drawing the head

another one of these. i'm not a figurative drawist by any means but there's a lot to be said for sitting down of an afternoon with a bit of paper and a pencil and drilling some technique  

making a mini exhibition

 ari makes a mini exhibition. so much more satisfying than a session on photoshop! the expense of photo paper these days make it a less frequent pleasure tho! but you could do this sort of thing with any endeavour

claire eleanor fergusson

 another one of these, like a breath of fresh air. i feel the lack of anyone left in my life like this! 

malik abdul-rahmaan & chris hound

 

bill mclintock

 every so often i realise i haven't listened to something by bill mclintock for a while. so here's this 

and here he is getting interviewed about it all 

filters

 an back to fiddling with filters. it's complicated-ish. here's a guide. 

my favourite april fool from this year

 it's a while since april 1st but this is brilliant

korg monologue

 i've finally dragged some of my old electronica out and my, but i'm rusty. the korg monologue is a great starter synth and here's a couple of vids that show how it work 

learning from mistakes

 useful 

the slow lane

 

mëstiza

 

hiroko yamamura

 not your usual behind the decks demographic! lol sounds are great. crowd is dismal 

hermanos gutierrez

 

paris roubaix

 there's a ton of gear channels that'll go on and on and on and on about tyre pressures,  gearing and the like re paris roubaix but really, none of it has much to do with most cyclists. here's what happens when regular people do the cobbles, arno representing my body type, rob my heart rate! lol i laughed a lot, not least at their go to advice guy 

the flandrien challenge

it being the holy week of classics cycling what better way to kick back before/after the ronde than this. the flandrien challenge is definitely on my tick list of things to do but time is definitely running out as i want to do it on a proper bike, not an ebike, but equally not a modern bike. my modern bike, geared as it is for younger racers just wouldn't work for me but my old workhorse, once it's refurbed, will eat these hills. but not the cobbles - there's a lot of modern technology i'm neither here nor there about but fatter tyres is defintiely comfier and i hate a cobble! lol

i actually lost a friend over this trip a while back for, in his eyes, having the temerity to suggest he might want to do some proper training as the route isn't for the faint hearted. i was right then and watching this i feel even more right now. equally i do love the sight of those frituur. as does benji i reckon, who's representing those of us wiht a more normal body shape! patrick does very well but looks like his ageing process stalled at about 19!

entertaining vid. love the classics. love flanders. 

*at the time of writing i'm waiting for the ronde to start. given the weather and the crash at dwars earlier this week here's hoping that it's great racing and everyone gets thru without incident

planet fungi

 can't go wrong with a fungus 

build a pond

it's handy if you've got land, a bunch of money, and time, to build your own pond. land is the essential and, even if you don't have a lot of money it's possible to create environments. time is often forgotten as, wiht many of these things, they need a bit of care and maintenance. outwith that, even here, there's lots of local initiatives to be involved in and it's definitely something i'm going to be getting more involved in as life goes on.

  

making a change

 i was out the other day doing a bit of fieldwalking and noticed just how close the farmer was panting to the field edge. no particular surprise given the margins they're having to deal with these days but there are some really interesting projects out and about at the moments to utilise edges and nooks in a manner that directly benefits the farmer as well as being good for nature. sadly, we live in a binary world so it's far easier, it seems, to take sides than explore solutions 

fools and dreamers

 not much cheering in current events at the moment so had a look for some more inspiring documentaries 

output

came across this purely by chance and there seems a lot of value in it, not least children learning their parents' behaviour. i'm doing lots of work these days where i'm wanting to push the boundaries of what i'm trying to do, partly because what i do well i feel like i've been doing for a long time but also, not unlike my cycling, i want to get back to my childhood state of just mucking about. that said, right now i feel like a recharge - i've never been less keen on cycling and constant making is just tiring. so the struggle now is not to be onvolved in the process of making, but to realise where it's time to have a rest. with cycling, i'm just not going out, still doing a few trainer sessions and watching my numbers dwindle (data and social media truly are the mind killer! lol), but the hard part is with all the rest, and persuading myself that putting my feet up, staring into space and having a nap, is an essential! 

*and yes, my practice pieces do not look good. but that's why i'm practicing!

hiroshi sugimoto

 hiroshi sugimoto  

the doing of art

 this, just this 

bikepacking the a1

 bikepacking definitely not for me but a big long cycle thru england? you'd never be bored for sure! 

dorothea rockburne

 another loft dweller. this time dorothea rockburne who, again, as well as being a fabulous artist, shows the way well into old age - books, light, material - what else could you want? lol inspiring! 

carmen cicero

 getting filmed in his loft. along with it being great to see someone at his age still working and creating, it is a thought that this has been made possible by rent protection. here, without that,  exorbitant rent increases, crippling rates, along with a ludicrous increase in utility prices, it's easy to see a real diminishing in the culture, from small businesses, performance venues and studio spaces. 

cosey fanny tutti

i love this picture of cosey fanny tutti, there's lots of issues around this but as it's the internet, which never forgets, caution is best. what i will say is i remember seeing images of the prostitution show from back in the day and finding it all very disturbing, not least because i hadn't learned a context to put it in. even then tho, i was aware of men in the same field getting less bad press for doing less. that aside, i'd love to see more of my female acquaintances of this age getting up to this sort of caper. they seem so few and far between and that has to be such a loss.

here's this 

macro and more

here's a vid about macro photography which, given the whole botany thing, has always been something i've been interested in. but it's not just about macro, or photography. the stuff he's on about can be applied to any endeavour. i'm doing it with drawing, different methods of pigment aplication and collage right now. just for a break, just for a laugh, but at the same time pushing my boundaries 

octave mandolin

 am getting to the end of my music buying and i think this could be my last instrument 

*okay maybe a tr8s and some electronics but my last acoustic instrument. maybe! lol

commute

the first step is to get out.... 

chris watson

 it's true that i'm doing a fair bit of photography these days, which is great, and i especially love the analogue work, and being out and about outside, but it's not a patch on sound recording. sadly, these days, i just don't have the time. here's chris watson and why slowing down and listening is great

contact printing

 it's true i'm a bit too lazy to get round to contact printing, plus i like the magic of a direct positive, in contrast to many of my pinhole colleagues who, currently, are really getting into it. this ilford guide, as usual, is super useful. me, i'm going even more old school and have a fiddle with cliche verre! lol 

lee madgwick

 i love this image from lee madgwick. browse his portfolio here

raül refree

 some dialled technique from raül refree but, for me, i was mesmerized by núria andorrà's percussion 

shooting in flat light

i feel very fortunate these days, as i'm playing with my digital camera (every frame a saving! lol) that my initial education re shutter speed and aperture came with my fully analogue zenit that i inherited back in my teens (initially with a light meter but then, sadly, not). there's nothing new or surprising in this video other than what's in this video needs explained. i guess if you can take a thousand shots, rather than 12/24/36, and then sort it in photoshop, it doesn't really matter. me, i've never given up the notion, that the shot is what you take at that moment in time and no jiggerypokery after! but, each to their own! this  is handy if you're not familiar whether it and, if you are, maybe a motivator to get put when the light's less good and challenge your technique 

*i'm looking at getting an old zenit again, not for film but so i can make mini tintypes. watch this space!

millie mckee

 more of this sort of thing...

donwella

 my analog journal on fire of late 

getting the most out of that mixer

 nothing startling but useful 

draw a face

 i'm doing a thing just now where i need a drawing of a face that's broadly anatomically accurate and repeatable. while i've got all the stuff in the house, drawing isn't something i do much more than once a year so i needed a simple method that i could do quickly. this fits the bill. so much so i'm tempted to do more drawing! lol 

*i respect the lad's commitment to a heavier paper but, for practice, i'm going much lighter and cheaper!

long exposure

 as i do a fair bit of pinhole photography (anthotypes on hold due to a chronic lack of sunlight!) long exposures are nothing new. but, seeing as photographic paper is such an effective way of emptying my bank account, weirdly enough i've been gravitating back to digital. point and shoot, beyonf my phone, doesn't interest me much, but getting my cameras on full manual and having a play certainly does, and i've finally found a way of enjoying digital that feels something like play. this vid's a decent intro

plan b

 as the new doc about jumbo-visma's dominance last year is about to drop, here's the old one 

piero piccioni

 maybe you have to be in just the right mood for this but, right now, i'm in just the right mood for this. (and a big lebowski connection i didn't know about!) 

the divide

 more cycling doco - and equally lovely to look at. as with laurens ren dam, i've got loads of time for lachlan morton. plus, as some wag in the comments points out, for this sort of thing - mechanical is better! for me personally, gravel bikes, one by and electronic shifting have ruined my cycling this last couple of years and i'm struggling to refind my desire as a result of it. but a decent doco, with some great vistas and big, open sky, that'll help! 

shepherd

i'm not going to lie, the vocal track on this doesn't sit well with me and that style. regardless of sport has never sat well with me. that's just taste tho, not a vaue jufgment. what's certain tho, is that this all looks lovely and is well worth a watch. i've been cycling these roads off and on most of the last thirty odd years and, while i do it dofferently these days, i've never tired of it.  

mohini dey

 i prefer yesterday's vid as mohini dey's style isn't quite for me but what can't be disputed is the frightening level of her talent. here's rick beato doing his thing (and supporting and showcasing young talent!)

knulp

the video image is pure clickbait for sure but it's the content... whoever is doing the camerawork knows what musical people want for sure but it's the beautiful, flawless technique on that fretless bass that steals the show, i could watch that all day! 

spanish verb tenses

i could't find a video with a timeline and, for whatever reason, online spanish tutors seem to like a lot of verbiage (sic) with their expanations! this lad keeps it seem when he's conjugating ayudar. if you're at the stage of wanting to do a timeline like the previous french one, you've likely got all the components you need. if not, a little caution but it's still handy, if only to show you some gaps. bit of paper and a marker and you're off! 

instagram practice

 i've kept my duolingo going but now, after nearly five years, i'm finding it, other than making sure i do it every day, counterproductive in terms of actually learning. what i am getting a lot out of is spanish language instagram. it gives me the instant hit of duolingo but, and especially if it has spanish subtitles (english subtitles not helpful), i have to read and listen at a native speakers pace at the same time. my current favourites are - 

jimena gonik - a disc a day for 366 days is just a joy. and while she does the english language classics there are cantantes in here i've never heard of. brilliant!

victor del valle - i had a lot to do with hairdressers back in the day so this is well within my comfort zone. what i like is the repetitive nature of the interaction, the speed of the chat and watching victor's skills. he gets some stick in the comments for limited technique but what he's doing he's doing well so i'm not bothered.

erik dominguez - cooking! and in an accent i can actually understand!

ingemar albertsson - okay not spanish but ingemar is such a dude i can't leave him out. plus, far more than french or spanish, or even dutch, i've always struggled with comprehension in swedish. moreso now i have no chance to speak it but i don't want to let it die. there's some really specific vocabulary and the swedishness is dialled! lol

eduardo girardin - my italian is now where near not needing english subtitles but, in addition to not liking italian duo much, this reminds me of why i love italian so much

cheikh niang - more food! as with erik dominguez lots of great kitchen language. plus, west african french is where i started french as a kid, so i can't not love it

obvs i listen to more spanish than anything else but i listen to all of these more or less regularly. native speakers speaking to native speakers is great and all of them have big easy to read subtitles in the target language (except eduardo). in spanish, it's also helping me get to grips with different accents and modes of expression. i find these short clips less demanding than listening to the radio or watching something on tv (netflix spanish viewing a whole other thing!)

that said, i do like me some french radio.  i haven't found spanish speech radio i like yet but i'll do a music station. alternatively theres always the cycling in dutch, which i'm not sure if i really understand, or if i'm cheating because i know what they're talking about! whatever, it fills the house with a vibe that's not english!

french verb tenses

i'm not going to lie, the grammar of tenses and their associated word order feels like soup in my head right now. which is why i like these diagrams and why i find it very relaxing sometimes just to work along a timeline, as much to reassure myself that i do know what i'm talking about as anything else!

back button focus

 handy 

takuya nakamura

 

nina yamada

 

natalie oberg

 i'm really liking this my film story series. when i had small female relatives i found it much easier to get them motivated if i could show them women doing things they might only have associated with me!

daudi matsiko

 

cycling the cairngorms

 you couldn't get me camping now if you beat me with a stick. and i'm only slightly less keen on a bothy. but they're in a lovely stretch of the country and doing that thing that so rarely happens in these videos - binning the route and enjoying the journey. doing it at this time of year is less than ideal weather wise but you won't get eaten alive by tics and it's less tourist dense. cairngorms are just lovely, esp off the beaten track

bass fretting technique

 yt is awash wiht how to videos and no less with bass playing. that said this one covers the basics better than any other i can think off. clear, concise and useful - the dropping the wrist thing and keeping your fingers perpendicular is something i sin against frequently! lol 

gravy masala base

 this isn't quite how i make my curry base but no-one makes it quite the same way! but, if you're not doing it you should. batch cook it and you're off. the tip of the vid tho (and why i've never come across it who knows!) is the combining of the spices with water so you don't burn them. again i've made a lot of this over the years but this would've saved quite some amount of inconvenience! 

paradise lost

 

rice and beans

 rice and beans 

the quick version 

the take your time version

cycling back to sweden

 once upon a time i was going to cycle home to sweden. as it turned out there was no home to cycle to but i still look back on the idea with some wistfulness. here's somebody actually doing it - on a brompton! 

soup like medicine

 i've had a wee rush of german 'soup like medicine' vids in my feed. i'm a believer in soup for sure but i think i probably believe medicine should be more like soup! i likely wouldn't make this particular soup but, i believe, for the people who like this wort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. and that's the key for me. my taste is not yours and vice versa. but a bit of time out, some fresh veg and a pot of soup on the stove - that always works for me! 

budget lenses

 other than shooting film there's few cheaper ways of emptying your bank account quickly than money spent on lenses. i use the first lens in this vid a lot. so much so that i'd say it's almost moved me away from my expensive (and time consuming) film habit and back to digital. the images are so random that, with the camera set on full manual i get free range to experiment with actually camera technique and it really puts me in mind of my first ever camera, a zenit with a broken light meter that i used fully on eye, i really can't be bother ed with all the camera shenanigans, whether its complex developing with film, or horrible editing sessions with digital - i just like mucking about taking pictures. cheap lenses are a great way to do this, to free yourself up and actually enjoy what you're doing

* i'm in no way critcising those who like their photoshop/lightbox or for whom hours in a dark room is a day well spent. i love, esp the darkroom stuff, having a blether about all that but i don't really understand it and its not for me

building a copy stand

if you're shooting film, whatever method you're doing, you're going to find your costs going up real fast. while i've got a very, very basic dark room set up i don't do any scanning, not least because it appears that the likes of epson haven't done any work on software compatibility since windows 10. so here's this. too much computering for me but looks feasible 

christofer hogman

 i'm not a fan of ai generarted art, but then again i'm not a fan of a lot of things. but, that's as far as it goes. whether it's art on not seems irrelevant to me - i've enough to be doing without wasting time about all that! christofer hogman (swedish keyboard not enabled!) has some pretty decent opinions on this - as well as sounding like what i imgone i sound like when i'm speaking english to swedish people! lol 

mammal hands

 mellow sunday 

vera danilina

 i watch something like this and realise just how terrible i am at playing guitar! hahaha but even the act of being not very good allows me to appreciate vera danilina's sublime playing in a manner i would've have been able to had i never picked up a guitar in the first place. listening to this while drawing last night. lovely 

my heart's in the highlands

 

klara bylund

adressing, again, the shortage of dance on here. i came across klara bylund purely by chance - i can't embed a video as she only does shorts. but what she does is entirely different from any other dance video that's come up on my feed. straight off, she doesn't look like any of the other dancers i usually see - this looks like someone in their kitchen. and indeed, when you see her other videos, her kitchen is her studio. i love that restriction and i love her use of space. i know nothing about her, other than she's living in/from norrkoping and, to my eyes, this is a fairly unremarkable swedish kitchen! she looks bendy and effortless enough to me to suggest at least some dance or movement training. certainly if i tried this it would look very different!

i found it joyous and a wonderful way to brighten the day.  dance in your kitchen!  (and avoid the comments section!) 

edith pageaud

 unlike rachmaninoff i do like his prelude in c sharp minor but that doesn't mean i can do it anything  like justice! but here's edith pageaud, who's transcribed it, changed her tuning, and played it like a boss. amazing! 

dan hastie and terin ector

 again, i wasn't up to much, but i was loving this. don't know if the yt playlist thing will work but just search for them plus crows height and it'll appear 

the offline

 more sicktime sounds. nice! 

minyo crusaders

 in that niche netherworld of japanese traditional latin crossover here's this. which i'm just loving! 

i'm not going to lie, one track isn't enough. here they are out and about 

matthew halsall

 i'd love to tell you i was getting all arty this week and this was my soundtrack. but, while it was true a little, i was mostly not well and drifting on the couch. this was like a bath 

metamorfosi

 if one of your guys turns up rocking a theorbo - i'm listening! 

roberto cassani

 i'm off to see roberto cassani tonight. we haven't seen each other for about ten years and i haven't seen him perform for about the same time so very much looking forward to it. check him out at bandcamp. note - as far as i can make out roberto's made the leap from where we used to work and is a full time musician, which isn't easy. purchases matter!

james against the machine

 great skills. i couldn't do this in a month of sundays 

veggie bowl

 this yeung man bowl is like diving into memory for me. i can't say my memries of working in the kitchen are fond but they are good, and i've made endeless veggie/vegan bowls just like this and i've never liked an avocado since! lol where i live you'd be more likely to see a unicorn than a purple carrot but such things were freely available when i was a londonist and i do have very fond memories of shopping and cooking for my ex mother in low. as for carrot ribbons, i was all about making wee roses and knots with them. happy days 

henry purcell

 beautiful 

natalia lafourcade

 a ukulele clearly but this is what's constituting spanish practice this week. what a voice! and a killer band... 

marta pereira da costa

 portuguese guitar? nope, never even seen one. so here's marta pereira da costa to show us how it's done. lovely. but those tuners!? 

reggare style oldies

 old school 

start photography

 modern cameras are great. that said, you can pick up a 10+ year dslr cheap as chips and get started. so what's stopping you? likely the offputting manual download and then trying to figure that out. worthwhile then to have an overview which this handy, and long, video is. fear not, there's content notes! and there's a setup one after. watch this instead of netflix and tomrrow, get yourself out (this doesn't count for northern europe at the moment as the light is flatter than a pancake and about a smuch use as a candle in a gale! 

*i don't necessarily agree with all these tips but you get to pick and choose

*my current digital setup is an old canon body and a holga lens. you don't have to do anything with the holga lens but you will have to fiddle about with the manual settings. it's a good way to learn a camera, have a bit of a laugh and you can pick up the bits for very little money. despite what almost every video on yt will tell you - it's not about the gear but your eye. work on that rather than emptying your bank account! lol

bass lines

after yesterday - what i have been doing (tho, as always, not as often as i should) is playing with my bass. a lot of guitar/ukulele/bass players seem to have problems around notes and shapes on the fretboard so this, to me, seems clear and useful, and should be applicable across instruments

easy ukulele

for no good reason i haven't played any ukulele for ages. but i heard this guy the other day and got one down from the hanger. a super easy progression but also handy if you're wanting to think a bit about chord construction. and sounds lovely.  

fun with filters

one thing i've noticed about photography vids online is that (aside from being very male, very white) there just doesn't seem to be a lot of larking about going on. really, nobody cares, so you may as well have a laugh. came across these the other day and this sort of thing seems an ideal way to fritter away an afternoon! 

*i'm not denying there's a time for seriousness but let's face it, a lot of the time you're just grinding and getting the job done. if you can't remember the last time you just let go and had a giggle, now's the time to start

more old people

 it's unwise for me to have opinions but this guy knows what's what lol

old people

back in the day i remember being fascinated by old people. people who had lived in and been involved in ww2 were commonplace and, altho the average was lower than it is now, i remember having conversations with guys who had volunteered for the first world war. and then everything inbetween : shipyards, mines, tenements, steamies, the works. that said, bertrand russell's 'my grandad knew napoleon' story would've taken the win! lol 

stalker

 the whole film! while the festive season's great for rubbish movies it's worth remembering that, not so long ago, there was such a thing called film and it's just not so easy to see anymore. not for everyone for sure, but just watching the opening sequence of this was like a breath of fresh air! 

*try and get a tarkovsky box set these days (subtitled not dubbed). more and more i see these types of films either not available, priced way beyond what you'd expect on the disappearing format of dvd, or just absent on streaming. what a shame. when i was young (and even our video shop stocked such things!) and we watched everything, we didn't realise how lucky we were!

framing your head

i've taken to using a holga lens on an old body of late and i'm finding it a very different form of practice than my pinhole camera, so much so i had to reset myself a little bit (and definitely not take two different types of camera out on the same outing!) and think about what i was doing. this is a lovely wee vid about just that and, to me, would seem useful for most creative activity  

the christmas story

and, because we're nto that far out from christmas, here's some more oe. i ndon't speak it now and my accent is different, but this guy makes it work. if you've not heard this before and it's up your street, have a google for some spoken extracts of me from the wycliffe bible. worth it!  

the battle of maldon

now this is what lego is for! it's a shame it's not in oe but, as they say, they wanted it to be more accessible. i'm not sure accessibility equates to interest which is a great shame. nevertheless, good effort! 

el estepario

i got a drum pad recently and, much like my balance board, i'd massively recommend it, even if only to challenge your brain and amke your body do something it's not used to - plus you'll get a whole new appreciation of drumming! at the pinnacle of technique madness is el estepario, who puts his crazy skills down to hours and hours and hours of practice (which, tbh, works - my intial playing around and being frustrated has been replaced, in large part, by metronome sessions working on basic patterns, consistency, time keeping and speed. which is working and enjoyable!), here's rick beato's take on him 

easy project

 new year, new reolutions? get your creativity on! this one is super easy but, as with everything super easy, tricky in its own way. no excuses!