GIRDLENESS LIGHTHOUSE AND A MAN O' WAR

The large (50" x 40" approx.) painting of an American man o' war in a gale is almost finished now. I hope to put the finishing touches to it tomorrow, and I hope my client thinks as much of it as I (and my visitors) do. I'll know quite soon. I finished the eagle's eye view of the cruise ship ten days ago, and it is now in the hands of another satisfied customer, I'm happy to say. I've resumed work on the commissioned painting of the ferry "St. Clair" leaving Aberdeen, with Girdleness lighthouse in the background. I had held back work on this while I attended to more urgent jobs. I've also started a painting of a snow scene in Unst, for a charity raffle and to be the front image for the same charity's Christmas cards.

Talking of cards, the ones I'd ordered from DCS in Devon arrived just over a week ago, and to say that I am delighted with them would be to understate my feelings. If I was fitter, I would have been jumping for joy when I opened the package containing them! By contrast, the ones I got from a better-known printing firm were half the size, dearer, carried the firms advertising, and were without cellophane wrapping.

One of the reasons why I was unable to post to this blog last Sunday was that I spent the first part of the day wrapping a painting for sending through the post, and the second half trying to do a group image of the cards to upload here as a single JPEG file (or something similar). Blogger, however, was unable to accept the file types I was able to produce using Open Office, so, in the end, I would have been better off just concentrating on a normal post. One lives and learns - none more so than me! Have a nice week.