ONLINE ART COURSE – IGUANA INK DRAWING, AND A HEALTH UPDATE
Online art course
Yesterday my hubby and I sat down together to complete the next drawing in the ink pens module of the course. At first glance, the reference was intimidating, to say the least, but as always, Phil, our teacher, took us through it step by step, and it was fine. A number of people on the private forum associated with the class said they came to the end of their rope with all the detail and the hundreds of scales they had to draw on this extraordinary creature, but from the outset I was encouraged by something Phil said in the first video of the project, the Project Orientation. He said that it was like Zentangle drawing – repetitive small strokes, which was relaxing and enjoyable. I have done so much Zentangle drawing so I am no stranger to this kind of thing!
Phil had taken a reference photo and cropped it right down to just the head of the iguana, or it would have taken us too long to complete. It’s a striking image.
We began by drawing the outline sketch with pencil.
I got a bit carried away and added more detail than Phil did in his instructions at this stage.
To get the proportions right at the beginning, I used my proportional divider. I have been watching a number of videos about this fantastic little tool recently, and the most recent one was particularly instructive and encouraging. Firstly, it gave me some hints that I didn’t know about, making it even more useful, and secondly, he compared it with other “mapping out” methods for starting a drawing, notably tracing and gridding out. While both these methods do work, they do nothing to teach you how to observe and how to draw, but he said that the proportional divider is different; as you use it, you are training your eye to look at shapes, proportions and angles, and it is actually teaching you to draw better. This was good news for me becaue part of me was afraid I would end up using it as a permanent crutch and would not learn how to do this crucial initial stage of a drawing unaided. He said that the more you use it, eventually you will find that you need it less and less as your eye has become trained. Excellent! In case anyone has been thinking this, for the record, using the proportional divider is NOT cheating!!
The next stage of the drawing was to ink the outline. This wasn’t just a case of tracing over one’s initial pencil marks, but continuing to look back and forth between the drawing and the reference, making any necessary corrections in the process.
Again, I jumped ahead too far and didn’t take a photo after I’d done the ink outline. I had filled in a lot more detail than Phil did, so this photo is of stages 2 and 3 combined – the ink outline and most of the hatching.
It is amazing, the variation in the shape and size of the scales on this animal’s head and neck. The neck skin is loose and hangs in folds, covered with very small scales, and many of the scales on the face resemble stones. It also has many short spines, and longer ones springing from the back of the head. The eye was complex to draw and Phil kindly gave us an additional reference photo, a close-up of the eye.
In my initial pencil sketch and then the ink outline, I made the iris and pupil of the eye a bit too large, and circular in shape, not having observed it carefully enough. It was actually eliptical, and I was able to correct this with the use of the white pen, followed by some touching up with the black. It did look a lot better after this.
To bring out the undulations of the neck folds, and also to add more detail to the back of the head, the final stage was the shading, done with a combination of thick, medium thickness and very fine pens. Again, I’d done a bit too much on the previous step so at first glance it doesn’t look too different from the previous photo but you can certainly see a difference on the back of the head, and other differences too if one looks more closely.
This is the final result.
I am very pleased to have completed this drawing so successfully because it looked such a daunting task. It actually didn’t take that long, and my hubby and I were able to complete all but the first pencil drawing in one sitting.
His drawing, again, was of a quite different style from mine, and he complained that he hadn’t got the curve of the mouth quite right. I said his iguana had a rather leary grin, as if he was about to say something rude, and he also had quite a glint in his eye! We both laughed about it – I think his drawing is fine. We are always hyper-critical of our own work, I suppose. Whenever I look at my drawings I can see things I could have done better… Better that way, I suppose, than becoming complacent, which leaves no room for improvement.
Health update
Cataracts
It is now a week and a half since I had my second cataract operation, which went very smoothly. No problems, apart from a couple of floaters – I didn’t get these with the first eye. The larger one looks like a letter “C” to the right of my vision, and if I look at it, it scoots away to the side! The other one is a fruit fly which keeps flying in my face. I no longer try to swat it out of the way!! I am hoping these floaters will disappear over time.
So nice no longer to have to wear the eye shield at night, and we are now half-way through the eye drops regimen. The time soon passes. It isn’t very pleasant having it done as the drops sting a bit, but they are helping prevent infection, and promoting healing, so I can’t complain. I have my follow-up appointment at the end of March, when I shall get my new glasses. This can’t come soon enough! Although my distance vision is now much improved, I cannot get by without reading glasses, and I miss my varifocals like crazy! I have my reading glasses on a cord round my neck and I have to keep putting them on and off, and they will keep getting tangled up with my wireless earbuds and also with my hair!!
Colorectal
I’ve now had my CT scan, and I am having a sigmoidoscopy on Wednesday, to check on the state of my rectal stump, all that remains after the total colectomy which took place in 2015 after my colon cancer diagnosis. The new consultant looking after me in Exeter is concerned that since I had had an inflammatory bowel disease prior to the cancer, this small area is still at risk of developing a tumour and should be checked for cancerous or pre-cancerous growth. They will take a biopsy.
A few days ago I had a telephone appointment with a nurse, in preparation for this procedure. It was a total waste of time. She didn’t seem to know anything! She asked all the usual questions about medication, allergies, diabetes etc. which could easily have been gleaned from my notes. She told me I had to eat nothing after midnight the day before, and I explained that this was pointless as nothing down there is connected to anything – any food waste comes out through the stoma! She simply repeated the instruction, and said they’d be sending me a letter and a leaflet about the procedure. Again, she didn’t get it when I said that this wasn’t going to be a regular sigmoidoscopy. All very unsatisfactory.
As expected, the letter and information arrived the next day, with instructions for me to phone the department regarding the procedure (why did I need to have that previous interview with the nurse on the phone?). This time I spoke to a responsible staff nurse who answered all my questions and understood my situation. She said the reason for starving was not to clear the bowel, as they would do an enema anyway, but as a precaution in case one needed sedation. The first nurse said nothing about this. I asked how they would know if I needed sedation, and she said that they had it available, along with gas and air in the first instance, and at any time I could request it, and I would have signed a consent form to use it if required. None of this was explained to me by the first nurse. I now feel a lot more confident and better informed, and have a better sense that they will know what they are doing when I arrive! Just to be sure, I shall remind them that the area they will be examining is very short indeed, and not to expect the usual. Nearly every encounter with staff at this hospital over the past few years has involved some kind of mix-up, lack of communication or other problem and my confidence level in them is not that great. I said to my hubby the other day that I think we’ve been spoiled by Torbay Hospital – not surprising that it has been the winner of the Hospital of the Year Award! I do wish all this was happening there rather than in Exeter, quite apart from all these problems – Torbay Hospital is literally 10 minutes away from home, and my hubby has walked it with no problem. Going to Exeter is much more of a trek, and if they arrange fairly early morning appointments for me, it means an extremely early start which is not pleasant for me as I take a while to get going in the mornings as a rule.
If the new consultant at Exeter had been in charge of my case from the beginning, I have a feeling that he would have advised the complete removal of the rectal stump during my first operation, and sewed me up – what is known as the “Barbie butt operation” – haha – look at a Barbie doll’s bottom and there’s no hole there! Some blokes call this the “Ken butt operation” or perhaps the “Action Man butt operation” – according to taste! It sounds hilarious, but actually it’s a pretty serious operation with a long and painful recovery, which is why my initial surgeon was reluctant to perform it. If the new surgeon is going to be opening me up to deal with my ever-growing parastomal hernia, which has now spread to the midline incision, I think he will want to do this while he is in there, as a prophylactic measure. He told me that once the mesh is in place, it effectively seals the abdominal wall and makes further surgery a lot more difficult, and this could present a major problem should I develop cancer in the rectal stump at a later date.
Once the result of the sigmoidoscopy is back, he will call me in for a further outpatient appointment to discuss the way forward. By this time he will have had the result of the CT scan and also the full histology report on my colon from 2015 that he requested from Torbay Hospital. He is very thorough, and says he is not prepared to put a knife anywhere near me till he’s got all the information he needs, in order to make the correct choices regarding the procedure, what sort of mesh he will insert, etc. etc.
So things are moving ahead at last. I’ve been waiting five years for this operation and if they postpone it again it will completely do my head in!
