27/07: CHRISTINE REINCARNATED?

On holiday I read Stephen King's novel about a haunted car called 'Christine' - a bright red 1958 Plymouth Fury whose new teenaged owner (Arnie) is totally obsessed with it/her and spends more time restoring and generally 'loving' it/her than he does with friends or family.   'Christine' is evil and kills people that threaten her - her odometer (milometer)? runs backwards as Christine repairs and rejuvenates herself until she is in pristine condition.    With me so far??

if you haven't read the book or seen the film look away now :o)    at the end of the story Christine is overpowered and crushed into a little metal cube ......  that is supposed to be the end of her - but I know better!


David (hubby) insists on taking his netbook computer on holiday  despite the fact we have almost no signal at our holiday home. To collect or send emails we have to take the netbook into town where our friend runs the local tourist information office and lets us use his wifi facility.     I don't get much sense out of David most of the time as he hunches over the computer for hours on end moaning about lack of signal and inability to get online (but grumbling keeps him happy).  

The netbook is bright red and, having read Stephen King's book, I noted the parallels between Arnie/Christine and David/computer, so I named his netbook Christine and made David read the book to appreciate why!  He made the connection ....

We were about to walk into Town one evening when 'Christine' threw herself off the chair where she'd been placed and landed on the floor.  I was walking past the chair at the time but swear I didn't push her (!!) She was in a padded bag so we didn't think any more of it till we tried to go online.   She was broken!!!   All we got on screen was a lot of zigzagging lines and dots.    Our friend offered to put us in touch with a computer repair man to see if he could retrieve any of the data (including the 100+ photos I'd uploaded on holiday) but we felt time was too short as we were due to fly home 2 days later.    David was devastated ... the end of the world etc etc .....   RIP Christine !!!

Next morning he was up early - ostensibly to put the coffee machine on but really to have a final chat with Christine ....   He came racing back to the bedroom to show me Christine ... she'd repaired herself overnight and was working better than ever ..... SPOOKY!   I make sure I'm not alone in the room with her now :o)


Anyway,

Here are the pictures that have been selected for hanging at the UKCPS exhibition at Westminster in September.  I'm still in shock to be honest as I wasn't sure any of them would be good enough to pass muster with the judges as they are practice pieces done pretty quickly (but I'm not going to argue).  I have to sort out frames now ..

I photographed this giraffe at the Zoo on Fuerteventura earlier this year.  He was very friendly and fascinated by his human visitors.  This is drawn on drafting film using a white backing sheet.   Originally I planned to draw in the background of palm trees as per the ref photo, but time was short and David thought it was more striking as a 'stand-alone' head study.  This was finished in a couple of afternoons as working on drafting film means fewer layers can be laid down so the process is much faster.    Suits me, less work involved !    He gave it the title 'disdain'.  

This cheetah was drawn as practice on drafting film a few months ago - using a black backing sheet.    David doesn't like this picture - always a good sign I've learned in the past :o)   Titled:  The Watcher

 

This is coloured pencil on Fabriano 5 watercolour paper and I've called it 'Please'