annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Plans
I've lost any sense of what day it is. Today feels like a Friday, as if my week's work is done and I'm about to launch into a well earned rest, when the truth is I've done fuck all and had several naps. Maybe it's because my therapist is away for two weeks and I don't have to set my alarm. I really look forward to being in the office with her, but not for dragging myself out of bed and into consciousness before eight o'clock. I know, it's not that early but I've done my time, I'm retired now - sleeping till you wake up is one of the prime benefits.
I've been doing more photo-transfers, still not quite right. I flipped the photo of the pier and printed another set of four to play with, though I only did one which still wasn't quite right. Bits of the image came away with the paper when I removed it. I also printed a bit of a local map, but that was in colour, so I used the ink jet printer instead of the laser and it was all blurred when I unpeeled the paper. All these printers are about Bloke and his IT business. All the instructions for photo transfer talk of photocopies rather than printouts, so I might see if I can do a couple in the library tomorrow. And leave it much longer. The first guy I watched said to leave it an hour but one I watched this evening said overnight, so I need to try that. I know this isn't thrilling reading, by the way, but it's me teaching myself something new, wanting to record the process, the mistakes, the decisions.
I've put the idea to the Tuesday painting group of us submitting entries to next year's Royal Academy Summer Show. I saw a programme about this year's show and it really is open submissions. They get 15,000 unsolicited submissions via email from which they choose 1,500 to see face to face as it were, from which they choose as many as they can fit in, hundreds. The annoying man in the art group (the remaining one, as the one I spoke to sharply hasn't returned, sigh), told us that when he was a lad his father had challenged him and his brother to submit paintings, which they did and his brother's was chosen, which made it feel possible for us to have a go and maybe one or two of us might even get through. To do that though, they need to be original works, not copies, which is what I've mostly done till now. I'm going to do the 30 Days of Composition challenge again this August - although it's about photography the principles will be useful. It's here if you fancy having a go https://ayearwithmycamera.com/blog/30-days-of-composition and free camera courses, lots of good chat on the Instagram feed when it gets going.
I remember earlier blog days when I'd write like this about some project I'd embarked on and never mention again until years later I read some enthusiastic post about making a rag rug, or making a giant copy of this
painting, which has somehow got stuck in my mind, using beach litter, on the outside wall of the shed. I'd still like to do both of those things, and do have most of the necessary materials, but I want to keep going with this - learning photo transfers to incorporate into the tissue-paper plant-stencil thing and maybe creating something worth submitting to the RA. You can use those letters after your name, I believe, once you've exhibited there. I hate to say it, I fucking LOATHE to say it, but there's something about it being the Royal Academy that is appealing. Is it that, or is it just that it's been going on so long? The programme I watched (Joe Lycett on BBC the other day) showed the submissions being propped in front of the judges on a stool (momentarily, honestly they barely got a couple of seconds before there was a yes, no or maybe), and then a painting from the dawn of time (OK, 250 odd years ago), showing the exact same stool being used for the same purpose. And there is something of a thrill to think a work I created might end up being part of that long chain, going back hundreds of years and maybe onwards for a few hundred more. Exciting. Fuck the Royals, nothing to do with them, just the history. Phew, that's a relief.
I do have to get up early tomorrow, to phone the Apple store. Honestly what a load of fuckery. I updated something on my phone and now it wants me to log in again but I've lost my password. When I try to reset it it says I need a code so I click for the code and up comes a screen saying it's been texted to my other device. There is no other device, fuckers, and no code arrives anywhere. When I try to submit that as a problem, they want my fucking password before they'll let me tell them that their stupid system is broken. I was going to take it into the store in the city and ask a young person to sort it out but luckily thought to check first and there are no appointments available nor are they accepting drop-ins for the next two weeks, which is the furthest ahead they'll book. No that bloody great then, is it, your precious iphone, if you're jammed solid with people wanting them mended? But he said if I called someone would talk me through it. He'd have done it then but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it, brain was done for the day.
1:10 a.m. - 27.07.22
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