SKETCHING HOURS AWAY

A friend suggested that while I was immobilised, I could think about doing some sketching. It is something I have not taken a notion to do for more years than I can remember. I liked the idea and gave it some thought.

Hubby has enough to do  responding to almost my every whim and supervising me when wobbling on the crutches. Before you ask, no, I have not mastered them. Trying to move short distances on the crutches gives the palms of my hands a break from the pressure pain, caused by hopping with a zimmer frame. Notwithstanding my limitations, some strategies for being a bit independent are evolving.

Sketching. First of all I would have to send hubby to find the materials. I am not sure where they are. I remember buying a video about sketching, colouring skills and ideas,  to go with some lovely Keswick pencils, before such things were recorded onto CD's and DVD's.  This would be a great opportunity to get on with watching it, but..........for the moment, we are both having quite a lot of domestic changes to adjust to, without adding layers to them.

Inspiration: why don't I download some arty apps onto my iPad - so I did. There were a couple of free ones that did not appeal, one tried to suck you into cloud storage with Adobe.  There are two apps that I decided upon.  One is free the other I paid a nominal asking price. If I don't get on with either of them, there won't have been a large investment.

Digital art creation on an iPad is strange. It feels like there is less control over the progress of an opus. There is obviously a technique to master. Of course, all these apps are sooooo eeeeasy to understand. I am still working out how to save what I do and find it again. You erase something, you get the outline of the erasure when you apply your correction.  The best I can say so far, ( early days yet) I have the time and space to experiment and hopefully, improve.  Also a couple of hours disappeared while I tried to acquaint myself with digital sketching.  One thing I am really good at is using the eraser. 

NO....... REALLY?

It's got to be easier and quicker to load things on to the phone while it's plugged in, hasn't it? 

Not so as you would notice.  The time line bar started out at five hours!   There's only one thing to do when you are left gawping at that sort of time span, apart from wishing the bandwidth of the local broadband was a bit broader and niftier; (the polite version of my thoughts.)  A few moments on and the time line bar was reducing by an hour, two hours, then, yay! three hours.  "Come on you can go just a bit more"  It stuck at offering me two hours for the downloads.  It said two hours and it did just exactly what it said it would do. No further willing, wishing, silent cajoling, was going anywhere.  

I checked the progress bar a few times between preparing and cooking the veggies and it seemed to be enjoying itself, stuck on one spot.....two ***@@@*** hours! So I got busy with other things, settled down to relax for the evening and forgot all about it.

Darn it - just getting ready for bed and remembered I had the whole kit and caboodle wired up and the computer  still switched on and busy. At least the time line bar had disappeared, and various things had put themselves in position all by themselves.  Isn't technology magic. 
 Now some of my favourite apps have to be updated, more time...