Before and after - the blinds

 It gets too chaotic -

... so I thought to get some blinds and hide the shelves. Out of sight, out of mind?

Tom installed them -

If you're wondering where all the stuff from the worktop went ... "it's behind you!"

Looks like a glacier is sliding into the room! Behind it, the shelves are being reorganised to put the most-used materials in the most convenient places -

And there's room on the worktop for the continuing project of sorting and documenting and thinking about my woodblock prints (and other projects) -

Gradually the heaps are diminishing. Eating the elephant one bite at a time.

Lockdown wardrobe - and a little book

 

During lockdown one of my amuseuments was to "shop my closet" in search of favourite outfits. This is six months' worth. Quite a few items have moved on...

It started with the skirts (some of the many are shown above right) - I tried them all on, and wore some of them one last time before putting them in the donations box, taking them back where they came from!

As winter approaches and we're keeping the thermostat low, I have different priorities, different needs - warm clothes! (And always - comfortable shoes.)

Sometimes the reason you can't find anything to wear is that you have too many clothes. Too much choice.

On the closet/wardrobe theme, a little book I made in 2002 has surfaced. The original had brightly coloured tissue paper glued down, and then printed on with simple shapes made with waterproof glue, wood glue I think. This is a photocopy -

Oh those many many photos! Part 1, the task

My (android) phone kept sending "space is low, some functions may be affected" messages. The easy thing would have been to use the "free up space" option, which deletes all the photos from the device. They are still backed up in The Cloud and are available via googlephotos on my computer.

That's the easy option, and didn't appeal to me ... because ... I want to have access to my recent photos - um, why?? - well, to put on Instagram, to show people, to look at the cute videos of The Darling Grandbaby ... maybe because I'm so used to clutter?? ... but mostly because I'm totally out of the habit of doing things the easy way (why???)!

Because of the "low space" thing, the useful "delete from device" option isn't working. This is a very useful thing to do, when it's working. You select the photos you don't "need" (see above) to have on the phone, tap on the three dots at top right, and tap on "delete from device". Bingo, some space is freed up. A quicker way, if you take lots of pix at once, is to tap on the date and delete a day at a time. You can unselect some of the pix if you use that method.

But ... I can't "delete from device" at the moment so I'm spending an hour a day at the computer "sorting". The time is written into the (online) calendar for the rest of the month of August. 8am every day is supposed to be the starting time and 9am the stopping time, the breakfast-making time. If I need to start later, I reschedule on the calendar, which is also on my phone, rather than just say "I'll do it later sometime". 

This works for me. Back when I was writing a dissertation I had the short sharp shock of realising that in order to get it done in the two weeks of holiday leave that remained before the due date, I had to focus, really focus. There were kids to take to school, and meals to make, but 9-3 was My Time. The first week, it was so hard to sit down and Get On With It, but by the second week I was "in the flow" and was often surprised when 3pm came and it was time to rush to the school. And, being young and energetic, I could do a few more hours in the evening. It got done, and I had a new skill, something that had been missing in my erratic university career - sitting down to work at the appointed hour.

Later I learned about the value of having a stopping time, and respecting it. 

Just one hour in the files, every day, for a week at a time, that's the plan.

I hope to wrest back enough space, in the final week of August, for the "delete from device" to work. And hope to have sorted all of 2020 so far - up to date on IG, just a few choice "important" pix for showing people, and all the pix and the selected videos of Darling Grandbaby in one album.

With her beloved Blanket, formerly known as Deng

I'm learning that all too often I don't know what I took for granted - for instance, does "delete from device" also remove the photo from an album? The Learn Google Photos blog is proving useful. Also the google photos help - why didn't I look at this years ago?

Mornings in the studio

If the sun shines, there are shadows slanting across the worktable. Some are easier to catch than others! 

The white eggs make a change from having brown eggs, not that it makes a difference to the egg inside the shells -

I thought the white ones looked a bit crowded - social distancing, you know -

Ah, that's better

 Taking the opportunity to clear just a few inches of shelves -

Before - the discoveries behind the scissors pot

Souvenirs of the Designer-Makers degree show at Camberwell, a few years back

Old notebooks and sketchbooks - the tree is from the 1970s

Drawing by young Tom at a lunchtime concert in Oxford, 1982

From different eras: a favourite postcard and a wine label

After - just a bit more spacious

My inspiration - she likes to know how things work, and then get them to work, but she doesn't quite have enough manual dexterity and strength yet. But she's showing strong signs of perseverance; some would call it stubborness -

More morning moments -

There's time for doodling

Double doings - painting and shadow

Just a timely coincidence

 More discoveries -

Diversity, for a reason

2008, art foundation course - I used a drawing done at the National Gallery
from a Piero Longhi painting for a printing plate. Still like it, but the others are in the bin

Drawing Tuesday - inside a cupboard or drawer

My kitchen has a vast array of cupboards and drawers to choose from; the ones at the top need a ladder to get to, and are essentially oubliettes -

So I chose the one that gets the most use - the fridge; the one that I would dearly love to be clear of all those jars and bottles at the back, kept "just in case".

Admittedly, this was not drawn entirely from observation of an open fridge - I took a photo, printed it, and mostly used that as reference, with forays back into the fridge now and then to check that the colours were "real".

And to start, I used carbon paper to trace the lines of the shelving -

Again, the question is, "Is this cheating" - and I'd say yes, except that I wanted to use the particular quality of a carbon-paper mark, more velvety and less likely to smear than pencil. And the placement of jars etc in relation to each other was a bit of a challenge in itself. I plunged straight in with the colours, rather than adding them afterwards. However the main advantage of starting with a bit of tracing is that it did get me started - I found this topic quite difficult at the outset.

From Janet B -  the lure of drawing in the garden proved irresistible. I picked a couple of items from a memory box: my son’s first pair of shoes from 32 years ago and the imaginatively named “Boy” from a few years later.

From Janet K - Things in my puppet eye box. The ends of plastic spoons make good eye shapes.

From Joyce -  I couldn’t get motivated today so here is one I did recently for an online sketchbook challenge. Hopefully I’ll be in the mood next week!

From Judith - The ‘Glory Hole’ under the stairs.

From Mags - Before an early lunch I did a continuous line drawing of the contents of the kitchen drawer . Afterwards attempted a watercolour which got very messy and confusing ( bit like the drawer really, it needs a good sort out !). The doodles along the edges of the page were the most fun , capturing the essence of implements.

From Sue S -  A difficult one to settle down to - drawers all looked so messy!! This is my sewing drawer: incl. upside down glass pots with assorted beads, sequins, nick-nacks!

From Richard - Watercolour on pencil sketch; why are nearly all my clothes black and white?

Caran d’Ache with some wet brush. In my crazed mind this looks like Surrealist-phase Paul Nash

From Ann -  I selected a memory group of a ceramic cat, icon and Japanese figurines and used new Faber Castell polychromos pencils which I'm so enjoying!

From Hazel - This is a view into my sewing box. I drew it using a brush pen and coloured pencils.

From Gill - Inside the tea towel drawer, drawn with pencil crayons. Since seeing how Marie Kondo folds everything I feel very calm when I now grab a clean tea towel instead of delving into chaos.

From Jo - Outside cupboard. Coloured pencils, HB and 6B pencils, Derwent Drawing Chinese white, candle wax, eraser.

Old hand-forks found in the shed. Staedtler triplus fineliner, water soluble pencils.