Thursday 27th August - channelling my inner Pollyanna

 doesn't always work...

Yes, it is possible to make a pot of tea and eat a mini-magnum in a state of suppressed fury and frustration...

My huppers, as I have started calling the hup! installation team, didn't turn up until 11am... they are usually here at 8 so I rang the boss-in-the-office after 9am. This is the second time they have had to call at another site to receive a delivery before they start here. They are going to be late again tomorrow; yesterday they just forgot to tell me... it happens...

But since this phase began on 3rd August, they will have lost about three half days to taking deliveries for other jobs, and four days for other reasons. That's a week in my reckoning, and it is causing issues for the next phase, when the original builders return to do everything else. It's not my hupper's fault, but I'm thinking I might have to say something to the m-i-t-o. I do know he's under pressure to squeeze all the upcoming jobs into his schedule, but I'm now passively-aggressively drinking tea, if such a thing is possible! 

And    B r e a t h e... normal state of cheerfulness will resume as soon as I gave drunk a cup of tea..,

Helped by one of the books I am reading; 'Cheerfulness Breaks In' by Angela Thirkell, set in I suppose 1940, and recommended by several people,  most recently wrinklymartha.

I'm reading a moderately rather very weird book by Wisconsin university professor called Lynda Barry. It is the syllabus she devised for her course on drawing and cartooning.

I'm not a fan of her cartoons, but I'm intruiged by her syllabus for teaching this university course, for undergraduates with any or no drawing skills and experience.

Here's a page;

I so, so wish I'd had the courage to present my teaching plans as stickmen and boxes in a graphic style, instead of spending HOURS AND HOURS typing into a proforma on the laptop, fussing around with font sizes and formatting to make it fit. 

One lesson, early on, is a great leveller for experienced and newbie artists alike; expressively, child-like figures. I just had to try this for myself;

I am now desperate to try the next assignment at the bottom of the page... take some index cards to a suitable venue and do 'quick draw Mcgraw' life sketching. She says use blue colouring pencil and ink over when you get home.

...

Finally, today's 10 minute journal. (Ignore the stuff at the top, that's about something else on the previous page.)

Thank you, elizabethd, for the suggestion of the hebe.