Bryan Islip's Blog, page 62
December 7, 2009
Good times here and now
The Poolewe market on Saturday turned out well for Pictures and Poems. Lots of calendars and cards sold, and a few prints, and a good number of signed pre-publication review copies of Going with Gabriel . Also some 'second edition' More Deaths Than One. All in all a satisfactory end of term for us.
Over and above the commercial though, it was good to meet so many of our local friends at this market. Same as last week's Ledgowan Hotel event in fact, but of course with a much greater fall of foo...
Over and above the commercial though, it was good to meet so many of our local friends at this market. Same as last week's Ledgowan Hotel event in fact, but of course with a much greater fall of foo...
December 5, 2009
Markets and divers
And so to Poolewe, there to set up our Pictures and Poems stand for the last time in 2009. I'm to sign pre-publication review copies of my Going with Gabriel on the stand.
As I write it's still black as black outside and there's a strange pitter patter on the window panes but it doesn't seem to be too cold. Look on the bright side, Bryan. Hordes of eager market goers will descend on Poolewe Village Hall from every direction except west (they'd need boats for that). They'll all be imbued with ...
As I write it's still black as black outside and there's a strange pitter patter on the window panes but it doesn't seem to be too cold. Look on the bright side, Bryan. Hordes of eager market goers will descend on Poolewe Village Hall from every direction except west (they'd need boats for that). They'll all be imbued with ...
December 3, 2009
Nuts and CDs
Remember that squirrel on Springwatch? The one who couldn't find the nut he'd buried, leaving it to take root and grow into a mighty oak?
Today is a CERTAIN PERSON'S birthday. Having received repeated hints, weeks and weeks ago I bought a Paolo Nutini CD from Amazon and tucked it away in readiness for today. Guess what - I cannot find where the merry hell I hid it! PANIC. Nothing underneath all the socks, ditto shirts, ditto etcetera etcetera. I even remembered the Edgar Allan Poe story I rea...
Today is a CERTAIN PERSON'S birthday. Having received repeated hints, weeks and weeks ago I bought a Paolo Nutini CD from Amazon and tucked it away in readiness for today. Guess what - I cannot find where the merry hell I hid it! PANIC. Nothing underneath all the socks, ditto shirts, ditto etcetera etcetera. I even remembered the Edgar Allan Poe story I rea...
December 2, 2009
Thinking of printing
Sometimes it helps to think aloud...
This is our third year of designing, making and selling our Wester-Ross Pictures and Poems calendars. If you don't know about them, they incorporate twelve of my local land/seascapes painted in pastels each with a simple verse linking in with my thoughts on the subject. Of course the one we've been marketing locally this year is for 2010 but since September I've been working on the calendar for 2011.
To make commercial sense the finished product has to be in...
This is our third year of designing, making and selling our Wester-Ross Pictures and Poems calendars. If you don't know about them, they incorporate twelve of my local land/seascapes painted in pastels each with a simple verse linking in with my thoughts on the subject. Of course the one we've been marketing locally this year is for 2010 but since September I've been working on the calendar for 2011.
To make commercial sense the finished product has to be in...
November 30, 2009
Looking Backward
A recent Times editorial, wondering whether we are already into a change of human society rather than some kind of a deep financial recession made reference to a novel published in 1897. I bought it on Amazon and am now half way through Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. This is one of the most intriguing reads I've come across.
Basically the narrator falls into a mesmeric sleep in a secure place, waking up 103 years later - in fact in the year 2000. So here is Bellamy's sense of how life i...
Basically the narrator falls into a mesmeric sleep in a secure place, waking up 103 years later - in fact in the year 2000. So here is Bellamy's sense of how life i...
November 29, 2009
Gairloch & District Times - Going with Gabriel
The reviews of Going with Gabriel are beginning to come in. Verbal as well as written and from individuals as well as from media. I'm pleased, not say relieved to report that thus far all have been positive and none have professed any of the great surprise or revulsion I had half expected. For as Dorothy Malone, editor of the Gairloch and District Times says (review below to be published in the next edition) "Bryan is dealing with a controversial subject which makes us question our own standp...
November 28, 2009
Last but one...
Well, our Ledgowan Hotel 'Pictures and Poems' Market is now behind us. This is a shot of our stall, strategically placed in the hotel's great hall and obscuring the massive fire[lace and the chesterfield settee on which I spent some time signing Going with Gabriel and More Deaths Than One. Note that the stall holder, Delia, is invisible behind her screens! However the old fellows whose magnificent heads adorn the walls are less camera-shy.
This market was as well organised as are all by Jackie...
Well, our Ledgowan Hotel 'Pictures and Poems' Market is n...
Well, our Ledgowan Hotel 'Pictures and Poems' Market is now behind us. This is a shot of our stall, strategically placed in the hotel's great hall and obscuring the massive fire[lace and the chesterfield settee on which I spent some time signing Going with Gabriel and More Deaths Than One. Note that the stall holder, Delia, is invisible behind her screens! However the old fellows whose magnificent heads adorn the walls are less camera-shy.
This market was as well organised as are all by Jackie...
November 27, 2009
Markets and books
Today at the Ledgowan Hotel, Achnasheen, is the penultimate market of our 2009 season. The Poolewe Christmas market on Saturday next is the final one. I'll try to remember to take some photos today and post one or two here tomorrow.
Anyway, it's a good time to think about our markets this year. Without doing all the figures our general impression is that there have been a lot more visitors but with each visitor spending on average a lot less money. All in all we're probably a little ahead of 2...
Anyway, it's a good time to think about our markets this year. Without doing all the figures our general impression is that there have been a lot more visitors but with each visitor spending on average a lot less money. All in all we're probably a little ahead of 2...
November 26, 2009
Longa Island in the Gairloch
This pastel hangs in our living room. I 'painted' it in the early '90's. It remains as fresh and unchanged as the day in was born in Mrs Mackenzie's South Erradale holiday cottage. It's my only attempt, to date, at a depiction of the kind of quiet light rain / sun-struggling mist that's so common in the early Autum up here. I was looking over Gairloch towards Longa Island and the north shore. Behind the island are the dunes of Big Sand camping ground where in 1974 we put up our tent, having f...
