ONLINE ART COURSE – FIGURE STUDIES – FIGURE 3, A NEW LAPTOP, CATARACT NEWS, AND A BOX FOR RUBY

Figure 3 – accordionist

This afternoon I finally had time to sit down and complete the third project in the first module of the course (graphite drawing).

Some interesting foreshortening to cope with in this one. Using the envelope technique (drawing a five-sided shape enclosing the main points of the figure) certainly helps with this. It is tempting to draw what you think you see, rather than what you actually see. Without getting the envelope correct, it would be easy to make the legs much too short. Because they are in the foreground, and the reference photo was taken from below eye-level, they appear much larger. I’m not sure I’m 100 percent happy with this drawing but on balance it turned out OK!

The teacher didn’t give us so much instruction on this drawing, assuming that we would have learnt enough from the first two studies to manage on our own. It was easier than I expected.

We’ve got one more project to do in this module – I understand it is a self-directed one, drawing a subject of our choice.

New laptop

For some time I have been having trouble with my main laptop. My old HP one is in the office and still works OK but is pretty slow. My main one is an Acer, and I have to say I would never buy another one. It’s not been great, and the main problem I am having now, is that the ports are not functioning properly. Any cables that are plugged in feel distinctly wobbly, and half the time I cannot get the computer to recognise one or other of my external hard drives that I use for backing up. I had a word with the local computer repair shop about this several months ago, asking whether the ports could be replaced, and he said it was not possible. It annoys me that something so important should be so liable to failure when the rest of the computer may be working OK.

Also, the keyboard has never been brilliant, and it is probably wearing out now, as it frequently misses letters, causing me to have to go back and make corrections all the time.

Sometimes the computer runs extremely slowly for no apparent reason, and is unresponsive. I recognise these as signs of potential hard drive failure. I mentioned it to my hubby the other day and he suggested I went ahead and got a new laptop now, rather than waiting for this one to fail – he reminded me that this has happened in the past and has involved a huge amount of work, and some loss of data (although I am generally meticulous about backing up). I decided to take his advice, and spent some considerable time the other night, reading reviews and trying to find one that would tick all my boxes.

Eventually I came upon the HP Envy 16. I need a large screen for photo editing and art work, but didn’t really need to go as large as 17 inches. It frequently came up tops in different reviews as a good general purpose laptop. I need a fairly high-spec one because I use the computer constantly and make pretty heavy demands on it.

The next step was to seek out the best price for my choice, and I came across one on Amazon from a genuine computer dealer, listed as “Used – very good condition” and under “details,” it said that it was a change-of-mind returned item after two weeks. It carried a reassuring 12 month guarantee from the shop, and since the price was at least 1/3 cheaper than new, I decided to take the plunge.

It is of slightly lower spec than the one I read about in the reviews, having 1 TB SSD storage and less RAM, but it is still a huge improvement on my existing Acer. It also has a touch screen with supplied stylus.

It arrived this afternoon, and as soon as I opened the box, I realised that this was actually a brand new computer that had never been opened. All the seals and protective films were still in place! I know that I have got a real bargain here.

I decided to be good and not start setting it up until I had done the latest art course project (it’s been too many days since I have had enough time to do that) and I intend beginning this evening. I know it’s going to take me 2 or 3 days to complete, as I have to set up all the customisations, install all my software and re-register a lot of it, and get upgrades, and then transfer all my relevant data from the backup drives.

It comes with Windows 11 installed. I am currently using Windows 10 and have been reluctant to upgrade. I have several quite old programs and I’m a bit concerned that they won’t run on Windows 11 but we shall see – I am not sure how radically different it is from Windows 10.

It is an extremely smart looking computer – very slim, and silver-coloured. I have tried the keyboard and it has a decent feel to it (as stated in the reviews). The bezel is narrower than on the Acer, and while the screen is the same size, the whole computer is slightly smaller. One thing that particularly attracted me to this model is that it comes with plenty of ports, including the HDMI one which is often absent on the latest models. Our smart TV is just too old to have decent wireless connection to the computer, so I run a cable between the two, and certainly need to be able to do this so that we can watch our favourite stuff which is stored in mp4 format on my external hard drives.

Cataract News

On Friday I had a letter from Devon Referrals, asking me to phone to make an appointment to see the surgeon regarding having my first cataract done. I wasn’t able to phone until Monday because my hubby was out all day, and he needed to be there with his diary, as he has to drive me.

The optician had informed me that the waiting list in Plymouth was much shorter than in Torbay, but I was very surprised when they said they could fix my initial appointment for this Thursday! We are going over in the morning, and they tell me the appointment will be up to 2 hours long, as they have to do a full examination and also take my medical history etc. I am used to this, having had numerous surgeries in the past – they are very thorough, which is a good thing. I am hoping that there won’t be too much delay between this appointment and the actual operation, but I doubt it will take place before the New Year now.

Ruby

Ruby loves a box! Recently she’s been more indifferent to them, but usually she can’t resist getting into any boxes that might be around, and I always have a few out for her to use.

I had a small parcel the other day and gave her the box to see what she would do.

“I wonder if I can fit into this little box?”

“Nooo… Can I have a bigger box, please?”