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This was a fun experiment that resulted in a nifty 3D image (cross-view, so cross your eyes to see it) Taken with the Lumix GX9. If you’re curious what’s going on here, read further!
The main image is a cross-view 3D photo, so you’ll need to cross your eyes to see it (following these instructions: www.kula3d.com/how-to-use-the-cross-eyed-method.html
If you have a VR headset, stereoscope or other 3D viewer, here’s a “side-by-side” or straight version: donkom.ca/stereo/_1000375-parallel.jpg
Have those funky red/blue anaglyph glasses? Put ‘em on and enjoy the image this way: donkom.ca/stereo/_1000375-anaglyph.jpg
Or if you have a 3DTV, put this file on a memory card or USB stick and view it on your TV: donkom.ca/stereo/_1000375-3DTV.mpo
This image was made with a lens that Panasonic might regret creating: The Lumix G 12.5 F/12 3D lens. It’s an interesting concept, but in its unmodified original design it didn’t create enough of an impact. The “lens” is actually two lenses with a fixed aperture and fixed focus, designed to take stereoscopic 3D images with any m4/3 camera. The problem is that the lenses are so close together for a decent stereo effect to be generated for larger subjects like people, and with the other barriers that 3D technology has faced, I doubt it sold well. That said, you can modify the lens very easily to shift its focusing distance into the macro range, and that’s where this lens becomes VERY interesting.
While the spacing between the lenses (the pupil distance) is too small for larger subjects, it works very well when shooting small things, like this Gerbera Daisy. The modification is simple: just remove the three screws in the mount of the lens and add some 0.5mm washers over the screw holes, and re-attach everything. This functions like a mini extension tube of sorts, and the pupil distance can create some interesting depth for macro subjects.
It’s not perfect, however. This modification pushes the image circles of the lenses a little farther out beyond the edges of the sensor, and in 3D this hurts you more than you would think. If you lose part of the left image, you also lose part of the usable area on the left side of the right image, since there wouldn’t be any corresponding image for a 3D effect. The result is roughly 2.5MP square image per eye from a 20MP sensor when you place a single 0.5mm washer in for extension, and less to work with the more extension you add. Still, this is much more than enough for good stereo image quality. The best part? You can grab a copy of the lens for under USD$120 on eBay and a kit containing washers and instructions for modification for $10 (www.ebay.com/itm/Modify-Panasonic-Lumix-12-5mm-F12-3D-Len... )
Images can be processed through the free software Stereo Photo Maker ( stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/ ) to correct any alignment issues and to set the stereo window. The software lets you save out the image in many different formats – it’s how I create MPO files and anaglyph versions of the images.
Oh, and this image? It’s a Gerbera Daisy with a droplet of invisible ink in the middle (and a few spilled drops off to the side), lit with my UV flashes to make it glow. I know that 3D image is all about depth, so this was my first experiment with a fog machine to add depth to the air itself. I think it worked! That said, this is more of a “proof of concept” image to show me how certain puzzle pieces fit together. I’ve got a bunch of ideas floating around and I look forward to finding some extra time in studio to push these experiments farther.
One fun thought would be to use this lens for 3D video, but the camera doesn’t normally allow for that. The solution would be to tape over the electrical contacts on the lens so that the camera can’t see it as a 3D lens, but the GX9 I’m testing shoots with a slight crop when recording 4K video, narrowing down the usable 3D window too far. I think the GH5S would be ideal for this, since it records using its entire sensor AND the sensor is a little larger which would help create a bigger usable image than I currently have available when shooting stills. Down the rabbit hole I go.
By the way, I run private workshops in my studio if you want to explore the magical world of ultraviolet fluorescence photography, or anything else that I have experience with (water droplets, 3D, infrared, etc.). If you’re interested, just send me an e-mail – don@komarechka.com
The Postcard
A real bromide postcard bearing no publisher's name that was printed in Great Britain. The image is a glossy real photograph.
The card was posted in Victoria Docks, London E16 on Wednesday the 18th. March 1931 to:
Mrs. C. Ratcliffe,
Elmer Cottage,
Upper Grange Road,
Beccles,
Suffolk.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Connie Dearest,
I expect to leave here
Friday for Dieppe.
It will be the end of the
month when we get to
Hull.
Topping weather here,
I only hope it keeps the
same when I'm home.
All love,
Pete."
The Peter Pan Statue
The Peter Pan statue is a bronze sculpture of J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton.
The original statue is displayed in Kensington Gardens in London, to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's former home on the Bayswater Road.
Barrie's stories were inspired in part by the gardens: the statue is located at the place where Peter Pan lands in Barrie's book The Little White Bird after flying out of his nursery.
The sculpture stands about 14 feet (4.3 m) high. It has a tall conical form, like a tree stump, topped by a young boy, approximately life size for an eight year old, wearing a nightshirt and blowing a thin musical instrument like a trumpet or flute, sometimes interpreted as pan pipes.
The sides of the stump are decorated with small figures of squirrels, rabbits, mice, and fairies.
Sir George Frampton
A completed plaster model of the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1911. Barrie had the original bronze erected in London on the 30th. April 1912, without fanfare and without permission, so that it might appear to children that the fairies had put it in place overnight.
He published a notice in The Times newspaper the following day, 1st. May:
"There is a surprise in store for the
children who go to Kensington Gardens
to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this
morning.
Down by the little bay on the south-western
side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find
a May-day gift by Mr J. M. Barrie, a figure of
Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a
tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all
around.
It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and
the bronze figure of the boy who would never
grow up is delightfully conceived."
He donated the sculpture to the City of London, although some critics objected to him advertising his works by erecting a sculpture in a public park without permission.
The statue of Peter Pan became a Grade II* listed building in 1970. A plaque was unveiled by Princess Margaret in 1997.
-- Sefton Park, in Liverpool, erected on the 16th. June 1928; It was gifted to Liverpool’s children by local merchant George Audley – known for his generous work with children. It was erected overnight, and children were told that he had just flown in.
A Peter Pan Pageant was held to mark the occasion, and J. M. Barrie himself sent a telegram addressed to ‘Peter Pan, Sefton Park’, telling Peter to:
'Behave himself and grow no bigger’.
A souvenir book was created for the opening ceremony, but what it didn't show was that a "real" Peter Pan participated. Peter Pan was played by Pauline Chase, who famously held the role from 1907 till 1914, brought back from retirement (she would have been over 40 by then - proving that she really didn't grow up).
The Sefton Park statue was Grade II Listed in 1985.
Over the years, it has suffered the effects of previous restorations, pollution and vandalism. In 1990, Peter Pan’s pipes were stolen, and a squirrel and a fairy's head were cut off the base of the statue.
In 2001 the National Museum of Liverpool repaired the statue, using plaster copies of the missing sections that were held by the V&A Museum. Exact copies of the fairy's head, the squirrel, and the pipes were cast in bronze and re-attached to the statue.
After restoration the statue was relocated to a position in the grounds of the palm house.
-- Egmont Park in Brussels, donated to the Belgian state by Frampton in 1924 to recognise the Anglo-Belgian friendship during the First World War; it suffered bullet damage in the Second World War, and was listed as a Belgian historical monument in 1975.
-- Bowring Park, in St. John's, Newfoundland, erected on the 29th. August 1925, as a tribute to Betty Munn, the daughter of John Shannon Munn. She died aged three on the 23rd. February 1918 in the sinking of SS Florizel.
-- Queens Gardens, in Perth, Western Australia, erected on the 10th. June 1929, and donated by Rotary International to the Perth City Council to celebrate the centenary of the state of Western Australia.
-- Toronto, Ontario, Canada; erected on the 14th. September 1929 by the College Heights Association in a park that became known as "Peter Pan Park" after the statue, but later renamed Glenn Gould Park.
-- The grounds of Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey, by Eldridge R. Johnson in 1929, and located outside the Walt Whitman Arts Center.
The memorial to George Frampton in the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, sculpted by Edward Gillick in 1930, depicts a young child holding in his hand a miniature replica of his statue of Peter Pan.
The First Electric Razors
So what else happened on the day that Pete posted the card?
Well, on the 18th. March 1931, the first electric razors, manufactured by the Schick company, went on sale in New York.
Sherborne School, UK, Book of Remembrance for former pupils who died in the First World War, 1914-1918.
If you have any additional information about this individual, or if you use one of our images, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or contact us via the Sherborne School Archives website: oldshirburnian.org.uk/school-archives/contact-the-school-...
Credit: Sherborne School Archives, Abbey Road, Sherborne, Dorset, UK, DT9 3AP.
Details: Edmund Morton Mansel-Pleydell (1886-1915), born 23 December 1886 in India, eldest son of Lt. Col. Edmund Morton Mansel-Pleydell (1850-1914) and Kathleen Emily Mansel-Pleydell (nee Grove) (1862-1945) of Whatcombe, Blandford, Dorset, formerly of Tangier, Morocco. Lt. Col. E.M. Mansel-Pleydell died on 13 October 1914 at which point his son, Edmund Morton Mansel-Pleydell inherited the family estate.
Siblings: Vivien Mansel-Pleydell (1889-1977), Daphne Mansel-Pleydell (1893-1989), Henry Grove Morton Mansel-Pleydell MC (1895-1916).
Attended Wellington preparatory school.
Attended Sherborne School (Abbeylands) May 1903-April 1905.
Attended the Royal Agricultural College 1908-1910; member of the 1st XV rugby football team in 1908 and 1909 (captain); 1st XI cricket team 1909 and 1910; Lieutenant in the OTC.
WW1, Lieutenant in the Dorsetshire Regiment: gazetted in August 1914. Went to France in January 1915 and was transferred to the 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment.
Lieutenant Harold Gostwyck May (1887-1915) (Harper House 1902-1907), Dorsetshire Regiment, 3rd Bn. (Res.), attached 1st Bn. wrote in a letter published in The Shirburnian, March 1915:
‘But before I leave the Base behind, a word about Shirburnians. We had an O.S. dinner (of a sort) just before breaking up our party. E.M. Mansell-Pleydell (King’s and 3rd Dorset), A.R.N. MacGillycuddy (Wildman’s and R.A.M.C.), H.G. May (Bell’s [Harper House] and 1st Dorsets), R.V. Kestell-Cornish (School House and 1st Dorsets), and G.D. Coleman (School House and Norfolks). It was a merry party and the gathering increased as the evening wore on – Repton, Clifton, Marlborough, had their representatives, and we talked things of yore and wondered who was going to win the Three Cock. We all had our own views of course..
Edmund's housemaster H.R. King wrote in his diary on 18 March 1915: ‘Mansel-Pleydell who said goodbye to us and did not seem to anticipate return to England was among the officers killed – 3rd old Abbeylander of my time.’
Edmund Morton Mansel-Pleydell was killed on 12 March 1915 at Kemmel, Flanders, leading his platoon on the first day he went into action.
In a letter written to the Headmaster of Sherborne School in March 1915 by Lieutenant Harold Gostwyck May (1887-1915), Dorsetshire Regiment, 3rd Bn. (Res.), attached 1st Bn., from hospital in Boulogne, he wrote: ‘I suppose you saw Mansel-Pleydell was killed. He was in King’s House, but not (as in the paper) in the Dorsets. He was at Wyke and Rouen with me, but he got posted to the Worcester Regiment. Probably he was wearing his Dorset identity disc. I think it is right to have “raised an arm” in this vile war, but I am longing for the peaceful life again and to be able to look on the roofs and high garden walls of Sherborne, the peers of which are not elsewhere to be seen.’
Commemorated at:
Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Panel 37 www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/905831/MANSEL-PLEYDEL...
Winterborne Whitchurch War Memorial www.flickr.com/photos/13706945@N00/9466663505/in/photolis....
Durnford School Memorial at Langton Matravers www.flickr.com/photos/13706945@N00/9437140702/in/photolis....
Sherborne School: War Memorial Staircase; Book of Remembrance; Abbeylands roll of honour. Mrs Mansel-Pleydell donated £5 towards the Sherborne School War Memorial in memory of her son, 2nd Lt. E.M. Mansel-Pleydell.
John Bain wrote a poem in memory of fellow Old Marlburian, Henry Grove Morton Mansel-Pleydell books.google.co.uk/books?id=9NOXAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&...
40 033 Empress of England seen at Newton on Ayr - looks like this was after it had just been re-attached to train after being released onto Ayr mpd for fuelling - loco framed by typical Scr footbridge - actually on Glasgow South Western metals
Vintage used Fisher-Price #196 toy. It still has the original antenna with yellow wood knob on the end and toy looks and works great! It is the "Hey Diddle Diddle!" English nursery rhyme theme and song. The top litho is a little worn and missing details in some spots. One side litho is whole and in decent shape and the other side, which was identical, is only about 10% there. As a bonus I have included a reproduction, repair paper graphic, made from a photoshop scan of the good side. It can be used as a replacement graphic and re-attached by the buyer if desired. The toy measures 9.25" tall, 6.75" tall to the handle, 6" deep, and 6.25" wide. The TV is plastic solidly attached to a wooden base. Made in USA.
Please see photos!
Shipping Weight: 2 lbs. 6 oz.
Free Domestic Shipping
Smoke & Tobacco Free Home!
eBay Item: 290765013144
Here's a little review of the new COBI set 2608 "M1A2 Abrams":
The instruction booklet (which is quite thicker than any of the previous COBI instructions for the WoT/WW2 tanks) bears a little logo of "Kobikowski", a member this Flickr User Group, implying that he was involved in the design of this model (Kudos!).
The experience of building this model was quite different than building any of the other WoT/WW2 tanks, making you realize that probably a different designer might have been involved.
Most noticable is the fact, that the width of the model constists of a uneven number of studs, making this a very unique and challenging build.
The model is very well designed with a lot of attention to detail, resulting in the finished model beeing quite fragile, so it's definitely more of a display model than a toy for children.
Some parts, especialy the sideskirts, tend to fall of when you grab the model, and it's not a simple "just stick it back on", because in order to re-attach them back on properly, you have to re-assemble larger parts of the whole model.
Some unique printed parts: 2 large tiles for the sideskirts, 3 1x1 plates and 2 1x2 clips with printing on the side (!) for the "peepholes" and the headlights, and a gunbarrel mount also with printing for the target optics.
Also the large base plate is in tan color instead of the black one in all previous tanks.
This sweet female Barn Owl is missing her right foot, but she is a great surrogate mom to two young ones that have lost their parents. She seemed to be showing off for me, and she seemed quite interested in my big black eye (the camera lens). It was a most splendid experience! I captured one of her in flight in the large enclosure as well. Some of these shots are kind of dark, but I purposely wasn't using a flash, so as not to disrupt them. I imagine since it was midday, it was what is normally their nap time.
Today was the day! It was my first trip to Save Our Seabirds in Sarasota, FL. www.saveourseabirds.org Wow! I am still reeling! I think it may be one of the most awe inspiring experiences of my life. I know, I’m a nerd, but I am utterly sincere. My husband Derrick went as well, so that made it all the more fabulous, sharing the experience.
Our new friend Lynn, the Certified Wildlife Rehabilitator and in my book Certified Sandhill Crane Wrangler, met us there. We got an inside look at this fantastic facility. I have to tell you, I was OVER THE TOP impressed with its cleanliness and their philosophy of operation. The absolute goal is re-entry into the wild, though of course there are some who can never go back. Lee (Leigh? I’m sorry if I am spelling your name incorrectly) who operates the facility is one of the best people I have ever met. She showed us everything, and at every turn, she was feeding a bird. I felt like a child, as I saw so many things for the first time, and I loved Lee on sight!
Lee took us to some wood enclosures where baby and young screech owls were housed. To my surprise, she ushered me in and left me alone inside with them. I felt like I was stepping into the labyrinth, and I thought “Where will this take me, literally, emotionally, spiritually?” It was dark, and I could not, nor would not use my flash on dozing baby owls, of course. I didn’t start shooting for a couple of minutes. I was taking them all in. Some were in the shadows, some in dappled sunlight, some up at the top of the habitat, and all looking at me with their BIG pale eyes! It was like being in a house of Furbys! It was utterly surreal, and I am getting goose bumps just thinking about it. I cried…tears of joy when I came out their space.
Of course we also saw Sandhill Cranes, my personal connection to Lynn and Save Our Seabirds through Mama Cherry and her paperclip incident. The injuries are tough stuff to see my Flickr friends, and most of them happen on golf courses! Broken legs which often have to be amputated, head injuries, blindness, broken beaks…it is heart wrenching.
They make prosthetic legs for them, which helps, but have to be re-attached often. This prosthetic leg thing has had me puzzling ever since. This is going to be a long ongoing story, so step in if you dare!
I asked Lee, what she needed besides money and chicken? A joke because they go through so much chicken for the birds of prey it would blow your mind, and money being obvious!! She said she needs a computer, preferably a lap top so she can work on it at the sanctuary and at her home. She documents all of these birds, their injuries, their care and their outcome, and I think she does it all on paper, or on a PC so old that she can hardly open the internet!!! My wheels are turning, and I have a lot of ideas, but of course I welcome any input and ideas you all may have as well!
One of Lee’s most important messages is that if you hook a seabird when you’re fishing, “DON’T CUT THE LINE!!” Please to go their website for capture and removal information. You can do this, and if you do not, it is VERY likely they will experience grievous damage and most likely death.
***All rights to my images are STRICTLY reserved. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing my images or if you are an educator or non-profit interested in use. copyright KathleenJacksonPhotography 2009***
After the 15c nave roof was replaced during the 1897 restoration a large boss was re-attached showing St George dressed in armour and holding a sword riding on his dragon - all surrounded by Tudor roses. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/6oz5U15zws
- Church of All Saints, Highweek Devon
devonassoc.org.uk/devoninfo/buildings-section-newsletter-...
After much toil, I'm finally happy with my lighting conditions with this ENB. I tweaked until my fingers fell off and had to re-attach them with silly putty and some string.
Now I'm nearly ready to start weather presets.
With loading complete, the locomotives have run around the train & re-attached, seen here ready to depart Coolamon, after a quick crew change at Junee they will head of to Melbourne
It is 3 April 2014, or Stuart Pearce Day, a time for rejoicing in Nottingham. The appointment of a club legend as manager is certainly no guarantee of success, these things can go horribly wrong, but there is an important emotional string between a fan and a football club that for many who have become disillusioned will have been re-attached by confirmation of today’s news.
Fans of a certain age are being whisked back to their youths when a rampaging left back won their hearts. The crunching tackles, the thunderous free kicks, the marauding runs and the Herculean thighs all combined to lift an electrician into a hero.... Psycho! Psycho! Psycho!
Today, however, is for the celebration of a returning hero. Through 12 years of wonderful service as a player Stuart Pearce deserves a glorious return and whether he succeeds or fails he remains one of the greats, one of the reasons we love Nottingham Forest. For much of this season I have felt myself drifting away, not wanting to watch my club being dragged through the mud, but today I look forward. Today I wear a grin that is broad and foolish. We are Nottingham Forest, Psycho is our leader! Legend!"
English Staffordshire black & white transfer printed coffee pot, c.1820-1840. Belonged to Mrs. Martin Dowd (b.1806) of Madison, CT. It has repetitious views of a peacock perched on a galleried table with a house in the distance. C-scroll and stippled borders. Spout and handles have have been re-attached to the body and finial is repaired. 12 1/4" tall, length 11", base diameter 4 3/4".
Donated by Mrs. Mary S. McAfee
ACC# 62.6 a&b.
See other porcelain items in the MHS collection at flic.kr/s/aHskyoEXzH. (Photo credit - Bob Gundersen www.flickr.com/photos/bobphoto51/albums)
This group crosses the street together in unison. Of course, they're attached to the balloon salesman for identity to traffic.
T4 and TX mounts compared. These are the mounted lens rears, the TX is on the right, mounted on a T4 200mm lens.
Each has the same tab - you push the little metal tab in and turn the collar in the O direction to release the mount. Re-attaching it, the collar is ratcheted and locks in place.
On the web, it is said that you can mount a TX on a T4 lens, but rarely the other way around. Well, I managed to mount the TX on the 200mm T4, however I only got f/4 instead of f/3.5. So it can be done, with limitations.
The PX = pentax screw mount is a bit frustrating, it has a knurled knob that does NOT lock into place for manual operation (ie. on a K mount converter). I can still use it on the screw mount bodies though.
The CS mount in the middle is a mystery - what does CS stand for? It has a big push pin (you can see it at 5 o'clock) that closes the aperture. I'm using a hair bungee to hold it closed when I use this mount on the K100D. Otherwise it is just a M42.
The P/ES is a TX mount, a perfect reproduction of the SMC Takumar mount.
My random vacuum-like tubes heat up well and easily hold their new shape. (Make sure to use a respirator when heating plastics.) I weaved thin craft foam over the pipes and used super glue to attach them. I cheated a lot with the weave pattern—cutting off strips and re-attaching them later in the weave. I used Mod Podge to make the gaps look less extreme and make painting easier.
Materials:
Thin Craft Foam
Random plastic tubes
Heat Gun
Super glue
Mod Podge
Spray paint and Acrylic paint applied with a sponge and brush
Pros:
Super light
Cons:
None
(Update 2010.5.8 - Next new round of photos planned for Monday, Tuesday, and most likely Wednesday. I'll be putting together some outfits in the meantime. - Think I ought to make my Pajama Party photos from April public? ^_^; [Maybe I ought to wait until I reshoot the ones taken in my boy-mode room. ^_^;])
This was about the 2nd or 3rd outing in the modern-day series and evolution of how I'm presenting myself. I still need to work on posing, as well as positioning the camera. (I could have got closer to the tree, it wasn't possible to move the camera back any further than it was.
This is my current favorite outfit - My one and only LBD, black tights, 3" pumps, and a borrowed necklace. (Spelling edit - Hey, I was tired when I wrote this.)
I've progressed from mixing in theatrical cosmetics to going the basic "drugstore" route. I experimented with fake eyelashes, realized that I need to work on the technique of applying them, as well as removing them. I've switched to working on mascara for now.
When I've refined my techniques with the basics, and get re-attached to a new job and/or career, and gain further independence, then I'll move up towards the next level. (Hopefully by that time I'll have achieved the skills to handle higher-end stuff, be it MAC, Sephora, or other products. I know I need better brushes, among everything else.)
I toyed with whether or not this was worthy of showing, but I'm bringing it up here anyway. Don't laugh too much, ok? I'm kind of sensitive and vulnerable at this phase of my life. ^_^;
Timelapses of ice, a couple of real-time video clips mixed in. All the video and one of the timelapses were shot on a Nikon D90. The panning timelapses were shot on a Canon SD400 (I used the CHDK firmware "hack" and Ultra Intervalometer script to have it record photos at intervals, and a kitchen timer with tripod parts glued to it to pan the camera).
While I was out shooting for this video, my D90 broke off of the tripod and fell onto rocks and the lens and lens mount broke off! The lens is fine, front and back elements are unscathed and it autofucuses and takes pictures and stuff on my N80 no problem (I can't see them yet or anything because it's film...ugghhh). The camera still works in every way, except the metal lens mount broke off, the screws which hold it on ripped out of their threads, which are made of plastic (not so awesome). So I have all the screws and put them back in gently to re-attach the lens mount and put a lens on to see if the camera works. It does. I went to the camera store but it was closed for the day. Have to get it checked out, I think it's something that maybe can be fixed easily? I don't know, it's on there now but it won't support the weight of a big lens. All I need to do is get it attached again without messing anything up...maybe need to replace the plastic...maybe loc-tite...that would be ridiculous...hope it doesn't involve major stuff....cripes....what a day.
Anyway I was beginning to question the usefulness of all the little Canon compacts I have, but after today, I know I'll be keeping them around...forever. Great to have in the bag when you smash your other camera.
After I sort out the D90 I'm buying the heaviest strongest most expensive and biggest tripod in the world.
I shot these clips in the following locations: driving along Blackhead Road, Portugal Cove - St. Phillips, and Middle Cove Beach (all of these are places in Newfoundland, Canada). The boat you see is the Bell Island ferry.
The music is a song called "1000 Roads" by Sandy Morris and I have permission to use it. You can look at Sandy's website here: sandymorrismusic.com/index.htm
You can buy the CD online here: www.atlanticcanadianmusic.com/acm_album.asp?album_id=342
Video COPYRIGHT 2008/2009 Django Malone
Re-attach the clip to the microphone, and clip it to the metal above the opening as shown. You could also attach it directly to the panel that it will peer through, like the old microphone, but that seemed tedious. I'm not sure whether my solution results in extra car noise being conducted to the microphone, though.
Blue arrows: stowage locations for the old cable/microphone and new cable.
Note:
I'm still experiencing issues with extremely low gain on the microphone: people have a hard time hearing me, and Siri can barely understand a word I'm saying, even when I raise my voice. I'm planning on encasing the back and sides of the microphone in foam, so that ambient noise from the cavity surrounding it is suppressed, but that may not be the problem.
For the moment, the dual microphones on my iPhone 4S are superior to this microphone, even when I lay the phone down by the cup holders, and put it in speakerphone mode.
I'll report back if I figure out how to improve this.
Promptly after arrival from Leszno at 17:55, the empty stock is removed from the station area at Wolsztyn. Following disposal and turning, the locomotive is re-attached to the coaches in order to maintain heating throughout the night for the benefit of the early morning commuters. On the evening of 14th January, with snow forecast overnight, Ol49-59 shunts the stock out of the arrival platform, with the single headlight used for the empty stock move. It is quite a challenge to find an upright post in Poland!
© Copyright Gordon Edgar - No unauthorised use
Size 4, length of 5
Rifle Paper Co. watercolor quilting cotton, fully lined with a pale pink cotton
Standard sleeveless bodice, lined.
Bodice is topped with a second bodice, slightly A-line with a cutaway back. They're attached at the neckline.
Tulip sleeves
Invisible zipper
Gathered skirt
The War Memorial in Victoria Square was designed by Bradford City Architect, Walter Williamson and is made from locally quarried stone. The memorial was unveiled on 1st July 1922, the 6th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme when the Bradford ‘Pals’ Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment suffered massive and severe casualties.
Two bronze figures of a soldier and sailor stand on either side of the monument. They are depicted lunging forward with their rifles as though running into battle. Originally the rifles had bayonets attached but this caused controversy because it was felt to be too aggressive for a memorial sculpture. In 1969 the bayonets were deliberately bent and the council removed them soon after when the monument was cleaned. However the council kept them and they are always re-attached for the annual Armistice Day memorial service in November.
The memorial reads:
TO THE IMMORTAL HONOUR OF
THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE
CITY OF BRADFORD
WHO SERVED THEIR KING AND EMPIRE
1914-1918 1939-1945
AND IN OTHER CONFLICT
IN PROUD AND
GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
The stone base carries the phrase THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.
Standing here always makes me think of the scene in Billy Liar.
Thank you to various sources on t'internet for the info!
Rolleiflex T, German TLR.
Lens: Tessar 1:3,5 75mm (new formula)
First testfilm, a Fuji Reala 100, is developed and results are Ok.
Shot at closest distance possible.
Now i can start re-attaching the leatherette :-)
Jack's Instrument Services
Guitar setup and repair workshop - Manchester
www.jacksinstrumentservices.com
07706 828122
Did I mention I'm a short-hair girl? With two boys? I can't even begin to fathom why I like making hair accessories so much, but here I am.
In a constant, futile effort to use what I have lying around, I'm now into leather hair-bows, inspired by men's bow ties. They're attached to scrunchies; I will try barrettes next!
Master Sgt. Anthony Oprean helps Senior Airman Mason Frasher install the elevator panel on the tail of a C-130H Hercules as it is being re-attached following repairs on Jan. 5, 2018, at the 179th Airlift Wing, Mansfield, Ohio. The 179th Airlift Wing maintenance group regularly inspects all aspects of their aircraft to maintain mission readiness with ready airmen and ready aircraft. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Joe Harwood)
Going to a party? Having a picnic? Or just need a way to sneak a drink at work? Then this Mad Men Style Travel Bar Set is for you!
- 1950s-1960s
- Black leather case with crimson red velvety interior
- Includes case, 4 glass bottles with gold lids, and 4 plastic shot glasses.
- The bottom of each shot glass reads "Just a thimble full"
- Perfect condition! The case is flawless except for minor aging on the latch. The bottles have no chips or cracks. 3 of the shot glasses are in perfect condition. One of them has a small crack in the side, but still holds liquid with no problem. **please note that after taking this picture, I found the 4th liquor sticker that says "Gin" and I re-attached it.**
- Case is 7.5" x 8.75" x 2.25"
- Bottles are 6.5" tall (including lid) x 2" x 2"
- Shot glasses are 1.5" tall and 1.75" in diameter across the top.
www.etsy.com/listing/79953549/mad-men-style-vintage-trave...
To install the cable for the remote, you first mount the remote on the bar, then thread the cable through it and attach the housing. Run the cable and housing to the lockout on the fork, and use an Allen wrench to take the top of the housing off.
Use a 2mm Allen wrench to loosen the cable binding screw (see note), and slide the cable through it and pull taut. You'll have a lot of extra cable, so get some cable cutters (not wire cutters) and chop off what you don't need. Since there's no hole for extra cable to come out of the back of the housing, make sure you cut it short enough to fit in there (see next photo).
Tighten the cable binding screw, holding the assembly in place with your finger so it doesn't pop out. Then, re-attach the housing and give it a test. You may have to mess with the barrel adjuster on the remote if you don't hear a click when pressing the lock button all the way down.
*** The cable and housing are the same you'd use for shifters (not brakes), so they're cheap and easy to come by should you cut them too short, or just need to replace someday. I actually used some spare gray Avid shifter housing to match the rest of the housing on my bike.
Fodorflex (aka Beautyflex D).
Japanese 6x6 TLR. Produced around 1955.
Ok, the Spring is re-attached and the Release Arm back in its normal position. But...
.... now the Spring has so much force again that it creeps under the topmost step of the screw.
When you fasten the screw the Release Arm cannot move properly in that way.
So i used 2 wooden toothpicks to keep the Spring centered on the topmost step of the screw.
Then carefully fastened the screw further while gently retracting the toothpicks.
That did the job :-)
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WARNING :
This image is intended as a guide for the more experienced camera service man. If you have no experience in camera repair please do yourself a favor and send your camera to a professional service shop. It would be a pity to lose a vintage camera in a failed repair attempt.
30th July 2005. "The Royal Scotsman" running round the coaching stock of Pathfinder Tours the "Snowdonian II" tour (1Z37 5:08 Bristol Temple Meads to Pwllheli and 1Z38 16:30 return). The tour had been worked by 37401 and 427 between Bristol and Machynlleth with 37427 being removed and re-attached at the latter due to weight restrictions on Barmouth Bridge.
Chiang Mai's tuk-tuks go topless during the festival. Thai girls never do - if you see a big pair of breasts about to bust out of a bikini, chances are they're attached to a ladyboy.
Brett is now smiling because we have fixed the problem we had created in round one of final pipe assembly. Just before this photo we had to cut the pipe ends near the barge and rotate the pipes down as a group, and re-attach new elbows to slightly shorten the span across the eaves, to eliminate the gap that had opened up between the gutter and barge board from the previous overtight fit. Of course we didn't see it until we'd glued it. Always the way...
3237 HAS ARRIVED IN JUNEE FROM GRIFFITH, IT WILL BE TURNED & SERVICED IN THE JUNEE ROUNDHOUSE BEFORE RE-ATTACHING TO THE TOUR TRAIN & HEAD BACK TO GRIFFITH.
The British Railways Class 52 is a class of 74 Type 4 diesel-hydraulic locomotives built for the Western Region, of British Railways, between 1961 and 1964. All were given two-word names, the first word being "Western" and thus the type became known as Westerns. They were also known as Wizzos and Thousands. They were built at BR Swindon Works(30) and BR Crewe Works(44), this being completed in 01/1963. It entered service in the unique 'Golden Ochre' livery being allocated to Cardiff, Wales. They had a maximum speed of 90 mph. This fine 'Western' is seen here Oxenhope running around its stock having worked the delayed 11:15 Keighley - Ingrow West - Damems - Damems Jct. - Oakworth - Haworth - Oxenhope service during the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Diesel Gala, on 21/06/2024. On running around, it would then re-attach and work the 12:10 return service. © Peter Steel 2024.
The kit (and its revival):
This is another model of an 1:72 Soltic H8 "Roundfacer" (there’s already one in my mecha collection), but it's not an original Takara kit, but rather comes from the Revell re-boxing in the mid Eighties among their Robotech line. It was there part of a kit set, called "Armored Combat Team", and came together with a wheeled vehicle set.
However, this model was originally not built and painted by me. It's rather a generous donation from a good friend who made an attempt into mecha when these kits were distributed. It was built roundabout 30 years(!!!) ago and, AFAIK, never 100% finished; for instance, the hoses around the neck were never mounted, and the handgun had never been never painted.
As the only one of its kind it never found a true place in my friend’s model kit collection, and after some years of disregard it even got damaged: the delicate hip joint got broken, the Roundfacer lost one of its legs. In this sorry status the model rested in a dark corner, collected dust...
...until it was given to me many years ago, unfortunately after I had already gone through my hot mecha phase in the Nineties, in which I resurrected many of my own builds for a second life. So the Roundfacer lay (again) around in my spare parts deposit for some more years, until I finally decided to tackle and revamp it in early 2018. Inspiration strikes in unexpected occasions.
At first I thought that I could just repair the leg and add some parts in order to finish the model, but this plan was soon foiled. However, the biggest issue remained the broken attachment point for the left leg - and it turned out to be more severe than first expected. Initially I tried to mend the problem with a metal pin reinforcement, so that the original pintle could be re-attached again. But then the right leg came off, too, and the whole joint turned out to have become so brittle (it literally fell apart) that it had to be replaced completely!
So I scratched a completely new hip joint and a sturdy attachment construction from styrene profiles and plastic-coated steel wire, which would allow a similar range of movement as the original construction, even though not as flexible - but the Roundfacer would be displayed anyway.
The rest of the kit was otherwise in good shape, and the joints free from paint for high movability. I made some changes and improvements, though. This included the cleaning of the seams on both legs (PSR) and the addition of some surface details with IP profile material. This meant that the original paintwork would have at least party to be renewed, but fortunalety I knew the paints and respective tones my friend had used when he had built the kit.
Another challenge were the characteristic hoses that lay around the Roundfacer's neck like a scarf. They had to be scratched, and this was done with short pieces cut off of a 3mm styrene tube which were threaded onto a wobbly mech hose - which is actually Xmas decoration material. But thanks to the material's rather fluid consistency the hoses remain very flexible and can sit tightly along the head.
The original missile launcher was refitted, even though it had to be fixed since the original attachment construction had also fallen victim to the styrene's brittleness over the ages. The handgun - while complete and available - was replaced by the weapon from a H-102 Bushman, which looks a bit more beefy.
I was not certain whether I would re-paint the Roundfacer, which would have meant stripping it off of of its original enamels - but I eventually rejected this for two reasons: First of all I thought and still think that the brittle material of the finished kit made any surgery or chemical intervention hazardous. Esp. the joints were delicate, the loss of the hip joint was already trouble enough. And then I liked the fictional scheme the Roundfacer had been given, a kind of winter camouflage in black and light grey, separated by thin white lines. I simply wanted to keep the original concept, since it looks pretty unusual - and also in order to honor my friend's original approach.
So, instead of a new or additional layer of paint I limited my work to the areas with PSR and added details, and the original (and highly translucent!) decals had to go, too.
The original colors are Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey), 33 (Flatblack) and 34 (Flat White). For the repairs the same tones were used, just the pure black (which had suffered in the meantime) was replaced by Revell 6 (Tar Black). The result is pretty good, you hardly recognize the touch-ups.
In order to take the model a step further I also did some thorough weathering, at first with a dark grey acrylic wash, which was also texturized with vertical brush streaks along the flanks, and some later dry-brushing on the edges, emphasizing the robot's shape and details.
The new markings were puzzled together from various sheets, including some Dougram models.
For an even more unique look, and in order to hide some flaws, I decided to add a thin coat of snow – also in line with the small base I created for display (an somewhat in order to justify/explain the paint scheme).
The Postcard
A photograph on a postally unused postcard by Louis Lévy showing a tomb-lined path in Alyscamps, Arles, which leads to the St. Honorat Church.
Arles is in Provence, France.
Alyscamps
This path is all that remains of the Nécropole des Alyscamps, a Gallo-Roman cemetery which was painted four times by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).
The name is a corruption of Elisii Campi (Elysian Fields). Alyscamps is located on the final stretch of the Aurelian Way, leading to the city gates.
Roman laws forbade burials within the city limits, and it was therefore common for the roads immediately outside the city to be lined with tombs and mausoleums.
The Alyscamps was Arles' burial ground for well-off citizens from all over Europe for 1500 years. The distances that were often involved led to the curious practice of bringing the dead in specially designed barrels along the Rhône to Arles, where they were fished out of the water by people specially employed for the purpose, and duly interred.
After St. Trophime's body was transferred to St. Etienne in the 12th. Century, the cemetery lost its status and fell into disrepair - marble sarcophagi were neglected, sold or destroyed. The only coffins remaining (in the picture) are the plain stone ones from the Middle Ages - the best ones are in local museums.
The Painting
Vincent Van Gogh painted the scene in the photograph from almost exactly the same spot while working side by side with Paul Gauguin. He painted it in 1888, a month before he cut off his ear.
In May 2015, the painting sold at Sotheby's in New York to an Asian collector for £15m. above its estimate. The hammer price of £45.7m. was however less than the £54.6m. record for a Van Gogh. And to think that he used to give his paintings to local café owners in return for a meal!
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh, who was born in Zundert, Netherlands on the 30th. March 1853, was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.
In just over a decade he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life.
They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.
Only one of his paintings was known by name to have been sold during his lifetime. Van Gogh became famous after his suicide at the age of 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability.
As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium.
Later he drifted in ill-health and solitude. He was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him financially, and the two of them kept up a long correspondence by letter.
Van Gogh's early works consisted of mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the artistic avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were seeking new paths beyond Impressionism.
Frustrated in Paris and inspired by a growing spirit of artistic change and collaboration, Van Gogh moved to Arles in the south of France in February 1888 with the goal of establishing an artistic retreat and commune.
Once there, Van Gogh's art changed. His paintings grew brighter, and he turned his attention to the natural world, depicting local olive groves, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh invited Gauguin to join him in Arles and eagerly anticipated Gauguin's arrival in the fall of 1888.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions. Though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly, and drank heavily.
His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor when, in a rage, he severed part of his own left ear. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy.
After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on the 27th. July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying at the age of 37 from his injuries two days later.
Van Gogh's art gained critical recognition after his death and his life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius, due in large part to the efforts of his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.
His bold use of color, expressive line and thick application of paint inspired avant garde artistic groups like the Fauves and German Expressionists in the early 20th. century.
Van Gogh's work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.
Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.
Notable works of Van Gogh include:
-- Sunflowers (1887)
-- Bedroom in Arles (1888)
-- The Starry Night (1889)
-- Wheatfield with Crows (1890)
-- Sorrowing Old Man (1890)
Vincent van Gogh - The Early Years
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on the 30th. March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.
He was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–1885), a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907).
Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family.
Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in The Hague. The two met when Anna's younger sister, Cornelia, married Theodorus' older brother.
Van Gogh's parents married in May 1851, and moved to Zundert. His brother Theo was born on the 1st. May 1857. There was another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and Willemina.
In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Willemina and Theo.
Van Gogh's mother was a rigid and religious woman who emphasized the importance of family to the point of claustrophobia for those around her.
Theodorus' salary as a minister was modest, but the Church also supplied the family with a house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse; Vincent's mother Anna instilled in the children a duty to uphold the family's high social position.
Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child. He was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school. In 1864, he was placed in a boarding school at Zevenbergen where he felt abandoned, and he campaigned to come home.
Instead, in 1866, his parents sent him to the middle school in Tilburg, where he was also deeply unhappy.
Vincent's interest in art began at a young age. He was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work.
Constant Cornelis Huijsmans, who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg. His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects.
Van Gogh's profound unhappiness seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect. In March 1868, he abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile".
In July 1869, Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he was transferred to Goupil's London branch on Southampton Street, and took lodgings at 87 Hackford Road, Stockwell.
This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was successful at work and, at 20, was earning more than his father. Theo's wife, Jo Van Gogh-Bonger, later remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life.
Vincent became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but she rejected him after he confessed his feelings; she was secretly engaged to a former lodger.
He grew more isolated and religiously fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became resentful of issues such as the degree to which the art dealers commodified art, and he was dismissed a year later.
In April 1876, Vincent returned to England to take unpaid work as a supply teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate. When the proprietor moved to Isleworth in Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him. The arrangement was not successful; he left to become a Methodist minister's assistant.
His parents had meanwhile moved to Etten; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in Dordrecht. He was unhappy in the position, and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German.
Vincent immersed himself in Christianity, and became increasingly pious and monastic. According to his flatmate of the time, Paulus van Görlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally, avoiding meat.
To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877, the family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in Amsterdam.
Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878. He undertook, but also failed, a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken, near Brussels.
In January 1879, he took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes in the working class, coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a homeless person and moved to a small hut, where he slept on straw.
Vincent's humble living conditions did not endear him to the church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood".
He then walked the 75 kilometres (47 mi) to Brussels, returned briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but he gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated, and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum in Geel.
Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until October. He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest.
Vincent traveled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He registered at the Académie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelling and perspective.
Etten, Drenthe and The Hague
Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents. He continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker, arrived for a visit.
Vincent was thrilled, and took long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was, and had an eight-year-old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing marriage. She refused with the words "No, nay, never."
After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell paintings and to meet with his second cousin, Anton Mauve. Mauve was the successful artist Van Gogh longed to be.
Mauve invited him to return in a few months, and suggested he spend the intervening time working in charcoal and pastels; Van Gogh returned to Etten and followed this advice.
Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack. Within days he left for Amsterdam.
Kee would not meet him, and her parents wrote that "his persistence is disgusting". In despair, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words:
"Let me see her for as long as I
can keep my hand in the flame."
He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that her refusal should be heeded, and that the two would not marry, largely because of Van Gogh's inability to support himself.
Mauve took Van Gogh on as a student and introduced him to watercolour, which he worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas. However Vincent quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague.
In January 1882, Mauve introduced Vincent to painting in oil, and lent him money to set up a studio. However within a month Van Gogh and Mauve had fallen out, possibly over the viability of drawing from plaster casts.
Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved.
In June 1882 Van Gogh suffered a bout of gonorrhoea, and spent three weeks in hospital. Soon after, he first painted in oils, bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and he spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were.
Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik
By March 1882, Mauve had gone cold towards Van Gogh, and had stopped replying to his letters. He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904), and her young daughter.
Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter, and was pregnant. She had previously borne two children who had died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this.
On the 2nd. July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent at first defied him, and considered moving the family out of the city, but in late 1883, he left Sien and the children.
In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In December, driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in Nuenen, North Brabant.
Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother, and baby Willem to her brother.
Willem remembered visiting Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise the child. Willem believed that Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely.
Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt in 1904.
Vincent van Gogh The Emerging Artist
In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside and very quickly, he completed sketches and paintings of weavers and their cottages.
Van Gogh also completed The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, which was stolen from the Singer Laren in March 2020.
From August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbour's daughter ten years his senior, joined him on his forays; she fell in love and he reciprocated, though less enthusiastically. They wanted to marry, but neither side of their families were in favour.
Margot was distraught and took an overdose of strychnine, but survived after Van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital. On the 26th. March 1885, Vincent's father died of a heart attack.
Van Gogh painted several groups of still lifes in 1885. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours, and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguished his later work.
There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885. Theo asked Vincent if he had paintings ready to exhibit. In May, Van Gogh responded with his first major work, The Potato Eaters, and a series of "peasant character studies" which were the culmination of several years of work.
When he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother responded that they were too dark, and not in keeping with the bright style of Impressionism.
In August 1885 Vincent's work was publicly exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of the dealer Leurs in The Hague. One of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September 1885; Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest forbade parishioners to model for him.
Vincent moved to Antwerp in November 1885 and rented a room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images. He lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money that Theo had sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco became his staple diet.
In February 1886, Vincent wrote to Theo that he could only remember eating six hot meals since the previous May. His teeth became loose and painful.
In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of colour theory and spent time in museums—particularly studying the work of Peter Paul Rubens—and broadened his palette to include carmine, cobalt blue and emerald green.
Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings. By 1886 he was drinking heavily again, and was hospitalised when he was possibly also treated for syphilis.
Despite his antipathy towards academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and, in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. He became ill and run down by overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking.
Vincent started to attend drawing classes with plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on the 18th. January 1886. However Vincent quickly got into trouble with Charles Verlat, the director of the academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style.
Van Gogh had also clashed with the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck. Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models had been given by Eugène Siberdt.
However soon Siberdt and Van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt's requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line.
When Van Gogh was required to draw the Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance, and made corrections to Van Gogh's drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage and shouted at Siberdt:
'You clearly do not know what a young
woman is like, God damn it! A woman
must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in
which she can carry a baby!'
According to some accounts, this was the last time Van Gogh attended classes at the academy, and he left later for Paris.
On the 31st. March 1886, which was about a month after the confrontation with Siberdt, the teachers of the academy decided that 17 students, including Van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that Van Gogh was expelled from the academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.
Vincent van Gogh in Paris (1886–1888)
Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's Rue Laval apartment in Montmartre and studied at Fernand Cormon's studio.
In June 1886 the brothers took a larger flat at 54 Rue Lepic. In Paris, Vincent painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, still life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmartre, Asnières and along the Seine.
In 1885 in Antwerp he had become interested in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and had used them to decorate the walls of his studio; while in Paris he collected hundreds of them.
He tried his hand at Japonaiserie, tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre, The Courtesan or Oiran (1887), after Keisai Eisen, which he then graphically enlarged in a painting.
After seeing the portrait of Adolphe Monticelli at the Galerie Delareybarette, Van Gogh adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as his Seascape at Saintes-Maries (1888).
Two years later, Vincent and Theo paid for the publication of a book on Monticelli paintings, and Vincent bought some of Monticelli's works to add to his collection.
Van Gogh had learned about Fernand Cormon's atelier from Theo. He worked at the studio in April and May 1886, where he frequented the circle of the Australian artist John Russell, who painted his portrait in 1886.
Van Gogh also met fellow students Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – who painted a portrait of him in pastel. They met at Julien "Père" Tanguy's paint shop, which was, at that time, the only place where Paul Cézanne's paintings were displayed.
In 1886, two large exhibitions were staged there, showing Pointillism and Neo-impressionism for the first time, and bringing attention to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to acknowledge the new developments in art.
Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with Vincent to be "almost unbearable". However by early 1887, they were again at peace, and Vincent had moved to Asnières, a north-western suburb of Paris, where he got to know Signac.
He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of complementary colours – including blue and orange – to form vibrant contrasts.
While in Asnières Van Gogh painted parks, restaurants and the Seine, including Bridges across the Seine at Asnières. In November 1887, Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris.
Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 Avenue de Clichy, Montmartre.
In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition was ahead of anything else in Paris. There, Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin.
Discussions on art, artists, and their social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include visitors to the show, like Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat.
In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his studio.
Vincent van Gogh's Artistic Breakthrough
Ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough, in February 1888 Van Gogh sought refuge in Arles. He seems to have moved with thoughts of founding an art colony. The Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen became his companion for two months, and, at first, Arles appeared exotic. In a letter, he described it as a foreign country:
"The Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable
little Arlésienne going to her First
Communion, the priest in his surplice, who
looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the
people drinking absinthe, all seem to me
creatures from another world."
The time in Arles became one of Van Gogh's more prolific periods: he completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolours. Vincent was enchanted by the local countryside and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow, ultramarine and mauve.
They include harvests, wheat fields and general rural landmarks from the area, including The Old Mill (1888), one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 in an exchange of works with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Charles Laval and others.
The portrayals of Arles are influenced by Vincent's Dutch upbringing; the patchworks of fields and avenues are flat and lacking perspective, but excel in their use of colour.
In March 1888, he painted landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame"; three of the works were shown at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight, who was living nearby at Fontvieille.
On the 1st. May 1888, for 15 francs per month, he signed a lease for the eastern wing of the Yellow House at 2, Place Lamartine. The rooms were unfurnished, and had been uninhabited for months.
On the 7th. May, Van Gogh moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare, having befriended the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. The Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, but he was able to use it as a studio.
He wanted a gallery to display his work, and started a series of paintings that eventually included Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), Café Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), and Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), all intended for the decoration of the Yellow House.
Van Gogh wrote that:
"With The Night Café I tried to express
the idea that the café is a place where
one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit
a crime".
When he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June, he gave lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant – Paul-Eugène Milliet – and painted the village and boats on the sea. MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who sometimes stayed in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.
Gauguin's Visit (1888)
When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship, and to realize his idea of an artists' collective. Van Gogh prepared for Gauguin's arrival by painting four versions of Sunflowers in one week.
Vincent wrote in a letter to Theo:
"In the hope of living in a studio of
our own with Gauguin I'd like to do
a decoration for the studio.
Nothing but large Sunflowers."
When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky.
In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted.
On the 17th. September 1888, he spent his first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House. When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on the Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. He also completed two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's Chair.
After much pleading from Van Gogh, Gauguin arrived in Arles on the 23rd. October 1888 and, in November, the two painted together. Gauguin depicted Van Gogh in his The Painter of Sunflowers; Van Gogh painted pictures from memory, following Gauguin's suggestion.
Among these "imaginative" paintings is Memory of the Garden at Etten. Their first joint outdoor venture was at the Alyscamps, when they produced the companion pieces Les Alyscamps. The single painting Gauguin completed during his visit was his portrait of Van Gogh.
Van Gogh and Gauguin visited Montpellier in December 1888, where they saw works by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre. However their relationship began to deteriorate; Van Gogh admired Gauguin and wanted to be treated as his equal, but Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, which frustrated Van Gogh.
They often quarrelled; Van Gogh increasingly feared that Gauguin was going to desert him, and the situation, which Van Gogh described as one of "excessive tension", rapidly headed towards crisis point.
Van Gogh's Ear
The exact sequence that led to the mutilation of Van Gogh's ear is not known. Gauguin said, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances of physically threatening behaviour.
Their relationship was complex, and Theo may have owed money to Gauguin, who suspected that the brothers were exploiting him financially. It seems likely that Vincent realised that Gauguin was planning to leave.
The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the two men being shut in the Yellow House. Gauguin recalled that Van Gogh followed him after he left for a walk and "rushed towards me, an open razor in his hand."
This account is uncorroborated; Gauguin was almost certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely staying in a hotel.
After an altercation on the evening of the 23rd. December 1888, Van Gogh returned to his room where he seemingly heard voices and either wholly or in part severed his left ear with a razor, causing severe bleeding.
He bandaged the wound, wrapped the ear in paper and delivered the package to a woman at a brothel that Van Gogh and Gauguin both frequented. Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital, where he was treated by Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training.
The ear was brought to the hospital, but Rey did not attempt to re-attach it as too much time had passed. Van Gogh researcher and art historian Bernadette Murphy discovered the true identity of the woman named Gabrielle, who died in Arles at the age of 80 in 1952, and whose descendants still live just outside Arles.
Gabrielle, known in her youth as "Gaby," was a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel and other local establishments at the time Van Gogh presented her with his ear.
Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an acute mental breakdown. The hospital diagnosis was "acute mania with generalised delirium", and within a few days, the local police ordered that Vincent be placed in hospital care.
Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who, on the 24th. December, had proposed marriage to his old friend Andries Bonger's sister Johanna. That evening, Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles. He arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid. That evening, he left Arles for the return trip to Paris.
During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to:
"Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken
this man with great care, and if he asks
for me tell him I have left for Paris; the
sight of me might prove fatal for him."
Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van Gogh again. However they continued to correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin proposed that they form a studio in Antwerp. Meanwhile, other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and Roulin.
Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House on the 7th. January 1889. He spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning.
In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including the Ginoux family) who described him as le fou roux "the redheaded madman"; Van Gogh returned to hospital.
Paul Signac visited him twice in March; in April, Van Gogh moved into rooms owned by Dr. Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Around this time, he wrote:
"Sometimes moods of indescribable
anguish, sometimes moments when
the veil of time and fatality of
circumstances seemed to be torn
apart for an instant."
Van Gogh gave his 1889 Portrait of Doctor Félix Rey to Dr Rey. However the physician was not fond of the painting, and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away. In 2016, the portrait was housed at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, and estimated to be worth over $50 million.
Vincent van Gogh at Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)
Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on the 8th. May 1889, accompanied by his caregiver, Frédéric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. Saint-Paul was a former monastery in Saint-Rémy, located less than 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Arles, and was run by a former naval doctor, Théophile Peyron.
Van Gogh had two cells with barred windows, one of which he used as a studio. The clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital's interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Rémy (September 1889), and its gardens, such as Lilacs (May 1889).
Some of his works from this time are characterised by swirls, such as The Starry Night. He was allowed short supervised walks, during which time he painted cypresses and olive trees, including Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above, Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889), and Country road in Provence by Night (1890).
In September 1889, he produced two further versions of Bedroom in Arles and The Gardener.
Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. Van Gogh instead worked on interpretations of other artists' paintings, such as Millet's The Sower and Noonday Rest, and variations on his own earlier work.
Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet, and he compared his copies to a musician's interpretation of Beethoven.
His Prisoners' Round (after Gustave Doré) (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883). Tralbaut suggests that the face of the prisoner in the centre of the painting looking towards the viewer is Van Gogh himself.
Between February and April 1890, Van Gogh suffered a severe relapse. Depressed and unable to bring himself to write, he was still able to paint and draw a little during this time, and he later wrote to Theo that he had made a few small canvases "from memory ... reminisces of the North".
Among these was Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset. Hulsker believes that this small group of paintings formed the nucleus of many drawings and study sheets depicting landscapes and figures that Van Gogh worked on during this time.
He comments that this short period was the only time that Van Gogh's illness had a significant effect on his work. Van Gogh asked his mother and his brother to send him drawings and rough work he had done in the early 1880's so that he could work on new paintings from his old sketches.
Belonging to this period is Sorrowing Old Man ("At Eternity's Gate"), a colour study Hulsker describes as:
"Another unmistakable
remembrance of times
long past".
Vincent's late paintings show an artist at the height of his abilities, according to the art critic Robert Hughes: "longing for conciseness and grace".
After the birth of his nephew, Van Gogh wrote:
"I started right away to make a picture
for him, to hang in their bedroom,
branches of white almond blossom
against a blue sky."
1890 Exhibitions and Recognition
Albert Aurier praised Vincent's work in the Mercure de France in January 1890, and described him as "a genius". In February, Van Gogh painted five versions of L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when she sat for both artists in November 1888.
Also in February, Van Gogh was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to participate in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner, a Les XX member, Henry de Groux, insulted Van Gogh's work.
Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec surrendered. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group.
From the 20th. March to the 27th. April 1890, Van Gogh was included in the sixth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris. Van Gogh exhibited ten paintings. Claude Monet said that his work was the best in the show.
Vincent van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)
In May 1890, Van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Rémy to move nearer to both Dr. Paul Gachet in the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise, and to his brother Theo.
Gachet was an amateur painter, and had treated several other artists – Camille Pissarro had recommended him. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was not well, and was:
"Iller than I am, it seemed to
me, or let's say just as much."
The painter Charles Daubigny moved to Auvers in 1861, and in turn drew other artists there, including Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, Van Gogh completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden, one of which is likely his final work.
During his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, Vincent's thoughts returned to "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils, painted during as many days in Auvers-sur-Oise, are reminiscent of northern scenes.
In June 1890, he painted several portraits of his doctor, including Portrait of Dr. Gachet, and his only etching. In each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. There are other paintings which are probably unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill.
In July, Van Gogh wrote that:
"I have become absorbed in the
immense plain against the hills,
boundless as the sea, delicate
yellow".
He had first become captivated by the fields in May, when the wheat was young and green. In July, Vincent described to Theo "vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies".
He wrote that:
"They represent my sadness and extreme
loneliness. The canvases will tell you what
I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy
and invigorating I find the countryside".
Wheat field with Crows, although not his last oil work, is from July 1890, and Hulsker discusses it as being associated with "melancholy and extreme loneliness".
The Death of Vincent van Gogh
On the 27th. July 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. The shooting may have taken place in the wheat field in which he had been painting, or in a local barn.
The bullet was deflected by a rib and passed through his chest without doing apparent damage to internal organs – possibly stopped by his spine. He was able to walk back to the Auberge Ravoux, where he was attended to by two doctors.
One of them, Dr. Gachet, served as a war surgeon in 1870, and had extensive knowledge of gunshot wounds. Vincent was possibly attended to during the night by Dr Gachet's son Paul Louis Gachet and the innkeeper, Arthur Ravoux.
The following morning, Theo rushed to his brother's side, finding him in good spirits. But within hours Vincent's health began to fail, suffering from an infection resulting from the wound. He died in the early hours of the 29th. July 1890. According to Theo, Vincent's last words were:
"The sadness will last forever".
Van Gogh was buried on the 30th. July, in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. The funeral was attended by Theo van Gogh, Andries Bonger, Charles Laval, Lucien Pissarro, Émile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Paul Gachet, among twenty family members, friends and locals.
Theo suffered from syphilis, and his health began to decline further after his brother's death. Weak and unable to come to terms with Vincent's absence, he died on the 25th. January 1891 at Den Dolder and was buried in Utrecht.
In 1914, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger had Theo's body exhumed and moved from Utrecht to be re-buried alongside Vincent's at Auvers-sur-Oise.
Vincent van Gogh's Illness
There have been numerous debates as to the nature of Van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work, and many retrospective diagnoses have been proposed.
The consensus is that Van Gogh had an episodic condition with periods of normal functioning. Perry was the first to suggest bipolar disorder in 1947, and this has been supported by the psychiatrists Hemphill and Blumer.
Biochemist Wilfred Arnold has countered that the symptoms are more consistent with acute intermittent porphyria, noting that the popular link between bipolar disorder and creativity might be spurious.
Temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression has also been suggested. Whatever the diagnosis, Vincent's condition was likely worsened by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and alcohol.
Vincent van Gogh's Style and Works
Van Gogh drew and painted with watercolours while at school, but only a few examples survive, and the authorship of some of them has been challenged. When he took up art as an adult, he began at an elementary level.
In early 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus, owner of a well-known gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam, asked for drawings of The Hague. However Van Gogh's work did not live up to expectations.
Marinus offered a second commission, specifying the subject matter in detail, but was again disappointed with the result. Van Gogh persevered; he experimented with lighting in his studio using variable shutters and different drawing materials.
For more than a year he worked on single figures – highly elaborate studies in black and white, which at the time gained him only criticism. Later, they were recognised as early masterpieces.
In August 1882, Theo gave Vincent money to buy materials for working en plein air. Vincent wrote that he could now "go on painting with new vigour".
From early 1883, he worked on multi-figure compositions. He had some of them photographed, but when his brother remarked that they lacked liveliness and freshness, he destroyed them and turned to oil painting.
Van Gogh turned to well-known Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and he received technical advice from them as well as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both of the Hague School's second generation.
Vincent moved to Nuenen after a short period of time and began work on several large paintings, but destroyed most of them. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces are the only ones to have survived.
Following a visit to the Rijksmuseum Van Gogh wrote of his admiration for the quick, economical brushwork of the Dutch Masters, especially Rembrandt and Frans Hals.
Vincent was aware that many of his faults were due to lack of experience and technical expertise, so in November 1885 he travelled to Antwerp and later Paris to develop his skills.
Theo criticised The Potato Eaters for its dark palette, which he thought unsuitable for a modern style. Accordingly during Van Gogh's stay in Paris between 1886 and 1887, he tried to master a new, lighter palette.
His Portrait of Père Tanguy (1887) shows his success with the brighter palette, and is evidence of an evolving personal style.
Charles Blanc's treatise on colour interested Vincent greatly, and led him to work with complementary colours. Van Gogh came to believe that the effect of colour went beyond the descriptive; he said that:
"Colour expresses something in itself".
According to Hughes, Van Gogh perceived colour as having a "psychological and moral weight", as exemplified in the garish reds and greens of The Night Café, a work he wanted to "express the terrible passions of humanity".
Yellow meant the most to him, because it symbolised emotional truth. He used yellow as a symbol for sunlight, life, and God.
Van Gogh strove to be a painter of rural life and nature; during his first summer in Arles he used his new palette to paint landscapes and traditional rural life. His belief that a power existed behind the natural led him to try to capture a sense of that power, or the essence of nature in his art, sometimes through the use of symbols.
Vincent's renditions of the sower, at first copied from Jean-François Millet, reflect the influence of Thomas Carlyle and Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts on the heroism of physical labour, as well as Van Gogh's religious beliefs: the sower as Christ sowing life beneath the hot sun.
These were themes and motifs that he returned to often in order to rework and develop. His paintings of flowers are filled with symbolism, but rather than use traditional Christian iconography he made up his own, where life is lived under the sun and work is an allegory of life.
In Arles, having gained confidence after painting spring blossoms and learning to capture bright sunlight, he was ready to paint The Sower.
Van Gogh stayed within what he called the "guise of reality," and was critical of overly stylised works. He wrote afterwards that the abstraction of Starry Night had gone too far and that reality had "receded too far in the background".
Hughes describes it as a moment of extreme visionary ecstasy:
"The stars are in a great whirl, reminiscent
of Hokusai's Great Wave, the movement in
the heaven above is reflected by the
movement of the cypress on the earth below,
and the painter's vision is translated into a
thick, emphatic plasma of paint".
Between 1885 and his death in 1890, Van Gogh appears to have been building an oeuvre, a collection that reflected his personal vision and which could be commercially successful.
He was influenced by Blanc's definition of style, that a true painting required optimal use of colour, perspective and brushstrokes.
Van Gogh applied the word "purposeful" to paintings he thought he had mastered, as opposed to those he thought of as studies.
He painted many series of studies, most of which were still lifes, many executed as colour experiments or as gifts to friends. The work in Arles contributed considerably to his oeuvre: those he thought the most important from that time were The Sower, Night Cafe, Memory of the Garden in Etten and Starry Night.
With their broad brushstrokes, inventive perspectives, colours, contours and designs, these paintings represent the style he sought.
Major Series
Van Gogh's stylistic developments are usually linked to the periods he spent living in different places across Europe. He was inclined to immerse himself in local cultures and lighting conditions, although he maintained a highly individual visual outlook throughout.
His evolution as an artist was slow, and he was aware of his limitations. He moved home often, perhaps to expose himself to new visual stimuli, and through exposure develop his technical skill.
Art historian Melissa McQuillan believes the moves also reflect later stylistic changes, and that Van Gogh used the moves to avoid conflict, and as a coping mechanism for when the idealistic artist was faced with the realities of his then current situation.
Portraits
Van Gogh said that portraiture was his greatest interest. In 1890 he wrote:
"What I'm most passionate about,
much much more than all the rest
in my profession is the portrait, the
modern portrait.
It is the only thing in painting that
moves me deeply and that gives
me a sense of the infinite."
He wrote to his sister that he wished to paint portraits that would endure, and that he would use colour to capture their emotions and character rather than aiming for photographic realism.
Those closest to Van Gogh are mostly absent from his portraits; he rarely painted Theo, Van Rappard or Bernard. The portraits of his mother were from photographs.
Van Gogh painted Arles' postmaster Joseph Roulin and his family repeatedly. In five versions of La Berceuse (The Lullaby), Van Gogh painted Augustine Roulin quietly holding a rope that rocks the unseen cradle of her infant daughter. Van Gogh had planned for it to be the central image of a triptych, flanked by paintings of sunflowers.
Self-portraits
Van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits between 1885 and 1889. They were usually completed in series, such as those painted in Paris in mid-1887, and continued until shortly before his death. Generally the portraits were studies, created during periods when he was reluctant to mix with others, or when he lacked models, and so painted himself.
The self-portraits reflect a high degree of self-scrutiny. Often they were intended to mark important periods in his life; for example, the mid-1887 Paris series were painted at the point where he became aware of Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Signac.
In Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, heavy strains of paint spread outwards across the canvas. It is one of his most renowned self-portraits of that period. It features highly organized rhythmic brushstrokes, and the novel halo derived from the Neo-impressionist repertoire was what Van Gogh himself called a 'purposeful' canvas.
The self-portraits contain a wide array of physiognomic representations. Van Gogh's mental and physical condition is usually apparent; he may appear unkempt, unshaven or with a neglected beard, with deeply sunken eyes, a weak jaw, or having lost teeth.
Some show him with full lips, a long face or prominent skull, or sharpened, alert features. His hair is sometimes depicted in a vibrant reddish hue, and at other times ash colored.
Van Gogh's self-portraits vary stylistically. In those painted after December 1888, the strong contrast of vivid colours highlight the haggard pallor of his skin. Some depict the artist with a beard, others without. He can be seen with bandages in portraits executed just after he mutilated his ear. In only a few does he depict himself as a painter.
Those painted in Saint-Rémy show the head from the right, the side opposite his damaged ear, as he painted himself reflected in his mirror.
Flowers
Van Gogh painted several landscapes with flowers, including roses, lilacs, irises, and sunflowers. Some reflect his interests in the language of colour, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e.
There are two series of dying sunflowers. The first was painted in Paris in 1887, and shows flowers lying on the ground. The second set was completed a year later in Arles, and is of bouquets in a vase positioned in early morning light. Both are built from thickly layered paintwork, which, according to the London National Gallery, evoke the "texture of the seed-heads".
In these series, Van Gogh was not preoccupied by his usual interest in filling his paintings with subjectivity and emotion; rather, the two series are intended to display his technical skill and working methods to Gauguin, who was about to visit.
The 1888 paintings were created during a rare period of optimism for the artist. Vincent wrote to Theo in August 1888:
"I'm painting with the gusto of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when it's a
question of painting large sunflowers.
If I carry out this plan there'll be a dozen or so panels.
The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue
and yellow.
I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because
the flowers wilt quickly and it's a matter of doing the
whole thing in one go."
The sunflowers were painted to decorate the walls in anticipation of Gauguin's visit, and Van Gogh placed individual works around the Yellow House's guest room in Arles.
Gauguin was deeply impressed, and later acquired two of the Paris versions. After Gauguin's departure, Van Gogh imagined the two major versions of the sunflowers as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and included them in his Les XX in Brussels exhibit.
Today the major pieces of the series are among his best known, celebrated for the sickly connotations of the colour yellow and its tie-in with the Yellow House, the expressionism of the brush strokes, and their contrast against often dark backgrounds.
Cypresses and Olives
Fifteen canvases depict cypresses, a tree he became fascinated with in Arles. He brought life to the trees, which were traditionally seen as emblematic of death.
The series of cypresses he began in Arles featured the trees in the distance, as windbreaks in fields; however when he was at Saint-Rémy he brought them to the foreground. Vincent wrote to Theo in May 1889:
"Cypresses still preoccupy me, I should
like to do something with them like my
canvases of sunflowers. They are beautiful
in line and proportion like an Egyptian
obelisk."
In mid-1889, and at his sister Wil's request, Van Gogh painted several smaller versions of Wheat Field with Cypresses. The works are characterised by swirls and densely painted impasto, and include The Starry Night, in which cypresses dominate the foreground.
In addition to this, other notable works on cypresses include Cypresses (1889), Cypresses with Two Figures (1889–90), and Road with Cypress and Star (1890).
During the last six or seven months of the year 1889, he had also created at least fifteen paintings of olive trees, a subject which he considered as demanding and compelling.
Among these works are Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background (1889), about which in a letter to his brother Van Gogh wrote:
"At last I have a landscape with olives".
While in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh spent time outside the asylum, where he painted trees in the olive groves. In these works, natural life is rendered as gnarled and arthritic as if a personification of the natural world, which are, according to Hughes, filled with "a continuous field of energy of which nature is a manifestation".
Orchards
The Flowering Orchards and Orchards in Blossom are among the first groups of work completed after Van Gogh's arrival in Arles in February 1888. The 14 paintings are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning spring. They are delicately sensitive and unpopulated.
Vincent painted swiftly, and although he brought to this series a version of Impressionism, a strong sense of personal style began to emerge during this period. The transience of the blossoming trees, and the passing of the season, seemed to align with his sense of impermanence and belief in a new beginning in Arles.
During the blossoming of the trees that spring, he found:
"A world of motifs that could not
have been more Japanese".
Vincent wrote to Theo on the 21st. April 1888 that he had 10 orchards and:
"One big painting of a cherry
tree, which I've spoiled".
During this period Van Gogh mastered the use of light by subjugating shadows and painting the trees as if they are the source of light – almost in a sacred manner. Early the following year he painted another smaller group of orchards, including View of Arles, Flowering Orchards.
Van Gogh was enthralled by the landscape and vegetation of the south of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles. In the vivid light of the Mediterranean climate his palette significantly brightened.
Wheat Fields
Van Gogh made several painting excursions during visits to the landscape around Arles. He made paintings of harvests, wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area, including The Old Mill (1888); a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond.
At various points, Van Gogh painted the view from his window – at The Hague, Antwerp, and Paris. These works culminated in The Wheat Field series, which depicted the view from his cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.
Many of the late paintings are sombre but essentially optimistic and, right up to the time of Van Gogh's death, reflect his desire to return to lucid mental health. Yet some of his final works reflect his deepening concerns.
Van Gogh was captivated by the fields in May when the wheat was young and green. His Wheat Fields at Auvers with White House shows a more subdued palette of yellows and blues, which creates a sense of idyllic harmony.
In July 1890, Van Gogh wrote to Theo of:
"Vast fields of wheat under troubled skies".
Wheat Field with Crows shows the artist's state of mind in his final days; Hulsker describes the work as:
"A doom-filled painting with threatening
skies and ill-omened crows".
Its dark palette and heavy brushstrokes convey a sense of menace.
Vincent van Gogh's Reputation and Legacy
After Van Gogh's first exhibitions in the late 1880's, his reputation grew steadily among artists, art critics, dealers and collectors. In 1887, André Antoine hung Van Gogh's alongside works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, at the Théâtre Libre in Paris; some were acquired by Julien Tanguy.
In 1889, his work was described in the journal Le Moderniste Illustré by Albert Aurier as characterised by "fire, intensity, sunshine".
Ten paintings were shown at the Société des Artistes Indépendants, in Brussels in January 1890. French president Marie François Sadi Carnot was said to have been impressed by Van Gogh's work.
After Van Gogh's death, memorial exhibitions were held in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. His work was shown in several high-profile exhibitions, including six works at Les XX; in 1891 there was a retrospective exhibition in Brussels.
In 1892, Octave Mirbeau wrote that Van Gogh's suicide was:
"An infinitely sadder loss for art ... even
though the populace has not crowded
to a magnificent funeral, and poor Vincent
van Gogh, whose demise means the
extinction of a beautiful flame of genius,
has gone to his death as obscure and
neglected as he lived."
Theo died in January 1891, removing Vincent's most vocal and well-connected champion. Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger was a Dutchwoman in her twenties who had not known either her husband or her brother-in-law very long, and who suddenly had to take care of several hundreds of paintings, letters and drawings, as well as her infant son, Vincent Willem van Gogh.
Gauguin was not inclined to offer assistance in promoting Van Gogh's reputation, and Johanna's brother Andries Bonger also seemed lukewarm about his work.
Aurier, one of Van Gogh's earliest supporters among the critics, died of typhoid fever in 1892 at the age of 27.
In 1892, Émile Bernard organised a small solo show of Van Gogh's paintings in Paris, and Julien Tanguy exhibited his Van Gogh paintings with several consigned from Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.
In April 1894, the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris agreed to take 10 paintings on consignment from Van Gogh's estate. In 1896, the Fauvist painter Henri Matisse, then an unknown art student, visited John Russell on Belle Île off Brittany.
Russell had been a close friend of Van Gogh; he introduced Matisse to the Dutchman's work, and gave him a Van Gogh drawing. Influenced by Van Gogh, Matisse abandoned his earth-coloured palette for bright colours.
In Paris in 1901, a large Van Gogh retrospective was held at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, which excited André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, and contributed to the emergence of Fauvism.
Important group exhibitions took place with the Sonderbund artists in Cologne in 1912, the Armory Show, New York in 1913, and Berlin in 1914.
Henk Bremmer was instrumental in teaching and talking about Van Gogh, and introduced Helene Kröller-Müller to Van Gogh's art; she became an avid collector of his work. The early figures in German Expressionism such as Emil Nolde acknowledged a debt to Van Gogh's work.
Bremmer assisted Jacob Baart de la Faille, whose catalogue raisonné L'Oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh appeared in 1928.
Van Gogh's fame reached its first peak in Austria and Germany before the Great War, helped by the publication of his letters in three volumes in 1914. His letters are expressive and literate, and have been described as among the foremost 19th.-century writings of their kind.
The letters began a compelling mythology of Van Gogh as an intense and dedicated painter who suffered for his art and died young. In 1934, the novelist Irving Stone wrote a biographical novel of Van Gogh's life titled Lust for Life, based on Van Gogh's letters to Theo.
The novel and the 1956 film further enhanced his fame, especially in the United States where Stone surmised only a few hundred people had heard of Van Gogh prior to his surprise best-selling book.
In 1957, Francis Bacon based a series of paintings on reproductions of Van Gogh's The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, the original of which was destroyed during the Second World War.
Bacon was inspired by an image he described as "haunting", and regarded Van Gogh as an alienated outsider, a position which resonated with him. Bacon identified with Van Gogh's theories of art and quoted lines written to Theo:
"Real painters do not paint things as
they are ... They paint them as they
themselves feel them to be."
Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings. Those sold for over US$100 million (today's equivalent) include Portrait of Dr Gachet, Portrait of Joseph Roulin and Irises.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a copy of Wheat Field with Cypresses in 1993 for US$57 million by using funds donated by publisher, diplomat and philanthropist Walter Annenberg.
In 2015, L'Allée des Alyscamps sold for US$66.3 million at Sotheby's, New York, exceeding its reserve of US$40 million.
Minor planet 4457 Van Gogh is named in his honour.
In October 2022, two activists protesting the effects of the fossil fuel industry on climate change threw a can of tomato soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the National Gallery, London, and then glued their hands to the gallery wall. As the painting was covered by glass it was not damaged.
The Van Gogh Museum
Van Gogh's nephew and namesake, Vincent Willem van Gogh (1890–1978), inherited the estate after his mother's death in 1925. During the early 1950's he arranged for the publication of a complete edition of the letters presented in four volumes and several languages.
He then began negotiations with the Dutch government to subsidise a foundation to purchase and house the entire collection. Theo's son participated in planning the project in the hope that the works would be exhibited under the best possible conditions.
The project began in 1963; architect Gerrit Rietveld was commissioned to design the museum, and after his death in 1964, Kisho Kurokawa took charge. Work progressed throughout the 1960's, with 1972 as the target for its grand opening.
The Van Gogh Museum opened in the Museumplein in Amsterdam in 1973. It became the second most popular museum in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum, regularly receiving more than 1.5 million visitors a year.
In 2015 it had an attendance of a record 1.9 million individuals. Eighty-five percent of the visitors come from other countries.
Nazi-Looted Art
During the Nazi period (1933–1945) a great number of artworks by Van Gogh changed hands, many of them looted from Jewish collectors who were forced into exile or murdered.
Some of these works have disappeared into private collections. Others have since resurfaced in museums, or at auction, or have been reclaimed, often in high-profile lawsuits, by their former owners.
The German Lost Art Foundation still lists dozens of missing Van Goghs, and the American Alliance of Museums lists 73 van Goghs on the Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal.
Fodorflex (aka Beautyflex D).
Japanese 6x6 TLR. Produced around 1955.
Re-attaching the Spring (see red arrow) of the Release Arm is next to impossible when that Arm is in its original position.
The force needed for that would surely deformate the Spring.
So i took this approach.:
First screw the Release Arm back to the Lens Board but only 1 or 2 turns of the screw. In this way it is possible to swivel the Release Arm past the edge of the Lens Board and as close as possible to the Spring.
Next re-attach the Spring which in this position only puts a weak force on the Arm.
Then swivel the Arm back to its normal position and turn the screw further in.
.
.
.
WARNING :
This image is intended as a guide for the more experienced camera service man. If you have no experience in camera repair please do yourself a favor and send your camera to a professional service shop. It would be a pity to lose a vintage camera in a failed repair attempt.
The kit (and its revival):
This is another model of an 1:72 Soltic H8 "Roundfacer" (there’s already one in my mecha collection), but it's not an original Takara kit, but rather comes from the Revell re-boxing in the mid Eighties among their Robotech line. It was there part of a kit set, called "Armored Combat Team", and came together with a wheeled vehicle set.
However, this model was originally not built and painted by me. It's rather a generous donation from a good friend who made an attempt into mecha when these kits were distributed. It was built roundabout 30 years(!!!) ago and, AFAIK, never 100% finished; for instance, the hoses around the neck were never mounted, and the handgun had never been never painted.
As the only one of its kind it never found a true place in my friend’s model kit collection, and after some years of disregard it even got damaged: the delicate hip joint got broken, the Roundfacer lost one of its legs. In this sorry status the model rested in a dark corner, collected dust...
...until it was given to me many years ago, unfortunately after I had already gone through my hot mecha phase in the Nineties, in which I resurrected many of my own builds for a second life. So the Roundfacer lay (again) around in my spare parts deposit for some more years, until I finally decided to tackle and revamp it in early 2018. Inspiration strikes in unexpected occasions.
At first I thought that I could just repair the leg and add some parts in order to finish the model, but this plan was soon foiled. However, the biggest issue remained the broken attachment point for the left leg - and it turned out to be more severe than first expected. Initially I tried to mend the problem with a metal pin reinforcement, so that the original pintle could be re-attached again. But then the right leg came off, too, and the whole joint turned out to have become so brittle (it literally fell apart) that it had to be replaced completely!
So I scratched a completely new hip joint and a sturdy attachment construction from styrene profiles and plastic-coated steel wire, which would allow a similar range of movement as the original construction, even though not as flexible - but the Roundfacer would be displayed anyway.
The rest of the kit was otherwise in good shape, and the joints free from paint for high movability. I made some changes and improvements, though. This included the cleaning of the seams on both legs (PSR) and the addition of some surface details with IP profile material. This meant that the original paintwork would have at least party to be renewed, but fortunalety I knew the paints and respective tones my friend had used when he had built the kit.
Another challenge were the characteristic hoses that lay around the Roundfacer's neck like a scarf. They had to be scratched, and this was done with short pieces cut off of a 3mm styrene tube which were threaded onto a wobbly mech hose - which is actually Xmas decoration material. But thanks to the material's rather fluid consistency the hoses remain very flexible and can sit tightly along the head.
The original missile launcher was refitted, even though it had to be fixed since the original attachment construction had also fallen victim to the styrene's brittleness over the ages. The handgun - while complete and available - was replaced by the weapon from a H-102 Bushman, which looks a bit more beefy.
I was not certain whether I would re-paint the Roundfacer, which would have meant stripping it off of of its original enamels - but I eventually rejected this for two reasons: First of all I thought and still think that the brittle material of the finished kit made any surgery or chemical intervention hazardous. Esp. the joints were delicate, the loss of the hip joint was already trouble enough. And then I liked the fictional scheme the Roundfacer had been given, a kind of winter camouflage in black and light grey, separated by thin white lines. I simply wanted to keep the original concept, since it looks pretty unusual - and also in order to honor my friend's original approach.
So, instead of a new or additional layer of paint I limited my work to the areas with PSR and added details, and the original (and highly translucent!) decals had to go, too.
The original colors are Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey), 33 (Flatblack) and 34 (Flat White). For the repairs the same tones were used, just the pure black (which had suffered in the meantime) was replaced by Revell 6 (Tar Black). The result is pretty good, you hardly recognize the touch-ups.
In order to take the model a step further I also did some thorough weathering, at first with a dark grey acrylic wash, which was also texturized with vertical brush streaks along the flanks, and some later dry-brushing on the edges, emphasizing the robot's shape and details.
The new markings were puzzled together from various sheets, including some Dougram models.
For an even more unique look, and in order to hide some flaws, I decided to add a thin coat of snow – also in line with the small base I created for display (an somewhat in order to justify/explain the paint scheme).
45 of 365
poem by Diane Albertina:
Circlets of petals with-pollen-for-centers surround Lydia who (like Emily Dickinson) goes about her daily chores, noting a little word here, a little word there, loosely mingling them in embroidered pockets with torn corners re-attached only yesterday to her earth-weary tattered blue apron , then petals lavender and pink, sagging from lack of moisture yet still smelling sweet, collapse in Lydia’s clasped hands while her garden offers different shades of whites.
" TO MY GIRL TO MY SWEETHEART LOVE FROM DADDY" written in pencil to "my mommy" by MY daddy long before I was born.
They were having hard times financially (sort of like now in 2008 for people!) and he gave her this to show his love though he wasn't making a lot of money and to let her know that with love they could indeed "weather the weather".
ALSO, this is a perpetual calendar (you slide the months and days on a little cardboard backer). So I can still use it!
My father gave it to "my mommy" to say his love for her was "perpetual" and never ending.
This was the sweetness of the "1928-style" days of their lives.
View large for the full horror.
I decided to clean my sensor last night.
I'd gotten a bit tired of cloning out the same dust spots from my photos taken over the last few months.
I use the Arctic Butterfly from Visible Dust to clean, I'd only used it once before but I was very impressed with it.
So, I took the lens off and set the camera to Sensor Cleaning mode.
After the first clean most of the dust had gone, but a few small smears had appeared.
I decided I'd better clean it again as smears would be a lot harder to clone out than the odd spot.
I did it again, put the lens back on, took a test shot and nearly died - I'd somehow managed to seriously gunge up my sensor.
I cleaned it about 3 times more and it still wouldn't go away.
I then decided to do some googling around to see what online advice I could find.
Micheal Reichmann's site is actually the number one hit for "Arctic Butterfly" on Google, and it contains this gem:
"7: If there is a stubborn particle, note where in the frame it is, and then with the shutter open in cleaning mode, shine a flashlight into the mirror housing at an oblique angle. You should be able to see it. Just remember that the location will be upside down from where you saw it on the monitor.
8: Try using the Butterfly again, this time concentrating on the spot. If this doesn't work, you'll need more sophisticated cleaning tools, such as the swabs and fluids available from VisibleDust."
Following the advice I brushed the sensor back and forth on the problem spots, which were easily visible.
I then re-attached the lens, took the test shot and hey presto, clean!
Not sure what I did wrong to get all that gunk on there, I just hope I can go another 6 months or so without having to clean it again.
This side view of my Summer season Russian Army loadout shows my AK-74M tactical sling arrangement. It's a typically logical Russian solution - rather than making a complicated one-point tactical sling, as we would do in the West, the Russians simply unclip the sling from it's front loop and re-attach it at the rear loop...
Instant one-point sling!
This photo is part of my 'Russian Paratrooper' Flecktar-D album, which can be views here: Milgeek\s Russian VDV Para loadout
The kit (and its revival):
This is another model of an 1:72 Soltic H8 "Roundfacer" (there’s already one in my mecha collection), but it's not an original Takara kit, but rather comes from the Revell re-boxing in the mid Eighties among their Robotech line. It was there part of a kit set, called "Armored Combat Team", and came together with a wheeled vehicle set.
However, this model was originally not built and painted by me. It's rather a generous donation from a good friend who made an attempt into mecha when these kits were distributed. It was built roundabout 30 years(!!!) ago and, AFAIK, never 100% finished; for instance, the hoses around the neck were never mounted, and the handgun had never been never painted.
As the only one of its kind it never found a true place in my friend’s model kit collection, and after some years of disregard it even got damaged: the delicate hip joint got broken, the Roundfacer lost one of its legs. In this sorry status the model rested in a dark corner, collected dust...
...until it was given to me many years ago, unfortunately after I had already gone through my hot mecha phase in the Nineties, in which I resurrected many of my own builds for a second life. So the Roundfacer lay (again) around in my spare parts deposit for some more years, until I finally decided to tackle and revamp it in early 2018. Inspiration strikes in unexpected occasions.
At first I thought that I could just repair the leg and add some parts in order to finish the model, but this plan was soon foiled. However, the biggest issue remained the broken attachment point for the left leg - and it turned out to be more severe than first expected. Initially I tried to mend the problem with a metal pin reinforcement, so that the original pintle could be re-attached again. But then the right leg came off, too, and the whole joint turned out to have become so brittle (it literally fell apart) that it had to be replaced completely!
So I scratched a completely new hip joint and a sturdy attachment construction from styrene profiles and plastic-coated steel wire, which would allow a similar range of movement as the original construction, even though not as flexible - but the Roundfacer would be displayed anyway.
The rest of the kit was otherwise in good shape, and the joints free from paint for high movability. I made some changes and improvements, though. This included the cleaning of the seams on both legs (PSR) and the addition of some surface details with IP profile material. This meant that the original paintwork would have at least party to be renewed, but fortunalety I knew the paints and respective tones my friend had used when he had built the kit.
Another challenge were the characteristic hoses that lay around the Roundfacer's neck like a scarf. They had to be scratched, and this was done with short pieces cut off of a 3mm styrene tube which were threaded onto a wobbly mech hose - which is actually Xmas decoration material. But thanks to the material's rather fluid consistency the hoses remain very flexible and can sit tightly along the head.
The original missile launcher was refitted, even though it had to be fixed since the original attachment construction had also fallen victim to the styrene's brittleness over the ages. The handgun - while complete and available - was replaced by the weapon from a H-102 Bushman, which looks a bit more beefy.
I was not certain whether I would re-paint the Roundfacer, which would have meant stripping it off of of its original enamels - but I eventually rejected this for two reasons: First of all I thought and still think that the brittle material of the finished kit made any surgery or chemical intervention hazardous. Esp. the joints were delicate, the loss of the hip joint was already trouble enough. And then I liked the fictional scheme the Roundfacer had been given, a kind of winter camouflage in black and light grey, separated by thin white lines. I simply wanted to keep the original concept, since it looks pretty unusual - and also in order to honor my friend's original approach.
So, instead of a new or additional layer of paint I limited my work to the areas with PSR and added details, and the original (and highly translucent!) decals had to go, too.
The original colors are Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey), 33 (Flatblack) and 34 (Flat White). For the repairs the same tones were used, just the pure black (which had suffered in the meantime) was replaced by Revell 6 (Tar Black). The result is pretty good, you hardly recognize the touch-ups.
In order to take the model a step further I also did some thorough weathering, at first with a dark grey acrylic wash, which was also texturized with vertical brush streaks along the flanks, and some later dry-brushing on the edges, emphasizing the robot's shape and details.
The new markings were puzzled together from various sheets, including some Dougram models.
For an even more unique look, and in order to hide some flaws, I decided to add a thin coat of snow – also in line with the small base I created for display (an somewhat in order to justify/explain the paint scheme).
don't fret. i dint waste a roll of film just to show you this. i'm cutting this film off the canister to use it for redscale film. i'll be re-attaching another film (DNP Centuria 100) to the end of this film. and re-loading it into the canister to shoot. check back in a week or two, you can (hopefully?!) see the results.
you can also see i've added some open-cell PVA foam (1/16" thick) on the back panel of the holga. i find this helps to keep the film plane, reduce light leaks. the 35mm film glides smoother with this in.
but i can't leave this foam in when shooting 120 film, it is way too hard to advance the film w/ the foam, the backing paper, the film, and the 120 plastic 'frame' inserted. yeah, maybe 220 film would be fine. but i've never shot 220 film in my life. i'm happy w/ 120. just my judgement & personal opinion.
So I got my heads back from the faceup artist today, and I feel awful saying this but I think I might have fallen out of love with them. :/ Its not that the faceups are bad or anything like that (I'm actually quite happy with how their faces turned out), I just don't feel attached to them like I did when they left. Maybe I just need some time to warm up to them again, but I am feeling pretty bummed out about it so I kinda felt like sharing. v_v
Oh, and is there any way to remove and re-attach eyelashes? Because one of my Rona's eyelashes was put in weirdly since its in way too far so you can hardly even see it. She looks so derpy with just one eye having visible lashes. So, is there anything I can do to fix it? ;-;
Anyways, regardless of my lack of bonding, I still wanted to say a big thank you to Denaliwind for doing such nice faceups on my girls. <3 Hopefully I will be able to post some better photos of them within the next week, but I'm pretty overloaded with school work at the moment so I may not have much time for taking new doll photos. :P
EDIT: So I was able to remove the one wonky eyelash without damaging it, which is good. And hopefully I'll be able to re-attach it within the next few days. I'm actually feeling quite a bit better about these girls now that I've been looking at them for a few hours. Hopefully once I am able to buy them wigs that suit them better, as well as some new clothes, that will make bonding with them easier. ^_^
Going to a party? Having a picnic? Or just need a way to sneak a drink at work? Then this Mad Men Style Travel Bar Set is for you!
- 1950s-1960s
- Black leather case with crimson red velvety interior
- Includes case, 4 glass bottles with gold lids, and 4 plastic shot glasses.
- The bottom of each shot glass reads "Just a thimble full"
- Perfect condition! The case is flawless except for minor aging on the latch. The bottles have no chips or cracks. 3 of the shot glasses are in perfect condition. One of them has a small crack in the side, but still holds liquid with no problem. **please note that after taking this picture, I found the 4th liquor sticker that says "Gin" and I re-attached it.**
- Case is 7.5" x 8.75" x 2.25"
- Bottles are 6.5" tall (including lid) x 2" x 2"
- Shot glasses are 1.5" tall and 1.75" in diameter across the top.
www.etsy.com/listing/79953549/mad-men-style-vintage-trave...
The kit (and its revival):
This is another model of an 1:72 Soltic H8 "Roundfacer" (there’s already one in my mecha collection), but it's not an original Takara kit, but rather comes from the Revell re-boxing in the mid Eighties among their Robotech line. It was there part of a kit set, called "Armored Combat Team", and came together with a wheeled vehicle set.
However, this model was originally not built and painted by me. It's rather a generous donation from a good friend who made an attempt into mecha when these kits were distributed. It was built roundabout 30 years(!!!) ago and, AFAIK, never 100% finished; for instance, the hoses around the neck were never mounted, and the handgun had never been never painted.
As the only one of its kind it never found a true place in my friend’s model kit collection, and after some years of disregard it even got damaged: the delicate hip joint got broken, the Roundfacer lost one of its legs. In this sorry status the model rested in a dark corner, collected dust...
...until it was given to me many years ago, unfortunately after I had already gone through my hot mecha phase in the Nineties, in which I resurrected many of my own builds for a second life. So the Roundfacer lay (again) around in my spare parts deposit for some more years, until I finally decided to tackle and revamp it in early 2018. Inspiration strikes in unexpected occasions.
At first I thought that I could just repair the leg and add some parts in order to finish the model, but this plan was soon foiled. However, the biggest issue remained the broken attachment point for the left leg - and it turned out to be more severe than first expected. Initially I tried to mend the problem with a metal pin reinforcement, so that the original pintle could be re-attached again. But then the right leg came off, too, and the whole joint turned out to have become so brittle (it literally fell apart) that it had to be replaced completely!
So I scratched a completely new hip joint and a sturdy attachment construction from styrene profiles and plastic-coated steel wire, which would allow a similar range of movement as the original construction, even though not as flexible - but the Roundfacer would be displayed anyway.
The rest of the kit was otherwise in good shape, and the joints free from paint for high movability. I made some changes and improvements, though. This included the cleaning of the seams on both legs (PSR) and the addition of some surface details with IP profile material. This meant that the original paintwork would have at least party to be renewed, but fortunalety I knew the paints and respective tones my friend had used when he had built the kit.
Another challenge were the characteristic hoses that lay around the Roundfacer's neck like a scarf. They had to be scratched, and this was done with short pieces cut off of a 3mm styrene tube which were threaded onto a wobbly mech hose - which is actually Xmas decoration material. But thanks to the material's rather fluid consistency the hoses remain very flexible and can sit tightly along the head.
The original missile launcher was refitted, even though it had to be fixed since the original attachment construction had also fallen victim to the styrene's brittleness over the ages. The handgun - while complete and available - was replaced by the weapon from a H-102 Bushman, which looks a bit more beefy.
I was not certain whether I would re-paint the Roundfacer, which would have meant stripping it off of of its original enamels - but I eventually rejected this for two reasons: First of all I thought and still think that the brittle material of the finished kit made any surgery or chemical intervention hazardous. Esp. the joints were delicate, the loss of the hip joint was already trouble enough. And then I liked the fictional scheme the Roundfacer had been given, a kind of winter camouflage in black and light grey, separated by thin white lines. I simply wanted to keep the original concept, since it looks pretty unusual - and also in order to honor my friend's original approach.
So, instead of a new or additional layer of paint I limited my work to the areas with PSR and added details, and the original (and highly translucent!) decals had to go, too.
The original colors are Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey), 33 (Flatblack) and 34 (Flat White). For the repairs the same tones were used, just the pure black (which had suffered in the meantime) was replaced by Revell 6 (Tar Black). The result is pretty good, you hardly recognize the touch-ups.
In order to take the model a step further I also did some thorough weathering, at first with a dark grey acrylic wash, which was also texturized with vertical brush streaks along the flanks, and some later dry-brushing on the edges, emphasizing the robot's shape and details.
The new markings were puzzled together from various sheets, including some Dougram models.
For an even more unique look, and in order to hide some flaws, I decided to add a thin coat of snow – also in line with the small base I created for display (an somewhat in order to justify/explain the paint scheme).