Julie’s Pictures

My brilliant idea is becoming a reality

2008-07-18T15:57:00.003+01:00

About ten years ago, as I marvelled at the wonderful variety of images I could create on my computer and print out, I had this great idea for reducing clutter and waste but which still allowed us humans to indulge our delight in consuming huge varieties of different products. I thought about what I called a ‘gloop machine’ which was basically like a printer that would produce three-dimensional items. Every household could buy one and you would simply use computer software to ‘print’ out whatever you needed on your gloop machine. So you could put in your vital statistics for instance and use your fashion designer software to produce an outfit that fitted you perfectly. Or you could decide to have an oriental dinner party and you could use your gloop machine to produce a beautiful set of serving dishes, chopsticks and cups. And whenever you became bored with your outfit or your dishes you could put them in the melting pot of the gloop machine ready to be made into something new.

Well the future is here. Adrian Bowyer and his team at the University of Bath have been working on a machine that can create 3-D objects with a view to the machine replicating itself. And what an interesting philosophical conundrum that creates. The machine, which they call a RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) machine is well on the way to re-creating itself. And en route the machine has made a number of other items, children’s shoes, a door handle, a coat hook. This may not seem much, but think of the slow, painful, crude output of the first printer attached to a computer and compare that to the speed and superb quality of the output from the latest colour printers. Look at the products the RepRap machine can produce now and imagine what it will be able to produce in twenty years time. Amazing!

Flo back from holidays

2008-07-16T23:03:00.002+01:00

She’s been on two holidays. One doing the backpacking adventurous thing and the other a raucous all-girls (22 of them!) get together in the new 18 to 30 hotspot in Crete. She rang from her second holiday after losing money and needing a top up of funds. She made me hoot with laughter when she told me she was having enormous fun but added sotto voce ‘You won’t believe how tacky this hotel is – the swimming pool is the shape of a penis!’ Can you imagine anyone choosing to build a swimming pool like that? What happens when this place falls out of favour with the 18 – 30 crowd. I suppose they could try attracting ageing swinger holiday makers.
Brushpen in large sketchbook

My entrepreneurial children

2008-07-16T10:18:00.002+01:00

Tom and Flo are great at sorting out ways of earning money, whether it’s babysitting, gardening, decorating or working at the local leisure centre. It must come from Robin’s side of the family as he comes from several generations of business entrepreneurship – unlike my side who’ve all opted for safer ways of earning a living. So with the huge costs of university looming, first for Flo and hopefully in a couple of years for Tom, they’ve decided to see how they can get on with starting Oakley Gallery an online and real-life art gallery that will help to fund some of the little extras (such as eating!). Tom is rather enjoying the prospect of putting ‘part-time art dealer’ down on his university application form. Sounds so much cooler than ‘part-time burger flipper’. They have a huge collection of paintings to start their business. It’ll be interesting to see how they get on – and whether they earn more money than they would do working at the local fast food restaurants.

Watching the Tour de France

2008-07-14T23:04:00.002+01:00

The only sport that we both enjoy watching. And a sport that really is better watched on television than in real life. I’m so glad I weaned myself off the only other sport I liked watching. After spending what seemed to be the entire summer term watching tennis when I was doing 'O' levels, I realised drastic action was needed so the next summer it was cold turkey. I have to keep my distance from televisions during Wimbledon fortnight, it would just take an idle glance at a rally between a couple of players and all my good work would be undone and I would be feverishly looking forward to my next fix. Much better to spend my time trying to do things.

Brushpen in sketchbook

Hugo looking moody

2008-07-12T22:27:00.000+01:00

He wasn’t feeling moody when I drew this – it’s just the moody look goes with those model poses.
Brushpen in sketchbook

Flo, Brad Pitt and thoughts about love

2008-07-11T23:07:00.001+01:00

Pen in sketchbook

Hugo sprawled

2008-07-10T23:48:00.002+01:00

My fidgety son. Unlike his mother I’m sure that he’ll never have a weight problem. We all end up shouting at him when we can’t stand the fiddling, twiddling and tapping a moment longer. But he’ll have the last laugh when he enters middle age as thin as he is now because of the incessant calorie burning.
Brushpen in sketchbook

Relaxing after school

2008-07-08T17:07:00.000+01:00

Pen and ink in small sketchbook

Footballers’ mothers

2008-07-04T20:17:00.002+01:00

This may be the last time I bother with the after-school football club. Xavier has a very jaded attitude to the game and seems to spend most of the time lying down on the pitch – possibly thinking of new inventions, or alternatively devising interesting mischievous diversions from the boredom of kicking a ball around. I won’t miss the winter classes, even if the summer sessions are an enjoyable break for us parents.
Pen in sketchbook

Sketch of a 30 year old photo

2008-07-03T01:28:00.002+01:00

In reality the photo is much better. However all my models were absent or had gone to bed, so I opened this up on the computer screen and drew it. I haven’t asked the photographer’s permission to draw it but I know he won’t mind — even though I have made a travesty of his wonderful capture of a very happy moment in time.
Pen and ink in small sketchbook

The arduous journey to school

2008-06-29T23:34:00.003+01:00

It’s a hard life isn’t it? On the way to school last week I pointed out some clover growing in the grass and told Xavier that it almost always had three leaves but on very rare occasions it had four. I said that I had never been lucky enough to find one with four leaves, despite having spent hours, as a child, searching for one. And guess what I spotted? I excitedly told Xavier I’d been looking for one of these four leaf clover leafs all my life, to which his response (bearing in mind that five minutes previously he hadn’t known what clover was) was that he too had spent all of his life looking for a four leaf clover.
Now I wonder what effect this little incident will have on Xavier? When he’s sixteen will he play the lottery for the first time and expect to win?

Sew darn good

2008-06-27T12:08:00.003+01:00

Those of you who visit my blog regularly may notice that there is a complete dearth of posts on sewing, stitching and all arts and crafts that involve needles. I draw, I paint, I cook – something has to give. I think the last time I sewed something was in 1980. I was ambitiously attempting to make myself a suit and half-way through this doomed enterprise I realised that the fabric had cost me more than buying something off the shelf, and I didn’t even know if my bum would look big in the finished outfit. So that was it – I foreswore sewing from that day on. However one of my real live in-the-flesh friends, Fiona, who is a published author to boot, has started a blog on stitching, crafting and sewing. So when you feel the need for art of the needle and thread variety do go and visit ‘Sew darn good.’

Hugo’s poses

2008-06-26T22:42:00.003+01:00

Hugo is one of those boys who always seems to arrange himself into poses of tangled limbs – which however irritating as a parent – are nonetheless interesting as a sketcher. Here he couldn’t keep his bony wrists and hands away from his face, so for the few minutes I had to draw I thought I’d focus on them rather than nagging him to let me see his face.
Pencil in sketchbook

She’s interrailing

2008-06-25T12:08:00.003+01:00

I’ve just received a text message from my darling Flo. She and her two friends are on the train to Prague after spending the last couple of days in Paris and an hour in Koln. Then it’s Vienna, Slovenia and Croatia. What an adventure!
This was drawn a couple of weeks ago – I’ve been a bit busy, so haven’t been able to scan and post. Flo was thrilled to finish her last exam. Two days later she was bemused to receive a letter from Oxford with a huge stack of difficult maths problems to work at over the holidays.
Pen in sketchbook

Feet up

2008-06-14T17:58:00.001+01:00

Yet another TV watching picture. But in fact this man had spent about three hours kayaking first and was only sitting down for half an hour before bed. So this is giving a bit of an unfair picture.
Pen in sketchbook

The morning snuggle

2008-06-13T17:34:00.000+01:00

Every morning Xavier creeps into our bed. And every time that Robin is not there due to leaving extra early because of work or hobbies there are cries of outrage and fury at his absence. Good thing I don’t take it personally!
Pen in sketchbook

Last episode of ‘The Apprentice’

2008-06-12T10:47:00.002+01:00

We’ll miss our wednesday evening TV highlight of the week. Although I think that TV-watching can be the most appalling waste of time, sucking the life out of you, sometimes it can be an incredibly positive shared experience for a family. Especially when we’re all laughing at the antics of the participants. The thought that anyone would be prepared to employ any of them for a six-figure salary is so extraordinary I can only think that the salary is simply a cheap way for the production company to encourage a dozen self-serving individuals to perform for our entertainment. I’m glad Lee won, he was nice, even though he was a bit of an idiot, I hope he enjoys his year.
Pen in sketchbook

Robin in his pajamas

2008-06-10T10:32:00.001+01:00

Pencil in sketchbook

Waiting by the side of the pool

2008-06-09T23:18:00.001+01:00

It’s Monday so it must be swimming. Xavier and one of the girls waiting to be allowed in the pool. Mummy who luckily escaped ever having a hot flush, suddenly realising what her friends are talking about as she sat in a heated indoor swimming pool on the hottest day of the year so far!
Pen and watercolour in sketchbook

Hair tied up

2008-06-08T23:27:00.002+01:00

I loved the way Flo’s hair looked this evening
Pencil in sketchbook

Robin concentrating

2008-06-07T22:25:00.000+01:00

Brushpen in sketchbook

Flo again

2008-06-06T23:41:00.000+01:00

Pencil in sketchbook

Ever-moving Flo

2008-06-04T23:29:00.002+01:00

Unlike the drawing below (which I’m rather pleased with) this bears absolutely no resemblance to Flo. She will not take seriously my pleas to stay still just a little while. So while I drew this her head bobbed left and right and up and down. Her hair was scraped back, tied up, let down and twiddled by her fingers. She smiled, she frowned, she laughed. Me? I tried not to cry at yet another disastrous sketch.
Pencil in sketchbook

Two of my boys

2008-06-02T22:43:00.002+01:00

Tom and Hugo watching a film. I am really starting to get to know some of the characteristics of their faces.
Pencil in sketchbook

Rufus waiting at the annual tadpole hunt

2008-06-01T23:13:00.002+01:00

Robin has taken Xavier to catch tadpoles for the last couple of years. Personally I can’t stand watching the daily sight of tiny creatures floating to the top of the tank in my kitchen or alternatively the fear that they may have thrived on their diet of shreds of lettuce and that there’ll be a mass of froglets hopping along the kitchen surfaces. But boys wil be boys and they get such fun out of it.
Pen in funny brown sketchbook