Author: Dartmoor Yarns

Sunday Sevens 2020 #18

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens16 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens; a post where I share seven or so photos from my week.

It’s been another week of dodging the hoards travelling miles and miles for their daily exercise.

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Apologies to the Cornish – it is worth it.
On a more positive note, being allowed to go out two at a time means I’ve done some car knitting for the first time in months…

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Although not much as trips have only been out to local dog walks…

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Back at home I’ve been excited to see the strawberries in the strawberry jar ripening…

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… which meant Lovely Husband was assigned to making a fruit cage to protect it from the birds…

20200523_18535100On the new things we do now front, I had a face time physiotherapy session. It was amazing how much we could do with my physio looking at my back and getting me to do certain movements and asking how things felt when I did them. LH acted as cameraman and took a few instructions and did some manipulating too.

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And finally Harry would like to show you his Winston Churchill impression…

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Stay Safe.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Comfort Stitching #2

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Cross Stitch14 Comments

It’s been just over a month since I showed you the cross stitch I started working on again at the beginning of lock down, which had been lying untouched for several years. At the time I mentioned how this felt rather therapeutic under the lock own circumstances and many agreed they had found themselves ‘comfort crafting’ too, rather than working on their more usual projects.

Including my lock down stitching I’d completed about a quarter…

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I’m pleased to say that I’ve now completed around a half…

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So if it’s taken me 8 years to do approximately half, at that speed I’ll be finished by 2028 – or maybe, if I keep going, even less.

Are you still comfort crafting or doing something else?

Until next time,

Bekki x

Life Drawing Live

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Uncategorized12 Comments

Did anyone catch BBC 4’s Life Drawing Live last week? It was good timing for me, because I had two days of working on getting back to sketching people a couple of weeks ago, then stopped again. Hopefully it’s put me back in the grove.

Although I didn’t watch it live, I recorded it and followed along in a couple of bursts over the weekend.

We started with warm up; drawing two 30 second poses then a one minute one…

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Very pleased with the proportions given even each was drawn in 30 seconds and the one on the right less time, because they forgot to engage the pose cam.

We then moved to drawing models in iconic artistic poses:

6 minutes – Diego Velazquez’s only surviving nude…

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Not sure what’s going on in the bum area.

10 minutes – Bacchus the god of wine…

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We were supposed to use sanguine chalk, but I didn’t have any, so used red and white watercolour pencil – although the white is impossible to see here.

12 minutes – Augustus John’s Madame Suggia….

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This was the first one I drew on the second day and I think the lack of a warm up didn’t help, but I’m very happy with the bottom half. 

15 minutes? – Carvaggio’s Narcissus…

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I enjoyed doing this one most. Supposed to be in charcoal, but I have none, so used my 8B progresso  pencil and fell back in love with progresso pencils. 

18 mins – Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People…

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Progresso pencil again here.

Even though I’m not very experienced at drawing people and not very good at it, I really enjoyed this and thoroughly recommend having a go if you missed it – even if you don’t draw. The pose cam cast is available on BBC IPlayer for the next three weeks.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Sunday Sevens 2020 #17

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens10 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens; a post where I share seven or so photos from my week.

This week our lock down in England was eased with a completely illogical set of new rules. But one new rule made Lovely Husband very happy: golf courses are open…

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People have now been told they can travel as far as they like to exercise. This has led to large numbers of people driving out to the countryside. So I’ve abandoned my walk from home walks and got in the car to go to the places tourists rarely track down.

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Only my car in the car park here

Further someone has constructed a mini Stonehenge near a village close to us…

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At home a thrush has built a nest in the roof of our barn – unfortunately it’s right above where we have to walk every day. I hope we don’t scare her away…

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In the garden Lovely Husband has rejuvenated the path around the edge of the garden…

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… and I’m very excited to see fruit appearing on the strawberry plants…

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And finally absolutely no idea what’s going on here with Hubby and Harry…

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Hope you’ve had a great week.

Stay safe.

Until next time,

Bekki x

 

Scrap Happy May 2020

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens10 Comments

I’m afraid I’ve a very scrappy offering of scrappiness this month.  First off you may remember last month Lovely Husband made me a lovely greenhouse from old polythene and pieces of scrap wood.

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It turns out some of those pieces of scrap wood just happened to be my clothes props that he originally made from scrap wood.  But never fear, he made me two more from different pieces of scrap wood.

Why couldn’t he use these for the greenhouse in the first place? I’ve no idea.

As for me…

Because I wear orthotics, I often remove the inner liner from trainers so my feet fit in them. ( I have huge feet, so buying a bigger size is often not an option.)  For years now I’ve been saving the liners thinking that they’re made of a fabulous squashy stuff that will be great for a crafting project some day. Although, of course, I have no idea what that might be. I have quite a collection…

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I few weeks ago I realised I’ve been wearing my current pair of dog walking trainers for far too long and they were providing zero support for my feet. But ordering a new pair in lock down meant a long wait.

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So meantime I refurbished the old ones with one of the old linings – the trainers were so stretched and battered there was now plenty of room for them.

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And that, I’m afraid is the sum total of this month’s scrappiness. But I’d love to know if anyone has any suggestions for what to do with the rest of my collection of trainer inner liners.

If you like the idea of using your scraps, click on Kate or Gun (first two names in the list  below) and join us on the 15th of every month – or just those months you feel like joining in.  Here’s a list of both frequent and occasional Scraphappiers (?) if you want to see what everybody else is doing.

Kate,  Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn , Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Karen,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline and Sue L.

Stay Safe. Stay well.

Until next time,

Bekki x

ggg

Searching for Baby Bear

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Watercolour14 Comments

I’ve been searching to find the right watercolour tutor on line, but I just don’t seem to be able to choose someone who has a course that feels right for me. I’ve felt rather like Goldilocks; I like the way one tutor teaches, but I don’t like the techniques they use: I like the techniques a tutor uses, but I don’t like their style of painting: I like a tutor’s painting style, but the way they teach annoys the heck out of me.

What’s to do when you realise you turned up at the three bears house, but baby bear has left home and took his comfy bed, comfy chair and porridge with him?

My answer was experiment and find out what I really wanted.

Last time I shared my painting I showed you these…

They were part of my experiment. The pear on the left – painted wety on dry – was everyone’s favourite. It was also the picture I liked best too. However I enjoyed painting the  other one more – painted wet on wet – but to be happy with the result I should have added more detail/texture wet on dry.

So the conclusion to my experiment was that maybe I need two tutors – one who focuses on detail – wet on dry – and one who works wet on wet. That way I can learn tricks from both then use what I want from each.

And having just decided all that, I found Kristi Arzola. She felt like the perfect Baby Bear; using mostly wet on wet, but adding details wet on dry after. Unfortunately she only has a few tutorials on offer, but one was a very generous free and well taught tutorial painting an orange poppy.

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My picture’s far from perfect and I should have been braver with my tonal values and adding more detail, but I’m still very pleased with it. It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but I still think I’ll need to follow my two tutor plan.

Stay safe.

Until next time,

Bekki

 

Sunday Sevens 2020 #16

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Uncategorized16 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens; a post where I share seven or so photos from my week.

Last Friday was the 75th anniversary of VE day, but as we’re on lock down the official celebrations were scaled down dramatically and the day became one for quiet contemplation and close neighbours spending a few hours with a drink or two, sitting 2 meters from each other.

As part of my quiet contemplation I looked through the box of photographs, postcards and documents left to me when my father passed. My father was too young to sign up for military service at the very beginning of the war, but signed up during the war, once he was old enough.

 

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He joined the 64th Squadron of the RAF and saw service in Egypt as well as Europe.

 

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Although he talked about the war, he really told us very little about his experiences. His discharge papers also give little away as the writing is pretty much unreadable.

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Inside the box I also found Dancing Charlie  – made in the 1930s.

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I love the hype on the envelope and it made me think how much better previous generations were at entertaining themselves. We have so much more today and yet many people have been complaining how bored they are during lock down. Can you imagine how long today’s children would be entertained by Dancing Charlie?

For your further entertainment I thought I’d share a picture of my father as a young child….

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and one of me at a similar age…

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Just so you can see where I get my ridiculous wavy hair from.

And finally my seventh photo is bang up to date –  While most of our village hung union jack  bunting or flags outside their houses, one house had a rather creative take…

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No Where’s Harry this week, so instead I’ll ask how many pairs of knickers can you spot in my photos?

Stay Safe (And Alert!)

Until next time,

Bekki x