Thursday, April 30, 2009

Art and Crafty

What the Duck!


'Ello me dearios. Gosh, that was Rambling Sid Rumpo from the days of steam wireless and Round the Horne. Oh the bliss of Sunday lunchtimes - roast cow, huuuuuge Yorkshire puddings, perhaps a soupcon of Blue Nun if my parents allowed me and then an hour of comedy; The Navy Lark, Round the Horne, The Clitheroe Kid, Educating Archie with Peter Brough as radio's only ventriloquist (!!) and of course, the inimitable Goon Show.

As usual, I digress so will march onward with an update on the events of the last couple of weeks.

I've been ploughing on with my PhotoShop bits and am thoroughly enjoying my first faltering attempts at art. I seem to be hung up on changing the scale of things and distorting size (OMG, what would Freud say?). I've got a stream on Flickr should anybody wish to waste a few moments - here's the link.

I have to say, as a beginner to the joys of Flickr, it's a truly marvellous place to search for photos and I found a wonderful selection from a group set up in my local area. It's cost me many an hour just browsing Flickr. It seems that whatever search words you enter brings forth beautiful pictures and it makes my own efforts look truly amateur. Still, it's made me start taking my camera out with me so this (apparently scorching) summer should see me adjusting my exposure with monotonous regularity!

HippoGriff

I've also another admission to make - I am now a student once more (pauses to drink cider, eat a tin of cold baked beans and find duffel coat). I've now got 10 weeks to become a web wizard via the Open University so hopefully, in the relatively near future, I shall be posting from my own website. I've had it for several years although never done anything about it until now and it presently displays very little. You could be one of the very first to visit it and be entered into a free draw to win a holiday for 2 in Bermuda (closing date 30 April 2009). Just visit www.papermoneyworld.co.uk and leave a £25 donation to cover admin costs and I'll announce the winner sometime or other.

I got 3 loads of bumph from the OU today and I really hope the course is easier than the admin - none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

Nothing much else to write about at the moment although the urge to get back to my flying is becoming stronger by the day. If you recall, I had reached Karachi and there I am marooned. I watched a documentary on Discovery the other day about a WW1 flier called Major James McCudden who rose from air mechanic to Major and became one of the top aces with 57 kills. Apparently, it was forbidden to keep any sort of journal in those days but he did and this was eventually published in the form of a book entitled "Flying Fury". I am reading it at the moment and am stunned at the simplicity of aerial warfare at the time and the nonchalance of his narrative. It could be said that it was "doctored" to make it more readable but tragically, he died in 1918 and was thus unable to change one word. The irony was that his death was caused by engine failure of his SE5A and not in combat. Major McCudden VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar, MM, Croix de Guerre survived his 2 brothers who were both also pilots and killed in battle - he was only 23.


We talk of our soldiers coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq as heroes - they chose their career and undoubtedly are consummate professionals. Reading of the privations, the desperate conditions and the appalling decisions of their leaders puts the soldiers, sailors and airmen of WW1 in a toally different league to the fighting men of today. I salute them both - but have no difficulty in choosing which era in which I would prefer to serve.

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Man from Del Monté says Wii


I've got yet another new toy!

Due to the combination of 9 month's non-smoking, laziness, boredom and sheer gluttony my body has taken on the appearance of Buddha as viewed by one of those distorting mirrors you used to get on all the best seaside piers. Oh those were the days - a penny in the What the Butler Saw (with a delicious frisson of guilt as you saw those knee-length drawers), the glass animal man, a few machines and all the stalls. Nowadays, it's the mega-decibel clatter of mindless machines and a cornucopeia of ways to relieve you of as much money in as short a time as possible.


I digress as usual so back to the toy: it's a Wii, complete with Wii Fit and it's going to turn me into the god-like figure that I know is hidden (fairly deeply) inside the layers of muscle cunningly disguised as fat. My GP said he has one so it was justified as a medical need and I was quite excited as it told me it would keep track of progress and help me turn into the new Wii Mii. It asked my age, height, weight and got me to do a few tests and told me my physical age was actually 5 years younger than the bitter reality. Result!! All one apparently has to do is leap on the thing and do a few balance tests and the years drop off. At this rate, I thought, in a week or two I'd be 21 again.

I started a few exercises. 2 minutes virtual hula-hooping was a bit interesting and I suddenly realised the room was getting hotter, then it got me to do a short jog and I realised that, whilst it was a great piece of kit, a sports bra should have been included. Anyway, cutting a long story short, 60 minutes later I was a sodden wreck but I had tightrope walked, tried step aerobics, totally failed at yoga and become rated as "professional" at skiing.

Next day, I took my aching body to check how many years as well as stone I had lost. It welcomed me back and got me to do another Wii Fit age test. Seventy frigging nine!!! Stupid, STUPID machine. I took solace in some 10 pin bowling and was starting to feel a bit better about life until my son arrived and proceeded to get 7 strikes in a row. Anyway, the challenge is now on and, if nothing else, the Wii has succeeded in me seeing much more of Master Bassett as he seeks to avenge the many years of playing second fiddle to the alpha Bassett. So far, I am baseball and golf champion as well as whuppin' his ass at advanced hula hooping - we'll conveniently forget all the other disciplines!


If you are listening to the music on here it's the title track to the new Neil Young album, Fork in the Road (the cover is rubbish so here's a picture I prepared earlier!). Mr Young's album output has been prodiguous to say the least during his career with, I understand, 48 released thus far.Add to that his Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and other occasional get-together albums and it's about 80 altogether. This latest album was typical Young insofar as it was written and thrown together in 2 recording sessions in the middle of a long tour. Why the hurry? Because NY had a bee in his bonnet about the motor car industry and needed to express his protest.

Neil Young has always been a man of conscience espousing such things as Farm Aid, anti-war protest and the environment. Sadly, the age of protest singers is perceived to belong to the bygone era era of Joan Baez, Dylan, Lennon, Seeger etc - a spin-off of the hippy '60s. There are undoubtedly still songs expressing protest with REM, Springsteen, Green Day, Eminem and Pearl Jam all contributing but Young still seems to carry the conscience of a nation upon his shoulders at times. The new album may be a bit raw and a tad crude around the edges but I think it's back to Young at his stirred-up best. I admire the man but I can't say I enjoy all of his music. More often than not, the whimsical country stuff is not for me.The fact remains though that he is still exploring his talent and his craft. Hearing him with his old simple rock style once more, is superb. Feeling the passion in his work is a privilege.

I'm still trying to improve my PhotoShop skills and thoroughly enjoying the creativity it gives me. Speaking as someone who can't draw a straight line, it allows me a freedom to play without the skill of an artist. Prawn Cocktail is very Daliesque although I didn't consciously make it so and God alone knows from where The Glorious Twelfth came? The Taj Mahal as a cake was just a play - nothing more.

I decided I would try and express in Photoshop what I have previously done in my writings i.e. my thoughts, fears influences etc. I had no idea just what would come out but below is the result - it hasn't got a title. Maybe one day I will feel my thoughts deserve one.



Thursday, April 02, 2009

March Musings and April Aspirations


As usual, it's been far too long since I last wrote anything - a combination of lethargy, laziness and general lack of inspiration.

I was however raised to the point of incandescent rage by that advert which has the precocious little brat who wants a poo at his friend's because they have infinitely superior air freshener . Leaving aside the smacked arse and potential early death he would get if he were mine, do the ad agency really think that it's going to make me rush out and buy the product? "Ooh, that must be so good if the kid wants to leg it over to his mate's for a crap. Must try some!" No, as far as I'm concerned he can go and pee all over their carpets and do a number 2 on the hamster's head - I care not one jot.

Whilst we're on the subject of adverts, what's all this Tena lark? It's only relatively recently that the subject of female incontinence has become high on the marketing list so does this mean that evolution has only just created the problem? Is it only in the last couple of years that (if the ads are to believed) a 40 something female laughing heartily creates an inundation similar to the Severn bore? I've spent ages telling my best jokes to middle-aged ladies and peering furtively at their lower regions for tell-tale signs of dampness - all in the cause of research, you understand. What about pre-Tena? The mind boggles at the urological mayhem that was going on a short thickness of material away from us mere males' gaze.

Just one final whinge advert-wise: why does it appear that every beauty product seems to have been voted "Best" in some poll/magazine or other? Call me pretentious (moi?) but I wouldn't buy anything that's been recommended by people that fill in such questionnares anyway. Have you noticed the small print that appears for 3 attoseconds (yes, it IS a word) at the bottom of the screen during such adverts? L'Oreal CreviceFilla - voted best product 2009 (small print = As voted by a survey of 17 readers of Surgical Appliance Modelling Monthly).

Other matters now: I expect you are all agog as to how the PhotoShop tuition is going? Well, it's starting to come together a bit more now and I've moved on a step or two. I'm still enjoying the 21st century version of colouring books and here are a couple of before and afters. The first is merely a picture of an Edwardian lady taken from the 'net. As usual, double click on a photo to enlarge it.

The second attempt is a photo of Ma and Pa. There is a date of 1943 on the back of the original which makes them 22 and 21 respectively. I think they look a lot older - how think you?

As you can see, there was not way I was going to colour the original background so I merely removed this and chose a new one - If only real life were that easy!

The next one sort of pulled a lot of threads together; working with linked layers, dodging, burning, masking, histograms, filters, hue and saturation etc etc. All pretty basic for a pro but to little old me it was a quite satisfying experience. I had a photo of Shoreham Airport I took last autumn so decided that was as good a place as ever to start. This is it - pretty boring and colour/contrast was not great.


I needed to change the blue of the sky and the grass so used the wonderfully easy quick mask mode and also decided that the final composition would be better if the photo was reversed. This, of course, mirrored the registration letters of the blue aircraft so I had to do a nifty bit of cutting, pasting and resizing to correct the problem. Some final tone adjustments, removal of a few extraneous bits and a quick tweak with the histogram and sharpening mask and it became this:


Incidentally, the building behind is part of Lancing College and very beautiful it is too.

Right, foreground subject time and I had chosen a Spitfire - specifically this one:


OK, off with the background and then it's merely a case of masking piece by piece, colouring, tweaking and Bob's your parent's brother. There's loads more I could play with on it but, by and large, I'm quite pleased. Sorry if it's boring for you, dear reader, but for me, who longs for achievement in even small ways, it's been well worth it. Welcome to "Spitfire on a Summer's Day"


The only other achievement of note (for me anyway!) is composing some educational worksheets for Newhaven Fort which will be available as PDF downloads for school visits and a commitment to evolve and construct a couple of exhibitions. One concerning the 1923 inflation crisis in Germany and the Weimar Republic which will enable me to show dozens of the issued notes and the other, a display of pre-decimal coinage and banknotes for younger people to appreciate our old coins. Part of it will be a pile of pre-decimal coins required to buy a packet of crisps at 2009 prices - I'll leave you to work out how big that pile could potentially be!