tempus fugit

Man, it's been awhile. Tempus fugit. So, an update in brief;

I'm reading the Guardian more these days, online. Not as good as the minds found in The Times but at least it's free, and there's more Environment news-views. I have it on a handy feed. I'm liking this guy recently, John Crace. Funny.

Like Goldilocks and the porridge: neither heavy, nor lightweight. I agree with Nick. I'm voting Lib-Dem.

Life drawing was cancelled this term due to lack of interest. D'oh! But I have a new camera!, the G11. Sounds more like a meeting of elite nations; not as catchy as the Ixus which it's replacing. Not as compact either but less weighty than the Brick of Eos. I hope it fits my requirements better than either.

Shall I resurrect my art blog?

Watched James Lovelock on Beautiful Minds through yesterday's lunch hour. Easily as good as Satish Kumar on Natural World (of which I have a DVD). If I could only choose one televisual channel, I think it might be BBC Four.

Allotment is going fine. This year we're experimenting with no-dig (well, min-dig, really. I can't resist the odd fork over). It feels so natural this time around; am I becoming an old hand at it, perhaps?

END

more death, only slower, and more free easels

Further insight into The Book About Death yields this, a less hurried way of looking.

Also, you may be pleased to know that I contacted Winsor & Newton about my missing easel parts and, following two weeks of pleasant email ping-pong to establish exactly which bits were missing, they posted the missing parts, absolutely free. Now, you can't say fairer than that. My thanks to Alison at W&N.

underground art

This thing I have about the web, well, a friend once told me when talking about work, ''you only get out what you put in!''. (He must have changed his mind because recently he was telling me how much he hated his job, working long hours, but that's a story for another time.) Well, I don't know about work but it seems to be true for trawling the web. I'm on a mini-roll here...

This is a find: Linear, a series of pencil portraits found at Art on the Underground. It's unusual as the drawing process is captured on film and accompanied by conversation with the subjects as they're being drawn. There's also background noise that makes up the working environment, hence the idea behind Linear. The artist is Dryden Goodwin. He tells it so,

'Linear exists as a repository of insights and histories, anecdotal and factual, revealed through the interplay of the drawn line and conversation, that is unique to the Jubilee line at this particular point in time. Drawing someone you've never met before results in an intense encounter and enables a unique intimacy to develop. As the portraits unfold, so too does openness in the conversation; Linear is all about different types of connection.'

To me, it's a wonderful example of drawing as performance art.

art strip

As the web expands it naturally thins out. This is, no doubt, why I've let my interest in some areas lapse. Like Flickr. However, one of the resilient wonders of the web is the way people from far off make casual contact. I find this heartwarming. The human race is a good thing.

In my inbox this morning is a Flickr notification of contact from Alan Cichela. Finding his comic strips based around artworks is love at first sight. I wish I understood Portuguese - Alan hails from Brazil. The google translator is a bit ham-fisted, I may have to persevere, but as they stand they are delightful images.

I iGoogle.

It saves time, sometimes.
You never know what it might turn up.
Wiki-How is a feed.

How to Live with a Perfectionist
(do they mean me?)

How to be Active Before Work
(steady on, now!)

the funny thing was the image that greets you on the perfectionist page (see right), well, I'm sure it's by fellow Moleskine Exchanger Mike Kline! Small world.