesn’t give a single fuck about out human woes.

It is still beautiful.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The weather is brilliant here after weeks of rain and we used it for a walk in the woods and some gardening.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

I love the blue collection pails that our favourite local maple syrup producer uses. They’re cheerful, and add a nice bit of colour to the muddy grey landscape of early spring. They also mean that it’s time for the 4H pancake breakfasts that they host each weekend in March. It’s a good time for a good cause. Each of the local 4H clubs is assigned a Saturday or Sunday to host and serve breakfast and all of the funds that are raised that day go to their club. They serve bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes and all the maple syrup you want. It’s held in a small space attached to their storefront, and it’s always busy and somewhat chaotic, and half the fun is watching the young boys and girls (aged 10 – 18) in stiff white aprons acting as wait staff. They have a difficult job. The tables are crowded together, and there isn’t much room to move around. Seating is at a premium, and there’s generally a line of people waiting, making the configuration of people at tables quite fluid. It’s a lot to keep track of and the kids work hard to make it all work. Sometimes your order takes a while, or it isn’t correct, but people seldom complain. Most everyone leaves happy, well sated and sticky. We’ll be going this weekend, but dogs aren’t allowed so Jack will have to stay home. He isn’t pleased and tells me that I’d better bring him back a sausage. You betcha, Bubba.