My Hewlet Packard has gone back for repair YET AGAIN! They had it only in August, for heaven’s sake! It is under warranty, but this time I have lost all the data and the programs. Even though I can find back-up for quite a lot of it, it takes ages getting all the programs re-installed. So I have had to cancel my SL gigs for the second month running. The laptop died the day I was about to play my 750th SL show! I shall never buy an HP again.
Anyway, on to more cheerful things. I started my drawing and sketching course at the Lit & Phil today and very much enjoyed it. We were doing some quick still life drawings and I ended up on the table that had to draw the boot (the other tables had glasses and bottles, or books. There were four of us sat at my table and so, obviously, we each had a different perspective. It was very interesting to see what the others had done. There were marked differences in style, but all seemed to offer good sketches. I did a pencil drawing with shading, an outline drawing without shading (also in pencil) and then a charcoal drawing. For that, we had to rub the charcoal into the paper to form a grey, and then lift out the highlights using a pencil eraser. This was the first time I had ever tried this technique. I think it has a lot of possibilities. Here is a photo of the boot.
Charcoal sketch of an old boot
I seem to be rather busy today. I need to play a bit more piano, and I would like to do a couple of things in the garden if possible. I have also been exploring data storage in the cloud, given my current laptop fiasco. I am in Dropbox but you can only store 2 GB for free; after that you have to pay monthly. I guess if I don’t put large music files up there it would be ok. I must get going in First Life now. Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.
John's Quavering Pencil 
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