MY WEEK AT'S AWA'

On Monday morning I posted a couple of prints to a customer in Stirling. Then, being struck with my conscience over my lack of adherence to any kind of exercise programme, I walked home via Mounthooly Street, which any Lerwegian will tell you is a fairly steep climb up from the main shopping thoroughfare. I then finished, bar snagging, the second of the commissioned paintings which have been preoccupying me for the past six weeks or so, had lunch and set off with the first of these works to the framer. I then walked north along Commercial Street and Commercial Road, then up King Harald Street to Union Street. My legs, which have never regained their full capacity since a knee operation more than two years ago, before which I was unable to walk at all for eighteen months, told me that this was quite enough of this kind of exercise for one day, so I gave them a rest. In the evening I paid my subscription online to Re-title.com, one of the online galleries in which I have a small display, but I had some difficulty with the uploading procedure, so I abandoned the project in rather a bad humour - something for another day.

On Tuesday, I decided that the second commissioned work would benefit from the presence of a few seagulls, so I duly applied these, a risky venture, as many of my seagulls have ended up looking like distant Vulcan bombers, which rather spoils the ambience of the tranquil scene which I have been trying to portray. In this case, the birds (I hope) added to, rather than detracted from, the quality of the picture. In the afternoon, I finished a long-procrastinated-over task, the alteration of the bow and bow-wave of a fishing-boat in a previously-commissioned work which had been returned for after-sales service. In the evening I tried again to upload work on the Re-title gallery, but the system defeated me again. I abandoned it in a foul temper, and turned to another online presence of mine, Galleries-Online, and started to update this.

On Wednesday, I returned to my long-neglected stock works, and one of two paintings featuring tall ships in particular. I picked the one which shows most promise, one which portrays (or will) several distant sailing vessels against a background of bright sunbeams piercing a light cloud cover and a fairly rough sea. It will be, I hope, an atmospheric work but, at the end of the day, I still hadn't resolved the light issues in it. This will come - I'm not concerned about it at the moment. In the evening, I worked on the "archive" pages of the new-look website, which I'm looking forward to having "live" for your delectation soon.

On Thursday I resolved the light problem which had been affecting my tall ships work the day before. I should have this painting finished this incoming week, in which case I'll upload it to my blog and website - it'll be the first new non-commissioned work for some months. I made a pot of soup for myself and my sister Mary, who has just returned unbloodied from a skiing holiday in the French Alps. Afterwards she gave me a lift downtown with the second of the commissioned works, which I took to the framers, getting back the one I put there on Monday. It now has attractive brown and gold moulding around it, with which I am well satsified. The evening was spent on necessary domestic tasks and phoning people.

Friday is always mother's day for me, so I spent most of it at Whiteness. The weather was inclement - a severe gale, gusting up to 70mph, was driving heavy rain over the islands, but it didn't have much bearing on what I was doing. This consisted of collecting shopping and pension, checking out the greenhouse, making coffee and tea, cooking lunch, washing up afterwards, and helping mother in any way I could with sundry little tasks around the house. She's well, but having trouble with her hearing aids, both of which have packed in - again. When my older sister and my niece came to visit, around lunchtime, we all made the most of the communication problems in our usual whimsical manner! I returned home just before tea-time, and did little else for the rest of the evening - I usually feel fairly knackered on Friday evenings!

On Saturday, I received the dates for my next Creel Inn (Catterline) exhibition - November/December 2011!. This means that, as things stand, I have no shows confirmed for this year or most of the next. However, I will use this as an opportunity to build my stock of local scenes for the next few months, then concentrate on getting some really good paintings done for the mainland event, so that I can cherry-pick the best works for display in the Mearns venue.
Meantime, I did some more work on the tall ships painting until the late afternoon, when I had to pick up a prescription from the chemist's before they closed for the rest of the weekend. I then headed for the Lounge for my first alcoholic beverage consumption of the week. This consisted of two pints of lager, followed by a visit to the Chinese takeaway on my way home. What a dirty little stopout I'm turning out to be!
I watched Scotland narrowly beating Ireland at the six nations rugby. After that, I watched a few other things on the box, and did not a lot else.

Today, I'm doing lots of domestic things like changing beds, washing clothes, drying clothes and cooking, as well as getting my blog, hopefully, sufficiently well posted to make it worthy of your reading it. My customer for the first commissioned work called just after lunchtime, collected his painting, with which he seems well pleased, and gave me some money - altogether a very satisfactory way for things to be done.

And that, dear friends, is the story of my week at's awa'. I hope that the incoming seven days is full of good and interesting things for you.