Don't Mind the Arrow

Going Old School

I know I've gotten into the habit of mostly posting drawing on this blog, but I keep myself busy with other hobbies as well. At the moment, a lot of my time is split between drawing and taking photographs. I'm currently having a love affair with film.

I've posted some photos from my Holga here before (I also have a Diana +, but for the time being my husband has appropriated that one). Now I've acquired a new toy - recently, on a whim, I was checking out Craigslist for cameras and ran across an ad for Minolta SRT-101. This is a great, basic manual focus camera from the late '60s.

The person was selling it for a song, which made me wonder if there was something wrong with it. But Morgan and I talked it over and decided to go ahead and check it out. It turns out, the camera had belonged to the guy's dad and he just thought it was time to get rid of it. Everything was in working order as far as he knew. And he threw in several rolls of film, including a couple of black and white.  I cleaned the lens and filter, read a copy of the manual online to figure out what everything was, and popped a roll of film into it. 

I had a minor problem where the mirror wasn't returning after taking a photo. Looked up online what to do about it, and ordered a new set of foam pads for everything in the camera. Put on a brave face, opened it up, and started removing the old ones and replacing them with the new ones. I am not usually terribly mechanically inclined, but I figured I'd rather do it myself than make Morgan nervous about trying to do it! As it turns out, it didn't fix the problem. I have one more thing I can do myself, which is opening up the bottom and oiling a little gear in there. If that doesn't work, I'll have to live with it until I can afford to take it in to a shop.

I'm really enjoying the process of taking photos and not being sure what you got until you get the film developed. I know I started off taking pictures this way, but it seems so far in the distant past that I'd completely forgotten what it's like. I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot of fun with this camera.

Sunday Image - Mountains

Sunday Image - Luxor

Sunday Image - California Poppies

Sunday Image - Poppy

Days 4 and 5

I'm a little behind in posting my 30 Days of Creativity projects here, although I'm not behind in actually making them. Day 4 I took a photo while Morgan and I were out at the Denver Chalk Art Festival.

For Day 5, I colored in a drawing I'd started on the same day. 

I also used it as another test of the color selection I'd put into my travel case. I decided to go ahead and fill it out to capacity - 48 pencils. I don't think I'll really feel like I'm missing anything now. After completing this drawing, I also decided to add some of the brown paper into my Germany journal. Yesterday I cut and folded the signatures for that, and hopefully I'll sew them together tonight.

However, that's not my day 6 project. I'll be posting about that in a separate post, up in a little while.

Sunday Image - Fisher

Sunday Image - By Grand Prismatic Spring

On-Site Drawing

I like to draw while out and about, but I often feel pressured to hurry up and finish it already. I don't like to keep people waiting, and I can only listen to the dog whine for so long.

We visited Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday, and there was an additional reason I didn't draw more than one picture - it was freezing. Most of the places we parked weren't really looking directly at any scenic views, so I had to make do with the one spot I was able to draw from the car. It's where we stopped for a "picnic" lunch. In other words, we ate in the car because our hands went numb when we were outside and besides, the picnic benches were buried in snowdrifts.

Right over the ridge to the left of the picnic bench in the drawing is where I took this photo:

I'd like to end up with more finished-looking drawings when I do these quick sketches, instead of just line drawings, but for now this is it. I guess I'd have to get into the habit of carrying watercolors to color while I'm there, or put in marker/colored pencil touches once I get home.

I'm hoping to practice more as the weather gets warmer so I'll be ready for our trip in June.

Sunday Image - Daffodils and Door