ONLINE ART COURSE – BOAT ON A BEACH, AND A GREEDY CAT

Boat on a Beach in pen and pastel pencil

For the second project in the landscapes module, we were given a mixed media piece to do. It was the first time that Phil, our teacher, had combined pastel pencil with ink pen drawing, and he said he really enjoyed it and would like to do it again. Unlike with watercolours, when you can do the ink drawing either before or after the painting, with pastel pencils you have to do all the ink drawing first, because the pens won’t work over pastels. Obviously the pastels were going to cover up some of the ink pen drawing, so we did this drawing with a thicker pen than normal.

Choosing the colours

This was the first lesson of the project. Phil guided us through the selection of a number of pastel pencils suitable for this drawing, and we swatched them out.

For some reason with this project, I didn’t remember to photograph every stage, or to date this first lesson, which I did on Sunday 23rd June.

Sketching with the pens and beginning with the pastels

The initial sketch

We began by making a pencil sketch mapping out the main shapes, and indicating the horizon and the major features of the sky and sea. Since we were working on coloured pastel paper (Canson Mi-Teintes), we did this with a soft 6B pencil so that it would show up. When we were happy with this, we did the ink pen drawing. I chose a pale grey paper from this pad containing a selection of different colours. There is a textured side and a smooth side to this paper, which I remembered just in time – the textured side requires a lot more work to get a smooth effect from the pastel pencils. I did my colour swatches on this side, and then turned it over onto the smooth side for the drawing itself.

What I normally do when following the tutorial, is to determine the proportions of the reference photo and then draw a frame on my paper to the same proportions. In this case I did not do this, and my boat ended up towards the left of the drawing rather than in the centre, and I had to extend the background to fill the sheet. In the end I didn’t mind this as it is a quite nice composition, even if not accurate to the reference.

I should have photographed it at this stage but I went on and completed the sky before I remembered.

The sky

Phil is very fond of a sketchy style of drawing, but I wanted something with a much more finished look. He did give us permission to do this if we preferred it, and for once, I didn’t feel as if I was departing from the brief! On his drawing, he outlined the cloud shapes with the pen, and emphasised the darker areas of the sky with a lot of vertical pen lines, but I really didn’t like this effect. I therefore confined my shading to pastels alone, and drew no cloud outlines, preferring to keep the edges soft and fluffy. Beginning with an overall covering of white, working more heavily with the pastel pencil in those highlighted areas, we were then able to add colour selectively, both to the blue sky and to the cloud shadows. After laying down the pastel, I blended it out with a blending stump.

Here is the drawing at the end of this lesson. This stage was completed on Sunday 23rd June.

I think this is a very delightful picture of an old boat which has been washed up. There is evidence of decay and rust on it. The expanse of the beach and sea gives the picture a beautiful open and peaceful atmosphere. I really wanted to do this justice as I liked the picture so much.

Completing the picture – colouring the boat, sea and beach

Again, I forgot to photograph each stage!

In addition to the colouring, I added more detail with dark brown and black pastel pencil. I like how the cliff on the left, and some of the colouring in the sand, echoes the rust on the stern of the boat.

I am generally pleased with the result of this project. I am glad it came out OK because of how much I liked the subject. I really enjoyed doing this one – far more than the graphite clouds project which reminded me unpleasantly of my struggles with charcoal!

My hubby is working on the same picture, but in his favourite medium of ink pen and watercolour wash – I am looking forward to seeing how his picture turns out, and comparing notes.

Cats who eat too fast

Ruby eats too fast, and quite often throws up immediately after eating. This is very tedious, not just because of the mess to clean up (and it is sometimes distributed in more than one place), but also the waste of food, and the instant loud demands to be fed again!

Some time ago we bought a set of two bowls on a stand, raised up and at a slight angle, which is supposed to prevent post-prandial regurgitation but unfortunately in Ruby’s case, this didn’t work! She is so greedy, and once she’s downed her own portion, she often elbows Lily out of the way and finished hers as well!

I had heard of puzzle bowls to slow down the eating, and I ordered one from Amazon, which arrived today. It is a ceramic bowl on a very nice little bamboo stand. The bowl has fish-shaped projections in it, and the cat has to eat the food from between these, which makes it more difficult, and therefore slows down the process.

We should have timed her eating out of the normal bowl, so that we could compare, but we didn’t think of it! We confined Lily to the flat kitchen so that she could eat in peace, and gave Ruby hers in the new bowl.

She wasn’t a bit fazed by the fact that it was different, but set to with a will to eat up. She soon realised that it was more difficult than usual, and we watched her carefully eat every chunk. It took her seven minutes. I am quite sure this is a lot slower than normal! So far she has not been sick tonight. I said to my hubby that if she was sick tonight, I would be very cross indeed!!

I think this new bowl is going to be a success. If she isn’t sick over the next week, we will order a second one for Lily, so that they can eat side by side again, which will make life easier.

Cat food

We are now seeing evidence across the board of “shrinkflation” (what a ghastly word!) – manufacturers repackaging food in smaller quantities than before, and to add insult to injury, charging us more. I have found this most irritating with certain foods that were packaged in convenient weights which corresponded with my recipe ingredients – button mushrooms are now in a smaller pack, for instance, but buying two packs is a larger quantity than the old single package. I used to find that a 300g pack of cherry tomatoes would last us the week, but since they have reduced the pack size to 200g, I now have to buy two packs, which is too much. It is very irritating.

I always buy things with a long shelf life in bulk when it’s on special offer, and a few weeks ago, the cat food we’ve always had fell into this category and I stocked up. We have been buying the 40-pouch packs, each pouch weighing 100g. For a week or two, this cat food was temporarily out of stock on the online list at Tesco, but we had plenty in, so I didn’t worry. It then came back in stock, and I was horrified to see that the pouches now weigh only 85g. This is a smaller portion than our cats need. Splitting an extra pouch is extra hassle and again, very irritating.

I did some research online and found a company which does tailor-made food for individual cats. You sign up and get a supply delivered once a month, of both wet and dry food. The ingredients look very healthy, and I am pleased to see that the wet food comes in small tins rather than in plastic pouches, so they are recyclable. The weight is again 85g, at least in the illustration on the main web page, but this is supplemented by the balanced dry food. When it comes to the custom feeding plan this may be different – we shall have to wait and see. I have not yet signed up because we’ve still got quite a bit of the existing food to use up, but I’m assuming they will want to know the weight and age of each cat, and their breed etc. We worked it out, and it isn’t much more expensive than what we’ve been having – in fact it works out cheaper, because at the moment we are buying the dry food separately.

This idea of food designed for individual cats seems to be a very good idea. The website seemed serious, covering all points, and the food looks much better quality. Our kitties have done pretty well on the supermarket stuff, but now they are messing about with the quantities, it seems a good idea to move on to something of higher quality and easier to manage. A lot of supermarket pet food has fillers without much nutritional value but this food does seem to have more nutritional content. Now our kitties are officially middle aged (!) – seven years old, which is hard to believe – maybe this is the time to look to better quality. I just hope they don’t dash all our good plans to pieces by turning up their noses at the new food! Knowing Ruby, though, she’d eat a horse, given the chance!