Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Sea Thistle blues

Sea Thistle
8" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

More prickly plants!

I'm late posting today because BT had what my broadband provider was describing in a recorded message as a "major nationwide network outage". For nearly 12 hours. Normally I just go and do the washing up, put the laundry on, get the vacuum cleaner out etc - and by the time I've finished the network is back up and working again.

Not so this time. This time it went on....and on...and on. At the end of which I discovered that BT wholesale which sells network access to all the broadband suppliers does not deem it necessary to provide any information to the ultimate end user - such as how long the outage is expected to last.

I came up with an analogy for their behaviour. It's as if the Royal Mint forgets to supply any new notes or coins and there is not enough money in circulation. But they feel they don't need to explain what has happened or when the problem will be remedied. They leave it to the middle men to explain - the banks - or in the case of broadband, the broadband suppliers. It's all very silly. Pitiful even.

Anyway - it left me working on this drawing of Sea Thistle - for hours! I thought it was going to take ages - and I'm still not sure it's finished or I've got it the way I want it. I'd have liked to take longer over it......

Anyway - you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out what Shirley and I thought of the Turner exhibitions which we saw at the Tate yesterday!

10 comments:

  1. A prickly subject when it comes to outages and plants ;-)

    It was nice to come home to all your lovely drawings Katherine after my trip away and gosh so much reading and links to catch up with as well within your posts. :D

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  2. Oh, I love the finesse of your pencil drawings. And I've done some research on watercolor pencils vs. wax base, just so I'd know. Thank you so much for posting these; I love them!

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  3. Wow! You certainly made great use of the time! This is a beautiful drawing. Maybe I should turn my computer off? Doubt that whatever I created would be as lovely as this. Hope you frame it.

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  4. My connection's been very unreliable too...I suppose it's rain getting into the works somewhere. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Turner exhibition, and the Hockney angle to it.

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  5. You now can - it's posted.

    The Hockney section is very much devoted to the more preliminary works and colour studies

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  6. Beautiful job on the thistles. I love your color choice for this.

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  7. I really like it. You do a great job handling the whole drawing, and yet without a horizon.

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  8. Beautiful prickles! This is becoming a signature subject of Ms Tyrrell. Thank you also for the Turner links - I've had no painting time but couldn't resist the Turner techniques video.

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  9. This is one of my favourite flowers ... I have several in my garden. They thrive here and I like to think it is the influence of Miss Ellen Wilmott, English gardener extraordinaire. She used to visit people and scatter seeds of this plant about. The plant became known as Miss Wilmott's ghost.

    Your drawing is lovely ...

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  10. What a lovely story Kate!

    People - anybody who likes gardening should visit Kate's blog - it's got lots of snippets of gardening advice and lovely photos of flowers.

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