David Shepherd eat your heart out.

Wednesday 14th March 2012
Surprise, surprise, the copy of the chicken painting that I was attempting has come out not to bad at all. At least not to bad when compared to my normal standard of drawing.

OK so it may be cheating to just copy somebody else's picture and it does seem to me to be more like technical drawing than art but I am still pleased with myself because I can recognise what it is suppossed to be.

I suppose that copying other people's work or photographs at least gives me a chance to learn different techniques.
For next weeks task though, I have to do a watercolour of the ring of Brodgar. So far I have been able to do some drawings that are vaguely recogniseable but every time I try to use any colour then they resemble a childs daubings and a particularly ham fisted child at that. Still, we shall see.

I went to the singing group tonight but I think that this will be the last time. I was not over enthusiastic last time I went. They seemed to just concentrate on bits of harmony, one group singing a line or two and then another group singing some. I though that I had better give it a second chance though just in case I had hit a bad week. This week was really just more of the same though so I think that I will abandon it. I prefer to sing songs all the way through or at least in decent sized chunks. Basically just have a "hoot and roar" for fun and not so much technical, clever stuff.

On the good news front (and relating to the David Shepherd "the man who loved giants" title),I bought a little N gauge shunting engine off ebay last week and had it delivered directly to a man in Dumfries who installs DCC chips in locomotives (technical stuff about computer controlled train sets). It must have been a hell of a fiddly job. The complete engine is only about 1.5 inches long and the chips are quite big so getting them to fit and soldering them in with all their wires seems a very daunting task.
OK so maybe a 1.5 inch engine is not a giant and my drawing may not be art so the reference to David Shepherd is fanciful but we all need targets.
Maybe it would be easier to just buy an elephant.

I now have my first DCC chipped locomotive and having DCC will make the train set much easier to build an operate when I eventually get round to it as all the electrics are much less complicated and I can run lots of trains at the same time, even on the same track. (I knew that you would be impressed). I am not sure that Pam is totally in favour of the "lots of trains" idea as she knows how much this one cost but I am sure that it is a better way to spend money than making expensive teddy bears.
All I need now is a railway layout to play with it on. At the moment it is sat on some bits of track on a spare bit of chipboard in a spare bedroom just so I can test it. Another thing that Pam is not impressed by and it will have to be put back in the shed soon.

I will put a photo up on the blog next time so that you can all get jealous, (or just think "sad bastard".)