Art Photography Stands Complete, Ugly Ducklings Become Swans

I built a flatbed guide to align the towers yesterday, and set a 3mm piece of MDF in the centre to accommodate the uneven wood bottom, to make the L-plates the main support.

The towers were laid along the line and the L-plates glued to their sides in exactly the right place. Once the glue had set, after 10-mins, these were drilled and screwed firmly. Today, testing. The existing rivnuts on the bases generally fit, some better than others, but enough that I didn't have to make adjustments, all good. The towers are now very accurate in height and verticality. For towers 1175mm tall, they're so close that any tiny movements due to stepping nearby or touching them is bigger than the difference between them. Without a new room with a flat concrete floor, this is as good as I can get.

Then, setting up and testing the camera alignment. Cheeseplates were again fitted, first using one loose screw as a pivot, the camera set between them on the steel rods. The screw was gradually tightened as the alignment got better, then the tilt checked with a spirit level, and the screw moved to tilt the plate just fractionally. Eventually things were set correctly. The final calibration was on the main camera shoe, the step I'd neglected yesterday. After this, all was set. The cheeseplates were fixed down with hot-melt glue, and when it was set, screwed to lock them in the exact place. A final test of the resolution and alignment:

This gives a resolution of 331.845dpi, to the 1.25mm thick ruler. The resolution will be higher for thicker objects (paintings on 3mm or 6mm board, or 10 to 20mm deep for canvas). This is good. Not too high, as the image files would be too large. I'd aimed for 300dpi plus 10%.

The project has cost me £94.12 in new buys, £146.74 if I include the Smallrig parts (some I had previously bought), and more still if I include the many rivnuts and the few bolts needed. This is double what I'd anticipated, and it's taken 4.5 days, longer than hoped, but this should speed up and simplify my art photography, particularly for larger works. One reason I'd avoided painting larger is that it was hellishly difficult and stressful to photograph them. I'm amazed that the old flimsy tripods ever managed to take an accurate multi-part photo of my paintings. Perhaps they rarely did, it's just that such inaccuracy is tolerable for most people.

So, this improved rig is a necessary step forwards for my art. One of my tenets is that any short-term effort to improve things by 1% is worth it. Spending £100 or £500 to improve your art by 1% is worth it. Over time those 1% values will add up, pushing you beyond those artists who didn't invest in those 1% improvements. The tortoise betters the hare, ugly ducklings become swans drip by tiny drip.

Stands v2 and v3

A lot of engineering is doing things in the right order, but sometimes you don't know the right order until it's too late. Yesterday I took off the cheeseplates with the aim of resetting them in the correct place. A first levelling test this morning revealed than one tower was leaning 14mm to its right, this explains the 14mm skew I experienced when first testing.

I decided to ignore this, and simply shift it 14mm left when using it. The flatness and angle of the top will be set later, so the lean should not matter beyond this. I set it up, but the skew remained. Either the orientation was flat with a sideways drift as I slid forwards, or the orientation was at an angle with no drift. The drift was small, about 30mm, but annoying, there should be none! I fixed it in place, knowing that it's not a serious problem, though a painting that might just fit may slide out of the correct view.

Then I thought it might be the camera, not my stands, and sure enough the so-called 90-degree steel L-plate on the camera was not at 90-degrees. There are adjustment screws on the base and one was loose; the camera was twisted anti-clockwise, which explained everything. If I'd realised this before attaching the cheeseplates I could have fixed it and would have left things.

But the 14mm lean AND this skew problem were too annoying to ignore, and I knew I'd end up starting again from scratch as I've done with countless projects, countless paintings. If it's not right, I must fix or start again. I'm not a perfectionist but I have a low tolerance for imperfections. So, I began to effectively make stand v3.

This afternoon I scraped off the hot-melt glue from the cheeseplates and removed the L-plates from the towers. These were really strongly welded on by the superglue, unexpectedly so. The L-plates are caked in glue and wood fragments, I'd have to dunk them in a lot of paint remover to clean them. At £6 each, it's easier to buy more, so I'll do that. The towers are scarred but it's superficial not structural. I'll invert the towers, use the top as the bottom to restart the setting process.

One step is to make a guide, from 18mm MDF, with a 1M guide line and 90-degree flat base in the right place, to place and set the towers exactly vertically. This is now complete.

This two-day job will take a week, but this is part of an iterative design process. Build, expect errors and lessons, rebuild, etc.

Photography Stands Part 2

A busy couple of days working on the photography stands. My solution to fixing the cheeseplates to the towers was to use hot melt glue. This was a tad nightmarish, as hot melt glue tends to set instantly when touching the cold metal, but after 2 attempts on Tower A, and 3 on Tower B, scraping off in between, the two were fitted closely enough, certainly under 1mm height difference. Once initially stuck, I filled the little oval lakes with glue, then screwed them flat.

After that, fixing the L-brackets to the footplates, which was a matter of lining up the towers, which stood well by themselves. Everything was accurate, so I glued the L-plates to the sides with superglue first, and 10-mins later laid them down, drilled and screwed, so these were exactly in the correct place.

Here's the tower top, with 15mm tube holders.

I didn't consider at first that the footplates will need to be removable. There's no way I could store these huge things when assembled, and they're rarely needed, so a next step was drilling the footplates (by hand) and fitting M4 rivnuts so that I can bolt and un-bolt the towers to the bases. After drilling 4 per side, only about 2 each side were accurate enough - these have be be very accurate, much more than 1mm. 2 out of 4 is fine, but in retrospect I could have done this better. I managed to fix one fairly easily, by removing it, drilling the hole bigger, inserting the rivnut edged with thick superglue, then assembling the top. The glue takes a few mins to set, allowing me to bolt it together and allow it to set in the exact correct place.

Today, testing. It's already a lot easier than the tripods, but they are not quite perfectly lined up, which in retrospect should have been expected. Lining these up to be straight over the lengths of a metre-or-so would be nigh on impossible by hand. The solution is to permit calibration. This pair are always used in tandem. It seems that a twist of 14mm on the 600mm width will set them just about right (to about -/+1mm on the 840mm length). It doesn't actually matter that much anyway, the skew would mean a similar skew on the photographed paintings, but still, it would be nice to get things as good as I can manage.

My plan is to fit another accurately glued rivnut, M6 this time, on the front right edge of the footplate. This will fit a rounded-headed bolt to be screwed in or out to calibrate perfectly. Once done, it will probably never need touching.

Art Photography Stands Begin

Bought some wood today to make new stands for the rails for my art photography. I have a conundrum. I had 6 lengths cut, 95mm wide by 1147mm long, from 18mm deep MDF. These 6 pieces had to be cut from two pieces of MDF, so the 1147 length was about 1mm out for two of the lengths (numbers 2 and 5 in the picture; I chose these as the central plank). Each width isn't perfect but this is less important. The length needs to be as accurate as possible. I've glued them together to make 2 bunches of 3. Here is the end:

This, ideally, should be completely flat. I need to work out the best way to do this. If I had a band saw or table circular saw (or table anything) this would be easy, or much easier, but I haven't. I could use a router, but 72x95mm is a big edge, I have no router bits 72 or 95mm long (the depth in the view above is 95mm). I wondered about fitting a cutting drill to the router. I could sand it flat, but would ideally need a right-angle sanding table. My drum sander is best at removing wood but is hand-held, like all of my sanders. Alternatively, I could saw it by hand somehow. The jigsaw should be deep enough. A hand cut would probably be more accurate than the current edge, but not perfect, and it might be less accurate. The 1mm tolerance there now might be enough.

Alternatively I could cut it shorter and glue a flat piece accurately on top, using a gap filling plaster-type glue. I'd need to experiment again with glues. I've had some good results from wood glue and chalk to make a thick glue; but I'd have to do this separately for each of the two stands (the two groups of three) so that itself might make the results less accurate than they are now; it's most important that they are the same, the exact height isn't so important.

Life and Dreams, Router Table Day 3

One brilliant thing about the film Midnight Cowboy is how it shows one truth; that we spend much of our lives aiming for a dream, in Rizzo's case a warm place of comfort and peace by the sea, but how that, in reality, we end up dying before this dream becomes a reality. In my case my dream is a house of my own, a place to live and to work. A house with an art studio, a workshop to create my inventions, devices, picture frames and sculptures, a music room, a garden to enjoy with Deborah and our dream cats. It can seem at times that this dream is getting closer, even just at our fingertips reach, but a certain critical moments it vanishes in a puff of reality.

Felix Mendelssohn spent his life trying to please his disapproving father, and died failing to do so. Kafka wrote about 'the eternal torments of dying', a description of the general job of living. The tragedy of life is that all things are dying, everything in the universe. The cruelty of entropy to those aware of the transience of data integrity. Dying is data loss; loss, loss. Losing grip of what once was. Life melts into mist like one's dreams.

It's now shortly after 3pm and I've just completed the bulk of the work on the router table. The cradle and it's holder drilled, and rivnuts fitted. The main guide bolts fitted, the table tested, then a 36mm hole drilled in a pile of wood for the vacuum cleaner holder. This is the last remaining step before the initial plans are complete. I may need to add some wheels to hold the wood down, or make other modifications.

Anniversary, Router Table Continues

Yesterday marked 10 years since I first met and interviewed Deborah on Artslab. We spent the day together to commemorate the day. I managed to enter a new exhibition in Cotebrook near Tarporley.

Today, charging into a list of jobs. Entered the Morecambe Poetry Anthology competition, but most of the day was spent working on the router table. First, marking verticals, and some thoughts about a hoover attachment. For this I decided to cut a 100x21mm slot in the lower wood, and I'll make a box (which will fit the hoover pipe) which will slot into this.

Then, drilling the ends, and recesses for fixed nut ends. Then, glueing the rollers. These need to be precisely placed, so are best glued then drilled and screwed. The 21mm ends were then glued to the base, and the right and lower bars glued to the router cradle. I might need to design some sort of firmer clamp for this to hold the router solidly.

I've glued the wood with the hoover attachment slot partly cut so that it can be placed accurately. Once set I'll make the final cut.

Router Table Plans

I mused at the possibility of a 'day off' for a few minutes last night, but no, this can wait until old age and infirmity! I started the day with my regular exercises. For more than a year I'd performed a sit-up for each year of my age every other day or so. Yet, today, I hardly need have.

I started the final planning work on a router table. It will be a fixed slab of wood with two channels with rollers facing inwards to guide a length of wood down. These sit 35mm (later amended to 36mm) below the baseplate of a router fixed into a cradle. This cradle will be removable, so that future tools can be used. In mid-morning, the little wheels arrived in the post, so only the wood remained, so I dashed a mile to B&Q and picked this up; then sawed the main parts, including precision cutting an oval for the router base-plate.

There are a few key part. The first is the cradle. For this I've cut a hole in 6mm MDF to match the router base plate. This will hold it firm, and will have taller edges glued to it to give a snug fit. The router will sit on a 10mm wide and 15mm deep shelf to float in the right place, 300mm down the 400mm long track.

The second consideration is the mechanism to move these tracks in and out, the adjustment for exact placement and width of the wood to tool. I'll use long M6 bolts. I couldn't decide the best option. Screwing them to fit may be easier, but there's always some looseness in that, so the blots will slide instead and use two nuts, one each side to exactly clamp it into place. There are 4 bolts for the 2 tracks, so I expect setting up will take some time, but many jigs and tables like this take time to set up.

The wood parts are cut:
1x 12mm MDF base, 280x500m.
2x 15x15mm pine track lengths, 400mm.
2x 36x21mm pine lengths, 400mm.
2x 70x15mm pine lengths for the router shelf, 230mm (this doesn't extend the full 400mm length of the track, only needs to be long enough to hold the router (or future tool) cradle. 230mm is generous, only 146mm is actually used here.
1x 6mm MDF plate for the router cradle, 252x146mm, with hole cut to exact fit the router base plate.
2x 15x15mm pine lengths for the cradle top/bottom edges, 210mm.
2x 46x15mm pine lengths for the cradle sides. These are wider than 15mm to fit the bolts which will make this cradle removable (you can glimpse the cradle so far in the top of the third photo).

Plus: 10x draw casters/rollers.
4x long M6 bolts.
And several nuts, rivnuts, and screws. Much will be glued to an exact place first, then drilled and screwed for extra strength.

I may need a vertical roller or two to gently press the wood down, but this may be overkill. There's room in the design for some.

Empty House Underpainting Complete, H Beam Piper

Completed the underpainting to the Empty House painting, then went to grab a few art supplies from Alexander Paper Supplies. Developed an idea about H Beam Piper, which I may enter the Three Counties Open with (portraits are always good for competitions), but I'd need to rush, there is only 5 or 6 weeks until the end of the deadline. With oils, drying time between layers is a big factor. I want to paint it on a smooth panel, inspired by medieval and Renaissance (Northern and Italian) portraits; plus it needs text from one of his books, so I've ordered the cheapest I could find on eBay (the more tatty the better, I want it to look and be old). It was Gunpowder God - perfect for this idea. It will include gold leaf too.

I've also ordered more pieces for the router jig, will build this soon.

Tomorrow, drawing out this portrait idea. On we charge.

Video Filing, Castors, Owl Restoration, Billy Squier

Started the day by making updating the new videos on the Cornutopia Software YouTube channel, then filing the newly converted videos.

Then, fitted castors to my father's chair. It needed a height extension, and we had some spare castors with an M8 thread, so I ordered some M8 rivnuts, and these arrived today. I needed an 11mm drill bit for these; 11mm! This is such an unusual size, most drill bits over 6 go up in twos. I used a 10mm drill an shifted the bit around to enlarge the hole, this worked well. Then glued the rivnuts into place with viscous super-glue (cyanoacrylate). Then screwed in the castors.

After this, worked on the repair and restoration of the owl oil painting started in November. This required thick paint, more like a paste. Oil paint will not gap-fill easily, so I added chalk, an ancient solution. The results were good, this restoration is complete. While working I listened to a new album acquisition, Billy Squier's Don't Say No. I thought I might like it because it's a 1981 album (my favourite year), was produced by Reinhold Mack, and was a hit in America at the time. Billy Squier is pretty much unknown in the UK, but sure enough, I like the album, it's so like the rockier Queen of the era that if Freddie Mercury sang these, people would assume it's an unknown Queen (or at least Brian May) album. There are however some Americanisms in the riffs, bluesy/country sounds, such as the riff in 'Too Daze Gone' which wouldn't be in a British album. It's a very good album, will definitely be an inspiration and remain part of my collection.

In the afternoon, a dash to shops to buy some essentials and important luxuries.

It's time to consider new creations. I must work on the Strawberry painting and on audiobooks. Things feel somewhat cluttered and untidy, but I've made progress here. With each new thing, something old must be cast out too. Sometimes growth is cutting back.

Onwards we charge!

CD Shelves II Fitted

A sleepless night. Finally drifted off past 7am. One night thought was a plan for 2400mm track for the router to enable me to rout picture framing from plain wood. Not difficult, but I don't have an immediate need for new picture framing, and the storage space and cost of these long twin tracks make them undesirable at the moment.

Woke at 10 and dived into CD Shelves II work. Glued the central support, then after an hour screwed it into place, did a final bit of spray paint touching up, and fitted the shelf to the wall in the afternoon.

The time since has been spent organising my old CDs. I so hate cardboard CD sleeves! These, to me, are an excuse to save money; they can scratch the CDs, and look ugly as well as being impractical. Alas, many CDs ship like this now. I also had CDs with partial (or no) artwork from my CD book, where I've long thrown away the art and retained only the disc, so to solve all of these problems I've designed new templates for the cover and rear tray, and have today printed lots of new track lists, and created new covers. Now, for the first time in years, my copy of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane have jewel cases. The same goes for Ha!Ha!Ha!, and many other discs.

Today I've printed and cut 22 such cases, and, apart from a few classical sets over which I must muse, my CD collection is now all on the wall in one place.

I listen to music almost exclusively on CD, I don't stream, so these shelves are part of my cultural engagement, but also my inspiration and reference library. The disorder of the last month has disrupted me for too long but now I can ignore such things and get back to art. At times I despair at the paralysis of my painting, but I remind myself that this is due primarily because I charged into music in 2020 and have made huge strides there. My plans are huge, and on track.

Onwards we stride through the viscous wind. Tomorrow, a 'Good Vibrations' event.

Prometheus v3.79, Shelves, New Tails Overture

Another full day. Started with a fix and update to Prometheus. It's possible to delay output for a specific time (render hold) then add that time to the end. This is used for look-ahead engines, specifically the Cathedral Limiter, which has an internal delay. I realised that stats were calculated for the whole render including the first delayed bit. A tiny thing, barely a bug, but it's best that the actual output is that which is analysed, so I made the changes for this. Along the way I fixed a few potential division-by-zero errors which was a far more valuable change and something I'd not noticed.

Then, the next step of CD Shelves 2. I unclamped the base, then drilled and screwed it. Then, glued and clamped the top. Then, for the Box Shelves, de-clamped and sanded the new central 'leg' and spray painted that. Spray paint is so much better than my water-based black. Then, fitted this, straightening these shelves at last.

Then wall drilling to fit a new bracket for new CD Shelves above. One of the holes was at a brick edge and impossible to drill correctly, so I filled this and inserted a short (25 or 30mm) screw into the filler, primarily for cosmetic reasons, but it might have some tiny structural benefit.

The bracket was not totally level, which can't be helped; wall drilling is never exact. Only a few fractions off, 1cm at 500mm, so I made a wooden wedge to correct it by sanding a 3mm board; then attached felt which will also mould to the weight and self-level to some extent.

So, all is on track. When the top is dry I'll test it to fit. Then I should be able to fit all shelves in one go, then fit to the wall.

Two other little jobs; clamping and internal staining yesterday's picture frame (the inside edge needed staining), and changing the Christmas Tails overture, making Deb's contribution louder, and adding Scrabble's purr to the end.

Obsessively fun though the shelf project is, I've spent too much time and money on this. I must finish The Modern Game, I expect this will take the rest of the month. My income is pitiful, my beloved Deborah is not well at the moment, and much can feel bleak, yet my skills are as good as ever. I have plans, even if my outlook is stubbornly long term when I could really do with a short term boost. What can we do but our best each day? This I do.

Barring extraordinary feedback from the artists, Christmas Tails is complete. The shelves will be finished very soon, and The Modern Game too. All good.

Onwards we fly.

Shelf Work, New Frame, TMG4 Mixing

A day of technical challenges.

First I clamped and glued the base and sides to the new shelves. The base was placed flat, with a spacer, then the loose top, this made a sandwich wide enough for the band clamp. The sides (after first drilling and countersinking pilot holes for future screws) were then placed vertically and band clamped to the base. The advantage of vertical assembly like this is that the floor is very flat, but the sides needed temporarily holding up before the clamp was tightened. When tight, everything was laid flat and the angles checked, with slight adjustments made to the tops of the verticals to make them exact right angles as it all dried. This may be overkill for mere shelves, but it will be as accurate as any other thing in the house.

Only this joint is glued, the rest will be done, joint by joint, in contrast to the first version of the shelves when everything was glued and clamped at once.

Then, removing the old shelves from the wall. On the floor they didn't sag, so the wood was not bent, but heavy under its own weight alone. My error was using wood which was too thin for the length of shelf; I made my priority a low weight, not strength. For the box shelves below, I've decided on the simplest solution of a leg to the floor. These shelves appear to be bent, rather than merely sagging, so I've applied a wedge to gradually bend back up to flat. I still consider these a first version to be replaced one day.

Then, work on a picture frame which must surround a stretched canvas. A rare job, I don't often use stretched canvas, and have hardly ever made a flush frame like this. The frame is cut, about 1 or 2mm larger than the canvas. I'll pin then staple it in place I think.

In the evening, more mixing on the new Modern Game. These songs were not written with my voice in mind and from the outset this has complicated everything. Still, this iteration will certainly sound better than any of the others.

Prometheus v3.78, CD Shelves v2.00

Started the day with more updates to Prometheus. Fixed the peaking filter, which didn't work when Wet was less than 1, and created a new Peaking Filter II, with separate post-amp. Then I updated my website, adding the Electric Sprout albums there, and putting the new album on the front page.

Back to programming. I thought of making the Cathedral Limiter a track as well as a song engine, which would make Prometheus useful for CD mastering (yet with hi-res audio); but it has a problem in that silence of one second in a track causes it to shut off until a note is played, and the look-ahead delay would create that silence. I can disable or extend it, but remembering to do that is a tad awkward. It took me hours to work out that the failure of this effect was due to this! The program also crashed once, which is worrying. It's not crashed in years. Crashes when experimenting with half-compiled plugins may be due to overlooked mistakes in that code. All I was using at the time was a Saw Wave, Peaking Filter, Cathedral Limiter.

At 13:30 I charged into woodwork on this, the last dry day forecast for weeks. With my mum's help I routed the joints and slots for CD Shelves Iteration 2. The Bosch bit is exactly 12mm, a fraction too small to create slots for 12mm MDF, so I needed to rout each joint twice, the second by about 0.2mm wider. This was enough. Then, masking, and at 15:10, spray painting. Even at 5 degrees, the paint dried quickly, perhaps because I kept the paint can inside at a cosy 18 degrees. By 16:20, the shelves were painted. A record time. Spray paint is much faster than my water-based stain.

It's Friday and I've not done a thing on The Modern Game this week. I may charge to finish the shelves first. My mood is low to despairing, but what can we do but ignore such animals and work at our best. Fate plays its hand and we must accept our cards. All we can do each day is try our best, and try to learn as we go.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock.

Woodwork Postponed, Painting Repair and Restoration

I'd hoped to rout new shelves, but it was too cold and I feared the dampness of my visible breath. Tested the new 12mm bit. The channel was too small for 12mm MDF, I wondered if the cold made the channel smaller, but perhaps not enough to make a difference. I'll aim to do this tomorrow afternoon, a still cold 5 degrees due, but better than a week of rain also forecast.

Then, work on painting restoration. After the first patch, a second yesterday to level it, and today a first application of paint.

This evening, an update to Prometheus to return the amount of pre-start silence at the start of a song; then a migraine on the left side of my head which continues agonisingly. I want to sit in the dark.

Fame at Last

Begun with singing some quick vocal for 'The Trees'. I had only about 20 minutes spare, so made the most of the time.

Then, a full day of admin on Christmas Tails and the new single, Will You Be My Snowflake? Time was when I'd finish an album and move on, now the finishing stage is full of work, which at times seems never ending. I filed Christmas Tails and sent out an email to all of the artists with a vital update. I noticed that today's Crewe & Nantwich Chronicle has a huge story about the album, so I thought this was the best time to list the album.

So, I did this, and added all tracks with lyrics, credits, ISRC and ISWC codes, and other details. This will be invisible to purchasers for now, apart from the first overture track, but it's still vital. Then, sending a preview to all artists.

Then, work on the Will You Be My Snowflake? single. Transcribed the sheet music for the two other tracks, this took a few hours. 'Heaven's Day' had to be entered manually. After that, registration of the music in various places. Musicbrainz should now (or should eventually...) list all of the tracks and artists for both albums. This meant creating the first official listings for many of the contributors, such as The Forrest Dick Band (Mick Dick and Mortimer C. Forrest, both of which are aliases).

I also had time to test the new router bits. They seemed to fit but I didn't give them a spin. I now have an urgent need for new shelves. The old ones are sagging millimetre by millimetre each day. Last night another DVD fell over due to shelf droop. We live and learn. I've removed all of the contents now. I've decided to get 5th wall bracket to ne fitted below and in the centre to reinforce everything. There is something inherently unstable with holding a rack or cabinet by the sides rather than underneath. I'll do both for iteration 2.

This evening I see that the miniature that David Lawton has painted of me is currently on exhibition in The Royal Miniature Society exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London, not far from Tate Modern. I feel famous today. Photo by Tom Mulliner.

Shelves Foiled, Mostly Modern Game Work

Awake for hours, ready to charge with great energy into routing my new shelves, on this, the warmest (well, mildest, at 11 degrees) and driest day for a few weeks. I woke early, assembled the wood, the hoover, rulers, and everything... but hit s snag. I'd not used the 12mm router bit, and the two that my father had used imperial shaft sizes - how I hate inches! The router comes with a few collets, but none would fit either of these, which is even more stupefying as almost all router bits come in a limited range of sizes. I sighed and was resigned to buying a new bit with the correct 8mm shaft. B & Q didn't have any (the very limited ones on offer, again stupefying, were also in inches. If I were prime minister I'd tax every device that features inches, pounds, pints, miles; it would raise money and help engineering). I ordered a set online, so must wait days, and now, my shelves which could have been completed today will take weeks. I should have tested the 12mm bit far earlier.

After that, a productive day of music. First, updating the cover artwork, and creating the 14 page iTunes Digital Booklet.

Here's the final cover (ta da!):

Then mixing the album again. In the night I thought it would be a good idea to release my Christmas song, and it's fellow two songs, as a single or EP now, rather than wait a year, so I've manically worked on mastering this. A single today has 3 tracks at most, but an EP 4 to 6, so I've toyed with making a new one. I looked at some existing songs and found a sequence inspired by Matt Gray's theme to Dominator on the Commodore 64. I quickly wrote some words on what this time of year is like; currently entitled 'Burn Me Cold':

Burn Me Cold

Dark dark November
Frigid in my bones
Everybody needin'
Money running low
It's a black white season
Don't I know

Windows are a leakin'
Saving up the mould
Give me some salvation
Dear dear Lord
And the screens that I stare at
Burn me cold

Later on, some initial mixing and track ordering for Christmas Tails. Work on that will start tomorrow.

Onwards!

Singeth Sheet Music, CD Shelves II Begin

A slower day today which included a nice visit from a friend.

Several hours were spent working on the Fall in Green sheet music for our Christmas Tails entry, 'Singeth To The Body Winter'. It's a simple tune and took far longer than expected. It is in essence a string quartet, so it is scored as such. There's a clarinet in there, I may add that later.

Then, sawed some wood for 'CD Shelves II'; a second, hopefully improved, version of the first rack, which are too weak. These will use 12mm MDF throughout, have a vertical spine which runs from top to bottom, be spray painted before assembly, and have each joint fixed and glued once at a time over several days rather than all at once, with the aim of greater angle accuracy and less internal stress. The next step is the 12mm routing. I did the sawing today outside as today looks like the only dry day within the next two weeks.

Nothing else done, yet my to-do list is bigger than ever.

Frodsham, CD Shelves, Winter Party Poster, Au Revoir Distrokid

Frenetic days. A trip to Frodsham yesterday to deliver my three paintings to Castle Park Arts Centre, then back home and a quick type up of Wednesday's event to form some sort of press release.

Then, putting up my CD shelves, which was exhausting. Drilling the wall and fitting the rawl plugs wasn't not too difficult, but the screws did not want to go in, they entered half way and spun like crazy, until forced. I half think that the speed of the screw was causing the plug to melt or twist somehow. After this, a trip to Deb's for some more tweaks, mostly aesthetic to the alcove shelves.

Today I moved by CD collection from one set of drawers to the new shelves. I now have the sort of CD shelves I could only have dreamed of in the 90s, and perhaps even then secretly wanted.

I love jewel cases, and often throw away CDs which ship in those horrid cardboard cases. My old theory was to amass 100 CDs, and cast away any that were worse than those 100, thus evolving the best 100 CDs evet; but I found myself wanting more than 100, so I kept some. These were mostly filed, disc only with minimum artwork, in one of those books where the plain discs can be slotted in. That book now presents a problem, I want to remove those discs and put the discs back into CD jewel cases.

This will take days. I want to make and print my own artwork for each disc, I at least need to see the spine. I already feel overwhelmed at the work.

I had news that my talk at Macclesfield College due this week, in planning since July, has been magically cancelled yet again. This date has already been set three times. I can't afford to waste more time on this.

The album cover is finalised, the big public reveal set for Wednesday. Another job done today was the design of the poster for the Crewe Library Winter Party, and the final cancellation of my remaining Distrokid releases. I must, therefore, get working on the fourth recording of The Modern Game this month. My priority though, is finishing the music for the Fall in Green Christmas Tails track. This is becoming urgent.

Onwards I dart.

Shelves, Another Violet Night Released

Slept for nearly 12 hours and awoke at 10:30. First attended to a few changes and some feedback from the album cover design. I've added Andrew's cat 'Scrabble' to it, nice to have Andrew included on the cover, even if by proxy!

Most of the day was spent putting up my shelves, the lower set. First, these were put against the wall in the right place, then the brackets marked and attached. The screws were a tiny bit too long, 1mm or so, so very slightly caused some barbs inside. Then, the shelves were held to the wall. They were slightly trapezoid; perhaps inevitable because of the way they were assembled. I corrected this then marked the wall holes. These were drilled twice, with a 3mm then 7mm bit. This was the easiest wall drilling I've ever done, all due to these new bits!

The rawlplugs were fitted but some of the 50mm screws got stuck and kept spinning. I removed them with difficulty, then used the thinner 3.5mm diameter screws rather than 4.5mm. Those worked, though I'd prefer the strength of the 4.5mm. It may be that the rawlplugs simple expanded too much at the bottom end. I keep feeling the desire to remove the thinner screws and replace, but 12 50mm screws should hold the shelves. The length is perhaps more important than the width, screws much more commonly fall out than snap.

I marked the top shelf, and had the idea of using M4 washers to stop the bracket screws from being too long, this worked brilliantly.

Then, at 5pm, Deborah reminded me that it was the release day of Another Violet Night! I did some basic release duties on Bandcamp, made a few social media posts. The first video goes live tonight.

Shelves and Cover Creation Day

The main job of yesterday was painting and staining my shelves. I was lucky that they fitted down the stairs, to carried outside, and stained black. The floor is now full of black marks. I have a solvent based black stain, but Golden Fluid Acrylic, Carbon Black, with water makes a much better and more even stain than the solvent black. That paint makes a superlative stain, but works best for the finest particle colours like this one, the phthalo's, dioxazine.

I also upgraded Prometheus with a new audio effect, a random filter/amplitude/pitch effect, which unifies all three values. This is useful for a degree of realism, as louder, brighter sounds often move a bit higher in pitch in natural instruments.

In the evening, I did a bit more of Deb's alcove shelves. Two problems appeared which were solved. Firstly, the side columns fell away. These rest on the floor, so I didn't think the joint to the top (lintel-like) part needed to be strong, but I hadn't anticipated torque force of the swinging doors. This was considerable, and the joint broke due to that, not the door weight. This was fixed with glue, then two 50mm vertical screws. They were in the plans from the start, but I'd hoped to avoid them for aesthetic reasons. A double dowel inside may have mitigated the torque force, but would have complicated the hot-melt glue system. The left door in now fitted well. The second problem was slight shelf sag, which was fixed with a hook-eye in the back 'wall' below the shelf, to take the weight; the shelves are now fitted too. The next step is fixing the whole thing in place with long (over 100mm) screws, then fitting the right door in place, which will mean removing and moving its hinges.

Today, a busy cover creation day in Crewe Market Hall for The Electric Sprout Foundation album. Creative Crewe kindly tagged me on to their event and supplied a few pens and felt tips. Carol Wilkinson has always been hugely encouraging and supportive to me and my art, since the beginning, offering me my first exhibitions in her beloved shop The Cubby Hole. But, she is encouraging and supportive to all local arts, she's a special community asset, like Mike Drew is, like John Lindley is.

All of the artists bar two came to today's event. Paul Parish arrived first, the man who came up with the album title.

I created a square of cardboard as the background and quickly painted it green. The plan was a sort of forest with the artists and animals hiding behind trees. There weren't many animals, but Charlotte from the RSPCA came along with some animal photos, perfect! Most of the creation was a matter of visitors (mostly children, though most of us music artists had a go too) colouring tree or leaf shapes, then me sticking them on. Deborah came before noon, then the people from Congleton; Mike Drew, Pete and Andy, John Lindley, John Miller, Glyn Roberts; and later Steve and NatalieGrace from Nastee Chapel, and Mike and Rona from We Are Nomad.

Photographer Peter Robinson came and took lots of great photos of the day (the photos here are Deb's, the first I have to hand). Peter's a mainstay of the local press, a press which today relies on volunteers to write and produce local news.

There wasn't a time where all of the electric sprouts were present at once, but there were lots of group images. One album was sold there, and the total raised so far is approaching £100. Next, I must finish the design, photograph it, then add details like the title text. I can't wait to share the album with everyone.

Back row: Glyn Roberts, Charlotte from Stapeley Grange, Peter Lilley. Front row: John Miller, Mike Drew, Mark Sheeky.