Still made in England

My mother was a careful shopper. That is to say, she was careful with her money and was loath to spend it on something that she thought was not of the appropriate quality. I remember shopping expeditions with her at a tender age and recall how she used to check seams on clothing for signs of poor finishing, and also look at the label to see where it was made. In those days, Made in England was usually an indication that the item would stand up to reasonable wear and tear.

Go forward at least four decades, and mass-consumer items proclaiming that they are made in the UK -- especially clothing -- are not as common as they used to be. But perhaps we have been conditioned to think and expect that all the things we can still buy in the shops are mostly produced overseas? (Except food, I hope!)

Recently, I convinced myself that a tube of Buff Titanium acrylic paint would be a useful acquisition, and decided that I would try the repackaged Daler-Rowney System 3 range. I knew that Broad Canvas in Oxford stocked the System 3 range, and I was able to drop by one day and buy a tube. When I had a chance to examine the packaging more closely, I was a little surprised to see that it said Made in England.

Like Winsor and Newton and many other brands, I had assumed that the pressure to off-shore manufacturing was irresistible and a sign of the times, and the revised System 3 packaging was a consequence of that. So it was unexpected to find that Daler-Rowney acrylic paint is still made in the UK, and my assumption is false that only expensive bespoke or luxury items carry British branding.

The tube itself shows that some thought has gone into its production. The old metal tube has been replaced by a clear plastic squeezable tube. This means that you can see how much paint is in the tube, and what colour it is. The cap is screw-on as before, but has been redesigned to have a flip top. This should make it easier to squeeze out small amounts of paint and avoid clogging up the screw threads with paint! The only slightly negative point is that the quantity has been reduced from a more generous 75 ml to the standard 59 ml (US 2 fl. oz.) format that other brands use.

Labelling is clear and a transparent wrapper around the top of the tube shows the colour name, colour number, lightfastness, opacity, and pigment composition. Plus the usual bar code, and a product code?

I have not had much opportunity yet to compare and test the paint. It happily mixed with Winsor and Newton Galeria Green Gold as expected and produced no surprises. The consistency of the paint seems to be the same as it was in the metal tubes, which is a medium viscosity. (Ideal for dry-brushing, but too liquid for impasto work and too thick for air-brushing straight out of the tube.)

The Daler-Rowney System 3 acrylic range comes in 60 colours -- including metallics and fluorescents -- so it appears to be an alternative to the W&N Galeria line of acrylic paints, and is similarly priced. Furthermore, a limited selection of colours is available through Ryman's the office suppliers. (Where I got the Raw Umber also shown above from.) I like the convenience of the flip top cap, so I suspect that I may be buying additional paints from this range in future if there are other colours that I can use.

Para's Progress 3

It has been nearly two years since the last update on the painting of the Airfix 1/32 scale (54 millimetre) Second World War British Paratrooper figure. I hinted back then that things were about to get rather complicated, and so it is. In terms of the uniform and the equipment, I don't think I could have chosen a more challenging subject. Talk about jumping in at the deep end!

Having done a little bit of Internet research, I soon discovered that one distinctive feature of the British paratrooper is the Denison Smock, which is worn over the standard British issue battle dress. From a model painter's point of view, the difficult bit is that the smock is in three colours -- two of which are a seemingly random camouflage pattern. The base colour of the smock is of light or mid-olive green and it is covered with broad brush strokes of reddish brown and dark green. Getting this to look convincing and avoid equipment and webbing would be the tricky bit.

The photos show my progress to date. I have shied away from completely ruining the figure with the camouflage pattern yet: that will be a later instalment! The larger areas of colour have been painted using a Pro Arte Acrylix No. 4 round brush, and I have started on the more detailed bits such as the scarf, helmet and puttees. There will be more fiddly painting to come, that's for sure. Painting sessions have been limited to about an hour at a time on weekends when time permits (and the motivation holds up).

I already knew about the errant patch of olive green on the figure's right hand, but having examined the photo closely, it looks as though I have also been careless when painting the helmet and have got some green on his nose! So some touching-up will be needed at the end. One of the challenges of this method is that a thin paint layer intensifies in colour once it has dried, and it can be difficult to see a spot of paint in the wrong place while it is still wet.

Paints used recently have been Liquitex Medium Viscosity Raw Umber and Winsor & Newton Galeria Green Gold for khaki; Galeria Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine for olive green; Galeria Olive Green and Yellow Ochre for the green helmet; and Daler-Rowney System 3 Buff Titanium and Galeria Green Gold for the puttees. Incidentally, Galeria Olive Green is much bluer than I expected -- most green olives that I have seen are a yellowish-green, or a brownish-green. (This probably explains why I struggled with the colour of the khaki trousers previously.)

Even at this stage, it is showing that the grisaille technique has been worth the effort, and has brought out the detail in a subtle way. Look at the sculpting of the Denison Smock, especially in the arms -- quite remarkable in something that was sold as an inexpensive toy soldier more than 40 years ago! So this is encouragement for me that I am not wasting my time, and to keep going...

Canon EOS digital colour revisited

This month features a couple of photos taken with my DSLR about six months apart in 2018 in Corfe Castle, Dorset. Nearly two years ago -- in April 2017 -- I wrote about my experiences with the colour settings on my Canon EOS 100D DSLR camera, so this is a follow-up to show how I'm getting on.

Both images used the slightly sharpened Prolost Flat setting that I had settled upon two years ago. (I automatically apply a modest amount of in-camera sharpening as I am a believer in Straight Out Of Camera [SOOC].) Therefore, this suggests that I am still fairly happy with these settings.

Almost all the time I have the colour balance set to Auto White Balance (AWB). This lets the camera adjust the colour balance to suit the lighting conditions, and mostly it seems to do a good job. However, I suspect there may be a tendency to make images more blue and red than I think they are. Fortunately this is not a problem and it can be compensated for. The EOS 100D allows the user to set colour biases for both amber and green (conversely blue and magenta) -- getting the biases looking right is the hard part!

There seems to be no shortcut to finding the ideal settings. I start by adjusting the blue balance with two notches of amber, i.e., A2. Then I take photos on this setting and decide whether the results show too blue or too amber a colour cast. If I am not satisfied, I will make another adjustment and repeat the process until I feel things are looking about right. Then I will go through the same procedure for green... Currently I am using (A4, G4) on the EOS 100D. (Possibly coincidentally, I am using similar AWB settings on my compact Canon PowerShot S95.)

Most Canon digital cameras appear to have a Custom White Balance setting. This works well and is easy to use on compact cameras, but is a little awkward and less useful on the EOS 100D. It is necessary to take a photo of a suitable white target in the appropriate lighting conditions, and then go through the menu to select this photo as the WB to use. But by the time this is done, the lighting may have changed! Also, I was surprised to find that the AWB biases still seemed to be having an effect if they were set while using CWB, so perhaps I was not doing it correctly?

Sennen Cove beach at sunset

Recently I happened to be talking to one of the rare people who actually take time to read this blog (occasionally), and they said something along the lines of: "[Almost] no-one reads your blog so you should post some of your paintings -- no-one will see them!" Point taken, although not exactly encouraging... (Apparently, I post mostly rants?) So here is one example of a painting.

It is what I consider to be my eighth (beginner's) painting and was completed last summer during a very warm week off work. It is largely based on a photograph that I took on the beach at Sennen Cove in West Cornwall, England in September 2008. (This was my first visit to Sennen Cove -- I have been back many times since, as it is such an amazing location in all weathers and times of the year.) I suppose it could depict a beach in a number of places on the planet in all honesty, as nothing particular shouts Sennen Cove.

I was thinking: when one's eye is drawn to a picture, it is due to the subject matter, or the composition, or the lighting, or the colour, or the artistry, or some combination of all of these. Not -- ooh, I wonder whether the painter used "Brand X" paint, or "Brand Y" brushes? So I can't really understand why people spend so much time discussing (arguing?) the merits of different brands, as it is the final product that matters. Whatever works for you. (In the case of watercolour, the paper itself is the most apparent feature. How many people would be able to identify the manufacturer by looking at a finished painting? Would they like the painting less if they discovered that it was painted on paper that they considered to be inferior?)

Time to nail my colours (paints?) to the mast, so to speak! On the basis of previous blog postings, it would be hypocritical not to say that I used Cotman watercolours. I did -- exclusively. Not that it really matters, but I would have used Intense Blue and Cadmium Red Pale Hue for the sky, Intense Blue, Viridian Hue, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue and Cadmium Red Pale Hue for the sea; and different combinations of Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and Yellow Ochre for the beach. I can't remember details of the brushes (I have too many), but I'm sure I would have used at least one Escoda Versatil round at some stage, as they work well for me without costing a small fortune.

The paper was Ken Bromley Practice Paper, AKA Fabriano Watercolour paper (cut down to one eighth of an Imperial sheet). This is 130 lbs in thickness, supposedly 25 percent cotton, and comes in a Not surface -- probably its most distinctive feature. I used moistened brown gummed paper tape to help stretch it and fix it to an A4-sized piece of 6 mm thick plywood that had previously been painted white. Ken Bromley Masking Fluid was used for lighter areas in the waves: I had no problem removing it when it was dry. I was fairly pleased with how the painting turned out, although I don't like the regular texture of the paper, and I had to be careful to avoid overworking it. (I find that Bockingford paper is more amenable to my present lack of technique and experience.)

The Archie search engine: I was there...

On 11th (some sources say 10th) September 1990, a small team of people from McGill University in Montreal, Canada released what is generally recognised as the world's first internet search engine. It was called archie. The team members were Alan Emtage, (J) Peter Deutsch, Bill Heelan and Mike (der Mouse) Parker. As surprising as it may seem, I used to work with these clever people and regarded them as my friends. But I played no part in the development of archie. Or did I?

My story starts in Montreal in 1986 at a small hi-tech company called MUX LAB, where Peter and I were working as part of a small team of programmers developing a product called ACCESS 36. (I still have a copy of the user manual.) It was both a rewarding and a frustrating experience at times, and after a few incomprehensible management decisions, Peter left to work on his Master's degree at McGill full-time. My time at MUX LAB came to an end in early September 1987 -- I should have seen it coming...

About the same time, the post of System Manager at McGill's School of Computer Science had become vacant, and it was offered to Peter -- which he accepted. Not long afterwards, knowing of my lack of employment, Peter asked me whether I would like to work for him as a (Unix) systems administrator. As the saying goes, the rest is history! I was delighted to accept, although I knew it would be a steep learning curve. Peter was already assisted part-time by Luc, whom I also knew from my stint at MUX LAB, and who was also working on his Master's degree. At that time, the School of Computer Science was located on the eighth and ninth floors of Burnside Hall on McGill's downtown campus.

The first few months were challenging but by early 1988 Peter was looking to expand the team. If I remember correctly, Bill came recommended by a friend of mine (Stephen) at Concordia University. One of my earliest memories of working with Bill was helping to set up and configure a new Sun 3/280 server by booting it from a remote 1/2" tape drive. Based on Bill's recommendation to Peter, Wanda joined the team in late spring or early summer of 1988. And by the summer, Alan had swelled our ranks -- although I think it might have been earlier as he shared an office with Luc, separate from the full-time staff.

One probable reason for the relatively sudden increase in staff numbers was that The School of Computer Science (SOCS) was to be relocated to the McConnell Engineering Building, into newly refurbished spaces on the second and third floors. The SOCS system staff were responsible for all the computers, serial cabling and most of the network cabling. So it turned out to be a very busy summer running and terminating cables, getting everything ready, and then moving everything into new rooms and offices.

By 1989, we were settled in to Engineering and the pace of life seemed to slow down to more of a routine. Frankly, and in retrospect, we were over-staffed for the size and complexity of the School at the time. But they were ideal conditions for what was to come.

As has been related elsewhere, Alan had accumulated a number of large files listing the contents of Internet download sites. (I have a feeling that I grumbled when I discovered that some of them had appeared on the server milo that I used to maintain!) In time and quite logically, this transformed into the archie project, and then took off. Peter announced that we were welcome to volunteer to work on the project, but I remember thinking that most of the (interesting) programming was already underway and I didn't think I could contribute anything useful. (Where was the crystal ball when you needed it, eh?) Bill's desk was adjacent to mine so I was aware that he was working on the user interface, and was inspired by the VMS shell that he had used at Concordia. I remember hearing Alan talk about memory mapping as a way to speed up database access. Mike (Mouse) was based in McCRIM a couple of floors above, and was our friendly local Unix guru who would drop by regularly and offer advice.

So I made no direct contribution to archie that I can remember. However, I did once solve a problem that was causing the archie server (a Sun 4/280 running SunOS 4.1 I think?) to crash fairly frequently while under load. I believe it was Luc who came to see me with error messages from the server log files. It looked as though it was related to the serial ports. This rang a bell: the fix was to physically disconnect the DB25 plugs (still cabled-up to the patch panel) from the serial ports on the server. I then heard that this seemed to help with extending the uptime...

This all happened long before the arrival of consumer digital photography. I had taken a few photos of the work environment on colour print film, and a couple of the most relevant appear here. (Apologies for the general low quality: an inexpensive all-manual SLR and matching lens.) The top picture shows an out-of-focus (oops) Bill (L) and Peter (R), and was taken around the spring of 1988 in the old Burnside Hall office. The photo of Wanda (L) and Bill (R), taken from my desk, dates from the summer of 1991 and shows the office where a good proportion of the archie discussion and development took place. Alan would sometimes use the desk in the centre of the photo as his office was next door. (I thought I had a photo of Alan, but nothing has come to light yet. I'm fairly sure that I didn't take any pictures of Mouse.)

My former colleagues, wherever they are now, may remember things a little differently -- some of the events mentioned happened more than 30 years ago, and memory can be unreliable. I felt it would be useful to record a little more detail about the background and context of the creation of archie as I still recall it. (Some of the references I have found about it are misleading or inaccurate!) I am of course proud of the achievement of my former sys. admin. team members: at the time, none of us suspected how it would change the world!

The IKEA Hemsjo candle

It is now officially the season of Advent. For most of my earliest years, candles at Advent played a big part in the lead up to Christmas. (They still evoke many fond memories at this time of year.) Mainly, they were red taper candles for the Advent wreath -- one new candle would be lit each Sunday, until we had all four burning on the last Sunday before Christmas. (Of course, my sister and I had our Advent calendars too!) But I digress.

The four candles I want to mention come from IKEA in a pack labelled Hemsjo. (The O should have an umlaut above it.) All four cost me a modest £1.75. Each candle is 5.7 centimetres (57 millimetres) in diameter and stands 8 centimetres (80 millimetres) high, including the conical top. They are all unscented and white. An individual candle is rated at 15 hours of (continuous?) burning, so the whole pack should be good for at least 60 hours when lit consecutively. On a price per candle basis, they appear to be the cheapest pillar candle (IKEA calls them block candles) in their range, working out at £0.44 each.

As budget pillar candles, how do they perform? Well, as you might expect from the price, they need a little bit of effort to get the best out of them. I have found that they are definitely not light and forget, as this results in an excessive candle flame and a tendency to burn down too quickly ("funnel"). I would say that they are slightly under-wicked -- but it is safer to have them under- rather than over-wicked. With a little care you should certainly be able to exceed the stated burn time.

Going on the 30 minutes of burning per centimetre of diameter rule-of-thumb, and rounding up, this gives a single lighting duration of near enough three hours. I always trim the wick before starting, and Hemsjo seems to work best when I start with the wick at 3 millimetres (1/8 inch). (From experience, it is a bit of an art to set the starting wick length based on both the thickness of the wick and the diameter of the candle: it is usually somewhere between 3 and 6 millimetres on most household candles!)

Although it looks aesthetically pleasing, the conical top makes initial lighting a little more challenging. Due to the slope, the candle burns down quickly, resulting in a long wick that consumes wax at a faster rate -- and then it starts to funnel! When starting a new candle, I have tried limiting the first burn to one hour, but even this proved to be too long. I shall try 30 minutes next time! (A more drastic solution might be to slice the conical top off?)

The wick is not anchored to the base of the candle in any way. (Some more expensive candles sometimes have a metal tag attached to the end of the wick.) What I have discovered is that further down the wick is markedly off-centre, and eventually it will collapse and drown in the melt pool. This is a good thing (safety again), but it does mean that the last centimetre or so of candle won't be consumed.

Unscented candles normally have no noticeable smell to me, but I have sometimes detected a faint paraffin odour after burning a Hemsjo candle for three hours. I don't find it offensive but I thought I should note it. I suspect it is down to the price: you get what you pay for, and all that...

Otherwise, I think that the IKEA Hemsjo candle is good value, and with a little attention burns reliably and with few surprises. This must be true: I have bought four packs so far and have already started on my second. Now if only they sold them in red for Christmas...

Ken Bromley Practice Paper

One slightly daunting aspect of watercolour painting for a beginner is the cost of the paper. Even at competitive prices, a quarter imperial (11" x 15") piece of quality watercolour paper will cost around a pound sterling (UK), so a serious mistake hurts a little in the financial department. Risk can be lowered by dividing the paper into eighth and sixteenth sheets, but this is not conducive to a looser painting style using larger brushes.

I have been a customer of Ken Bromley Art Supplies for a few years and it didn't take me too long to notice that they sell a 50-sheet quarter imperial pack of practice paper, at around 30 pence a sheet. The paper is Fabriano 280 gsm watercolour paper in a Not surface, which works out to 134 lb thickness. This is about a third of the price of popular 140 lb watercolour papers and is worth considering as a practice surface if you are not too worried about the outcome. Even the reasonably-priced Bockingford paper still works out to be more expensive in this quantity.

One mystery -- and what attracted me to the paper in the first place -- is the cotton content? Going by the Ken Bromley catalogue at the time, it appeared to be a full cotton paper. But I think this referred to a paper that is no longer sold. A couple of internet sources suggest that there might be a 25 percent cotton content, but I'm still not sure!

I duly ordered a pack and it soon turned up in the post thanks to Ken Bromley's usual efficient and prompt service. I chose to divide up some of the sheets into halves and quarters. I used the sixteenth (imperial) sheets for experimentation and testing, as well as a few finished paintings. The larger eighth sheets were used for paintings only, including a test to see how it behaved when stretched.

The first thing that struck me was the very regular pattern left on each side by the paper making process. It looks as though a wire mesh (screen) was used on both front and back, unlike the woollen felt normally used on the front of other papers. It is therefore very difficult to determine which side of the paper is the front, and which side is the back. (It probably doesn't matter very much!) The texture is also why Jacksons Art doesn't recommend this paper for finished works.

Notwithstanding the regular texture, how did it respond to paint? Well, as someone who is still very much at the learning stage, I found that it was a challenging surface. It did not appear to be heavily sized and was more absorbent than other papers I have used. Consequently I had difficulty lifting some paints, especially staining ones. Too much water and over working caused the surface of the paper to break up. And yes, it did cockle substantially after heavy washes if it wasn't stretched.

The absorbency and reaction to water meant that achieving a plausible cloudy sky was an effort in itself! (Mine have been hit and miss -- mostly miss.) I think that pre-wetting, then a heavy wash followed by quick work with absorbent material may yield the best results.

Perhaps I was lucky with my method, but the paper did seem to behave better after it had been stretched. (I used standard brown tape on a plywood board.) I felt more confident using larger amounts of water and wetter washes, and even though the paper would still lightly cockle, it would always return to its stretched state once dry. This seems to validate the recommendation to stretch paper of 140 lb weight and lighter.

This practice paper definitely fills a niche, but may be best for painters already confident with their technique and wanting to get some brush mileage behind them. I would still recommend something like Bockingford for beginner and inexperienced painters, as it is a harder wearing surface that stands up better to repeated working.