00653 The guy

There was this guy on the beach.

He was kind of weird.

And technically, he was in the beach.

Which really didn't help with making him any less weird.

00304 Dribble while you work

Unless dribbling is your work.

15 Minutes, that's all I had before I had to pick up the kids from school. They all thought I was crazy, they said it couldn't be done.

But they were wrong.

(although perhaps the main reason for this is because they don't exist)

So I did it



And then I knew that perhaps it shouldn't have been done, because I was late.

00298 Time lapse dribbles

After doing this thing when Meriel's parents were over, I was determined to try it again. I still haven't got quite the right angle, aperture and scale, but it's getting there. Besides which, it's fun, donchaknow.

00275 Roquaine egg

Sand a bit bitty, with tiny little stones, but very fine and irresistable. Kids off with Grandma collecting crabs n' shells. Time to make an egg:

00218 Mini egg

As an experiment I did this little egg at Petit Port, but to be honest, it's as much work as a large one. However I did get round to sorting out the finishing a bit better - instead of flattening the sand around the egg, I've started doing a swirly, cyclonic pattern, it works much better:



And here, for comparison are mine, Meriel's and Jonah's:



In all fairness to Jonah, he hadn't quite finished before the tide came in and washed it all away. However he did get to jump on mine as is tradition after the photos are done:

00208 Spikey and the pine cone boat

Spikey & Maxi
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

Got down to Petit Port on Sunday and scribbled out a quick one with the new small (children's) rake that I thought might work. I'm getting used to it and maybe if I extended the handle and shortened the spikes, it might be a worthy successor to the old favourite.

I also managed a Pooh Stick Boat at Helen and Richard's place. Three hulls and a pine cone - pity the light wasn't up to much:

00206 Flames

Flames
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

At Petit Port again. I'll definately be doing more here - there are loads of high rocks from which to get a good vantage point over the work.

00204 Hatch

Hatch
Originally uploaded by Lenny & Meriel.

The eggs are back and this time they're hatching.

Half an hour or so at Petit Port and as usual, I could have done with an hour to get it just right. The difference this time was that I got to make three, so I'm trying out the "missing egg" thing. The jury's out for me on this one. I though multiple eggs would be a winner, but I'm not so sure Publishnow.

00190 Brake the rake

Slither

I managed to get out on a windless day and tried a reasonable large, fully shaded pattern down at Vazon. Haven't posted up any pics of the whole thing, mainly because it was a bit experimental and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the results - also my rake broke whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

00185 Eggy

Eggy

I meant to do this for so long, but as per usual I either never had the time, or I ws with small kids, who ran all over it. The plan was to do several of these dotted around a small area, but that takes time - which is difficult to come by.
Still, now I managed to take a picture of one, I'll probably be motivated to do it again.

00183 Tree thingy at Petit Port

Tree thingy

I can handle snatching an hour every now and again to do this sort of thing, but this is the only chance I've had in recent months to get the rake out. It's indicative of the situation that it's been taken from a staircases running up the cliff face and not from a kite.

Still, as long as I've got more ideas than time, it'll always be quality time when I get to the beach. The only thing is that I sort of promised that I wouldn't take the rake & kites to the beach together, because it rules me out of being sociable when I get there.

00177 Rakeart goes BoingBoing

Cara in the middle

Well the rake art shots made it onto BoingBoing. Now, the wierd thing is that I don't know how popular BoingBoing is, but I get the impression that it's quite prolific. I've subscribed to it for a year or so and it was Dave (aka Mobilexile) who Flickrmailed me and pointed it out.
Either way, it's on another blog and it's right here.
Whatever it means, I certainly got a sudden surge of interest in the set.

00172 A magazine comes calling

I got a Flickrmail from Andrea Ferrer about printing some rake art in a new magazine called "Pretty Fcuking Good Magazine", which I guess can't be bad. We'll see how it pans out. What I really need is to do some more stuff. I've got a couple of ideas, but it's a worrying thing that if you plan too much with these things, they never turn out as nice as the thing you planned. It seems that it's usually best to just go out there and do it spontaneously.

00170 Rake art in third blog shocka

The rake art set has appeared in another blog, this time its Lost art. Cool

00168 Rakes

Mmmmmmmmmmm rakes.
Perhaps I need to get out more.

00167 Whispy

Whispy

Got out on Friday to do some rake stuff. QUite like this one, but I'm sure that the larger the image, the more whispy and uninteresting it will become. Also the larger the piece, the more time it takes and that is something I never have enough of to complete these things.
Caroline saw the kite on the beach and came over with the kids, so she and Jack are in the middle of this one.
I got a response from Geoff Manaugh, who runs BldgBlog, a lovely blog dealing in architecture in all it's forms and interpretaions. He's posted up a very flattering entry about the rake art and was good enough to ask permission to publish the images.
He in turn, apparently found the images through another blog by the name of Spy's Spice. Here's the article.

In other news, the shooting started really badly with a 31-1, but after a few words of friendly advice about butt placement (fnarrr), I turned up a 35-4 and a respecatble 33-4. Hope it picks up for the Jersey match next week. Signs are good.

00165 Two things (one of them a thingy)

Wheeee and the compass thingy

Covering two (or perhaps even three) of the obsessions I currently entertain:

1. Rakeart - Grande Roques. I was walking down the beach with a rake, headding for the nice flat featureless sand further down the beach and decided to stop on the way to try out a couple of things. Naturally I didn't get any further and ended up drawing the compass thingy (I've got to find a more suitable name for these ... thingys. See, that also brought the KAP into it. The Maxi Dopero was flying like a dream, so it seemed rude not to capture a few shots from the air. The fact that I roped Meriel and Cara into the shot was just a bonus.
Really pleased with this one, but I think things are going to get better. It's all down to confidence with the rake, and that's going to come from practice.

2. Shooting - Fort le Marchant. Up and down today. 32, 35, 32. So 99 out of a possible 105. I just couldn't seem to get them in, although they were all really, really close. I'll take some advice and improve.

00164 Almost forgot the meteor thingy

Meteor thingy

How could I forget to post this up. It was from 3rd May, second outing with the Maxi Dopero. Almost crashed the rig with the kite pulling to the right. It's sorted now, mind.
Quite like this one, I'll be investigating this avenue some more.

00163 Low scores and reasonable air with a doodle

Three balls and tentacles

In a week of weddings and hangovers, I managed to get a whole load of experience in the fullbore department. A score of 40-2 out of a possible 50 at 300 yards showed me that I needed to sort something out. My coach, Sylvia, suggested that I hunker down a bit further - it was really windy and we were trying allsorts to lessen the impact of the wind. The elevation on the 300 yd score was really good, so I knew it had to be something to do with the wind buffeting the rifle. I tightened the sling and wore a jumper, which made it almost painfully tight and almost difficult to hold the rifle. But it did the job and I hit a 47-3 and a 47-5 at 500 and 600 yards respectively. So it looks like that worked, then. Pity I had to find out the hard way. To make things easier, I was put in the reserve squad (there were two of us), so my score had no impact on the team. Still, I was very pleased with the elevation on all the ranges and it bodes very well for the future.

Kitesurfing session at Ladies bay, with griff going upwind over to the Northern end of the bay by going around the big rock island in front of the sand bar and downwind into the Northern bay. As the tide came up he was watching it until it just came over the sand bar and then shot across it declaring "The bar is open!". And so it was. Good session, good conditions (if a bit choppy) and a few decent airs, especially when I used Dan's advice - popping off the chop or the swell. It really works, but I've got to get out more to practice it as often as possible in the hope of really cracking it.

I also got to do a quick ten minute doodle on the sand at Grand Roques, but forgot the kite line. Doh!

00161 Photo dessert

The lack of images of hobbies and the like indicates that I've been doing nothing imaginative recently.

I'm waiting for a burst of motivation to finish the Dopero by making a nice new bag for it - a bit like a "topping out" thing.

Went out kitesurfing last Thursday in very gusty high winds - won't be doing that again. My 11 meter lofted me and dragged me towards the rocks. Had my hand on the release all the time, no problem. So after a brief attempt to get going I packed it in and borrowed Mike's 9 meter. Now I know I have to get some new kites. It was really nippy and easy to jump with, not to mention the gust handling ability - just superb.

In the shooting, it looks like I might be selected for the team to shoot against the NRA (the British national rifle assoc.). I'm feeling a bit guilty about this, as there are people whose experience tops mine. So the agreement is that if the weather is good, then I might go along. Well see. Fortunately the even t allows me to be coached. Hopefully Pete Jory will help with the windage.

In other news, my Mum has suggested that I give her the details of my rakeart set to give to the people at the Coach House Gallery in order to see if they want to host an exhibition. Where the money will come from to get the prints done I don't know, but I definitely need to go out and do some new stuff. Oh well, at least it's free.