making pictures

I'm starting to crank up the illustrating and publishing behemoth that is Gert Macky (population: 1), and actually had a nice little commission last week. It's for Judi Sutherland's new poetry site, The Stare's Nest, which is open to submissions of poems in many styles, with a general theme of political issues, social justice, equality and diversity. 

At the moment I'm relying on natural light to paint by, so it's helpful if I don't moor in the shade of trees, which, as it happens, was exactly where I was at the time; so I did a fair bit of painting up on the foredeck, which was quite congenial in the hot weather.

To scan a painting, I need to set up the little Honda 240V generator on the afterdeck, then crank up the desktop computer and scanner. I'm hoping the generator is producing clean enough power to not damage the computer, but it has had a couple of cranky fits, so fingers crossed...

Then when I've done with processing the image, I put it on a memory stick and send it off from my MacBook, which is tethered to my iPhone - both these are new to me, and vital connections to the greater world. I get 2GB of tethering per month with my phone plan, but I can also get wifi at libraries, thanks to an enlightened council.

Slowly getting things sorted!