Without any wheels, I am reduced to working out the Public Transport Timetable and the daily battle between the two Service providers from our village (that's a long story and readers are directed towards the Cambrian News for more information). If I get lucky, then I hitch a lift from the village into the town with one of the girls or the wife. Maybe buying them all a car wasn't such a bad idea after all! Although when I do make it to town; I tend to mooch around for a bit longer than usual. It's always a stealth visit, as I like to spend time with friends, but you have to watch out for those really horrible people that you sometimes notice walking past, when you are near the bank. But that's the joys of adulthood, you don't have to spend time with the sh*ts of this world, but you can spend many a good hour with those that you like.
I done that today, and again yesterday with good friends who run the ART SHOP on Pier Street in Aberystwyth. They are lovely, lovely people and always have the time of day. Costa is another favourite haunt. Ed and the gang are also lovely people and Costa is a good place to keep up the mental exercise reading one of my current three books. Now that I no longer have to work, it is great to once again dabble in art. My latest creations are ink and watercolour, and oil based. Although I am going to try some oil pastels and pencil pieces as well.
While I wait for the Volvo S60 D5 SE, AKA 'The Beast' to be brought back to Wales from Firenze in Italy; maybe it is a good time to think of my ideal car. This drawing is of a Hyundai i30 that I spotted outside Cambrian Hyundai in Aberystwyth on their Open Day. I quickly took a few photographs on the Xperia X10 from different angles ready to create some artwork. I balanced these shots with more detail taken from other images that I found on-line. This particular piece is work in progress. It has already gone through the pencil drawing stage and I was really pleased with that result. I used a 2B pencil as I could easily remove the pencil strokes with a Daler Rowney Mystic Eraser. This is a rubber compound based product and not a harder plasticise rubber that tends to smudge the lead onto the paper. I am using pulp water colour paper. It looks good, but in reality it is relatively poor quality for the task. The main reason being that the Rotring Isograph 0.25mm pen skips as the paper has ridges and a sizing agent. Although the thicker 0.35mm nib works well.
The pencil drawing could have been worked into a finished piece with shadow and tone added. But I want a pen and ink drawing complete with a watercolour wash and water colour detail by applying several coats of colour. So this pen and ink drawing is starting to look good, but this is just work in progress. I need a few more days of adding detail and then have to take the brave step of applying the water colour. The upside being; that the longer 'the Beast' is away, the better are my chances of honing my artistic skill.
