Last day in may...

so I better get one more post in. Elaine is almost crawling now. This is her checking out my new mat for using with my sewing rotary cutter. Both were my birthday present from Mum...thanks Mum! :) Elaine christened them with plenty of drool before I used them to make her a summer weight sleeping bag.

Her head is that big...but she doesn't have the big black line through it. Doh!

Formula 1 - the best-loved sedative worldwide

Christoph and Elaine 'watch' the Monaco Grand Prix.

Just a scribble while feeding:

For beautiful sketches of the Umbrian & Tuscan countryside...

...please look elsewhere because there are none in this blog entry. 

Yes, once again the good intentions for lots of holiday drawing went out the window. Here's one done on the campsite in Talamone of Christoph holding Elaine. He's wearing her sunhat and, no he's not got drag queen lipstick on, my hand just slipped. He only puts lippy on when going out of an evening.

I have started a watercolour view of Talamone village but I don't know if I'll be able to finish it. I find landscape sketching and painting incredibly difficult. I'll have to do a course at some point because I lack the basic skills for watercolour. I tend to just draw then colour in, rather than paint.

On the return journey to Germany the motorhome, despite only being 5 months old, broke down (turbo problems) twice, was towed away twice and spent time at 3 different garages. Now, if I was a quick-thinking, dedicated sketcher like Lynn, I would now display many sketches of Italian mechanics gesturing with thumb and four fingers together and saying "Domani, domani!" and "Now mezzo-giorno! Ritorno 4 o'clock!", etc. Sadly, I'm not. We had to move to a hotel so I grabbed baby bottles, baby food and some other essentials from the motorhome but forgot to get my sketchbook as I was too distracted with thoughts like "Bring handwash detergent or just turn underpants inside out and hope the thickness of my denim shorts blocks any unpleasant odours?".*

The one piece of good luck in the whole breakdown business was the the hotel we were forced to stay in during the 'repairs' was lovely: Tenuta La Lupa country hotel If you're ever in the Livorno/Pisa area I wholeheartedly recommended. The food was amazing.

Here's some sketches done between face-stuffing on the only paper I could find:

However I have to bow to the artistic ability of the anonymous previous guest in our room, who had filled the other side of the paper:

The hotel also had a lovely outside pool.  Being Scottish, an outside pool is, and will ever remain, exotic and exciting. Usage is therefore obligatory. Even if the temperature has cooled considerably over the last few days and there is a breeze creating an exciting wave effect and making legs look like freshly plucked chicken drumsticks. We had to go back to the van on the 2nd day anyway so we picked up swimsuits and my sketchbook. Happily, there is no record of me in my goosepimpled glory, just one drawing of Elaine:

*Less robust-stomached readers may be relieved to know that I chose the handwash option. This choice was probably only regretted by hotel owner, Fabio, as I proceeded to drape dripping underwear over the chairs on our terrace, somewhat ruining the rustic charm.

Drip, drip, drip...

...little April showers. 
Like the weather, my posting this month has been unreliable to say the least. I'm not going to make excuses, just going to vow to do better in May. We'll be on holiday in Umbria for the first two weeks so there will be inspiration galore - too much in fact (see, the excuses are starting already!) - so I really have to get my finger out of the proverbial and wrapped around a pencil.


I had to sort out Elaine's clothes and pack away the things which no longer fitted. It's hard to believe the size 50 babygros were actually almost too big for her at one point. Nearly had a wee tear in my eye, putting them away...even for the ones with dubious stains...

Mum knitted the pink woolen bonnet which was a favourite of mine, despite Christoph saying it made Elaine look like the village idiot baby. Tchah!

I sketched this house on a walk with the pram along the river Iller. It's always fascinated me because it looks like it's been added to by every generation which has lived in it. And each generation had less architectural ability than the last. Behind the massive tree is an added-on wooden tower-like structure which I guess may house a stairwell. For some reason it's painted red. The main part of the house is pale blue and the attached shed extension is dark, dark brown (I feel obliged to point the colours out since my watercolouring is so poor). Then there are various allotments and terraced vegetable patches before the wall edge which goes straight down to the river. The house a bit bonkers but I really like it. I also like the fact I can stare with impunity from the other side of the river bank, even when an old couple come out to stare back at me.

Finally, a quick sketch of Elaine...yes, sleeping again...

14th April 2012

What happened to March?

Time is going so fast now it's almost a blur. I've hardly got any drawing done the last couple of weeks as I've been so busy. But don't ask me what I've been doing - I can't tell you...I don't know! I've not even been procrastinating (hardly), I've just been keeping on top of all the day-to-day stuff and am genuinely perplexed when I look at my watch and it's already midnight.


Last Tuesday I thought I better get out of the house and attempt to draw something other than my baby. So I parked the pram and plonked myself on a bench in what I fruitlessly hoped was an inconspicuous part of the town square. I really admire people who draw openly in a public place and can deal with curious passer-bys. I look less an artist and more a furtive scribbling weirdo. And if I'm trying to draw people then I probably resemble a furtive staring pervert. So, doing my best to ignore the dubious characters drinking out of beer bottles two benches down, I decided to concentrate on a building, the Rathaus (town hall).


I find architecture a struggle at the best of times and true to form the interruptions started almost immediately. Three minutes in, two young, good-looking men came up and asked... no, not to see my etchings and no, not for my phone number...they wanted to know where the next butcher's was located. After dealing with this rather random request I returned to my subject only to find the view blocked by a woman with pram. These self-absorbed mothers! Tchaah! She toddled on eventually and I was just starting to concentrate when a voice right in my ear asked if I was concerned with the state of our society full of drugs and crimes. Feeling tempted to commit a criminal act myself at this point, I turned and...yes...it was a Jehovah's Witness. She had sneaked up silently from behind on her mobility scooter. A mobility scooter! That's just not cricket, is it? I doubted I could outrun her with the baby in tow. And using my only daughter's pram to ram her would just be wrong - it was an expensive pram and I wouldn't like to damage the chassis. So I braced myself. Actually she was a nice lady, albeit a rubbish evangelist. She quickly agreed that it wasn't be worth taking a magazine if I wasn't actually going to read it and moved swiftly to a topic closer to her heart - her granddaughter in Canada. I started to wonder if she actually was a Jehovah's Witness; maybe she just used that as a ploy to launch herself on potential listeners. Fortunately a prior acquaintance/victim came along and she turned her full attention to him. Just as well as I had started to slump and drool.
I turned, without much hope, back to my sketchbook. Sure enough, I have bared wiped off the dribble when Elaine decided she'd had enough of this nonsense and it was time to go. 


So it was a pretty hopeless sketch which I attempted to improve with a bit of watercolour at home.

Kempten Rathaus (the thing in the foreground is a fountain, still boarded over for winter)

Even if a sketch doesn't work out, it helps you see more. For example, the second, lower, round disc is not another numeric clock, as I always assumed but shows the astrological signs. The Rathaus has been restored at some point in the fairly recent past. I don't know if it had bomb damage from the war or maybe it was just in need of age-related restoration. Here's how it looked in 1929 (from a postcard image):

I wasn't too lazy to draw the windows - they don't exist anymore - and the steps are different too.

This week I only got this naptime drawing done (photo's not the best unfortunately) of Elaine entangled with her bear:

It's now 12:45 am (how did that happen?!) so I'm off to bed.

Jags and stealth rolling

Whipped out the pencil last Sunday night whilst half watching Upstairs Downstairs. Elaine was out for the count so I got the coloured pencils too. The poor lighting in the living room is getting the blame this time for me unwittingly giving her a rather jaundiced/orange look. She woke up before I could fix it.

11th March

On Wednesday she got the second round of immunization jags. Despite getting one in each leg she barely cried at all. She slept a lot for the rest of the day. This is her in the car seat.

Today she's rolled (twice!) for the first time from her back to her front and I missed it both times! I was there - in one case I was right next to her but had my back to her (staring at the evil TV, doh!). When I turned she was on her stomach. Stealth rolling. I've been trying to creep up on her to see her do it but it hasn't happened again. 

Tonight the rest of the family and virtually all the salon staff are at the Runway fashion show while I'm left here with baby. Going to try to use the time productively and do some sewing. Will not be distracted by the ridiculous chat on 'Take me out'...no, I won't!

It's not art, it's just life

Apologies to anyone with a queasy disposition viewing this post but some things have to be recorded for posterity. It's probably just as well that smells can't be archived though.

5th March

Haven't had a level 4 Apoocalypse since last Thursday. It happened, of course, in public. Some of the women from my antenatal class had organized a get together to compare babies and smugly decide own offspring is much more advanced/attractive/intelligent exchange experiences and chat. This month in was in Petra's home - an amazing and completely spotless two-storey apartment (in a converted farmhouse with views of the alps and surrounded by scenic countryside, by the by). I can't emphasis how clean and super tidy this house was. There was not one item out of place. No clutter whatsoever. The kitchen worktops were home to a kettle, a soda stream...and that was all! It wasn't even that she'd done an emergency tidy and hidden all the random stuff in one room. I know for sure, because she gave us a tour of all the rooms and they were equally tidy. Unfortunately I wasn't left alone at any time so I couldn't have a rummage in the cupboards and closets but I suspect there would be no mess to rummage through anyway. Now I think of it, there was no wardrobe in the bedroom, she had a walk in closet full of neat rails and precisely folded clothes. Gaaah! It was like a mini Benetton store. 

These pristine surroundings inspired Baby Elaine to a 5 minute performance of red-faced grunting and screeching culminating in what can only be described as a fecal explosion. Changing her was more traumatic than usual as I desperately tried to avoid getting poo on any of the shining surfaces while battling loss of consciousness due to the fumes. Fortunately, Elaine's clothing had soaked up most of the overspill so the floor was saved. Phew.

11th March

What with that meeting, having to work one day in the salon, baby massage class, meeting Heidi and her cute twins, didn't get much else done last week. And I wasn't even procrastinating. Hardly. Above are some scribbles done in a few grabbed minutes in between doing other 'stuff'.