Due to the work I do, I lead a sedentary lifestyle, and throughout 2010/2011 I had piled on the weight. I was quite unfit, weighed in at 18 Stone lbs (261 Pounds), I found it difficult to walk any distance and was smoking my way through 40 roll-ups a day, as well as smoking a pipe!

I had talked to Alex and Emily about the fact that since I’ve reached my 50′s it was sad that I was losing so many of my friends as several had passed away recently. It was when they both pointed out that if I didn’t take better care of myself I might be joining them that it hit me like a brick, and I sat up and took note.

This also happened to be about the same time I was working on re-branding my www.ianmckendrick.com website. About that time I had also been sent some new photo’s of myself giving a presentation at a business seminar. I couldn’t use them because I looked so huge and sweaty, and when I saw this photo of me, with my big belly bursting out of my shirt, and the collar that I couldn’t do up, that I thought I looked like Jabba The Hut out of Star Wars!!

Something had to change…

I’ve tried dieting, and giving up  smoking many times before but without any success, and I knew that if I was to succeed then I needed some serious, professional help. One chap’s name sprung to mind – A gentleman we had interviewed many times before on The Business Hub by the name of Andy Gibney who happens to be one of the UK’s leading authorities on helping people move their lives and careers onto new levels.

I gave Andy a call and let him know that I wanted to lose weight, I needed stop smoking and was looking to become a Hunk! Andy kindly offered his help and he began to put a plan together. He came over to see me on the 30th October 2011 to work his magic and we decided that it would be sensible for me to tackle my weight and fitness first, and  sometime early in the New Year we would deal with the smoking. Here’s a list of the rules that Andy defined for me:

Rules to Achieve Hunkdom

1. Drink 3-4 pints of water per day
2. Regular meals 3 times per day
3. No meals after 8pm
4. Eat whatever you like…
5. …but stop eating when you’re full
6. Upload a photo of every meal
7. Count the calories of everything you eat
8. 30 minutes activity at least 3 days per week

When I started on 31st October I decided to share my “Journey to Hunkdom” with my Twitter fans and followers, and to do that I came up with the following 10 point Social Media Strategy:

My Social Media Strategy

1. Maintain a tri-daily food blog
2. Upload photographs of everything I eat
3. Keep a public calorie count
4. Track all my exercise and share publicly
5. Group the conversation with a common Hashtag
6. Find a suitable social network for “Fat People”
7. Involve my fans and followers
8. Make it fun and interesting for everyone
9. Minimal impact to daily activities (automate)
10. Build a loyal following for help and support

Maintain a tri-daily food blog - Upload photographs of everything I eat

Andy lives many miles away so it was impractical for us to have regular sessions together. So that Andy could keep a close watch on the food I was eating and the portion sizes, he wanted me to post a photograph of every meal I ate, so I set up a new blog on Tumblr.com called Ian’s Food Diary

Find a suitable social network for “Fat People”
Become calorie aware – Keep a public calorie count of everything I eat

This was far easier than I thought. I found a great social network for “Fat People” and I set up an account at www.fatsecret.com. FatSecret.com also has mobile and web applications for managing your diet, tracking your calorie intake against a goal, as well as keeping track of the calories you burn with regular exercise. the FatSecret site has great connections to Android phones, iPhone and iPod Touch, BlackBerry phones, FaceBook, iGoogle and the Firefox web browser as you can see HERE>. The iPhone / iPad / iPod App from FatSecret that I use is called Calorie Counter and you can download it for FREE from HERE>>

I have also set up my Food Diary blog to link each photo to the relevant FatSecret page. By simply clicking the photo of the meal it sends you to my FatSecret entry for that meal and you will see a complete nutritional breakdown of everything in the photograph that I’ve eaten – How cool is that!!

I also use the Tumblr iPhone App as it makes updating my food blog very easy and it can be done from anywhere. You can download the Tumblr iPhone App from iTunes store for FREE here>

Track all my exercise and share publicly

Another iPhone App came to the rescue for this called Pedometer Ultimate GPS+This App made keeping track of exercise a breeze as it used GPS to track distances, speeds,  and calories burned – It even integrates with Twitter so I can tweet out summaries of my exercises and activities, and automatically  include my #hunkdom hashtag!

Group the conversation with a common Hashtag

In all the Tweets about food and exercise I decided to keep everything together by using the hashtag #hunkdom. As you can see, just by clicking the link it brings up every tweet in my weight-loss and fitness conversations. You can find out more about Twitter Hastags from this great video by Lee LeFever Here>>

Involve my fans and followers

As you can see by my  tweets and my Food Diary blog entries, I ask lots of questions, as well as instigate and join in many conversations. Since embarking on my journey I also receive many more private (direct -DM) messages from followers who want to become fitter themselves or lose weight, or who even want to help, guide and support me on my journey. It’s been such a massive inspiration for me, and I would personally like to say a huge “Thank You!” to those of you who have been, and are still out  there helping and supporting me on my journey.

Make it fun and interesting for everyone

I tend to be quite conversational, particularly in my tri-daily food blog updates. For example mentioning whether I ate everything on the plate or not, or making my descriptions of the food seductive, romantic, or sometimes a little silly. I’m also very careful about the photo’s I take and try to make each meal look as appetising and interesting to look at as I possibly can.

I often receive private messages from people from outside the UK asking for more information on the food I’ve eaten, like Yorkshire Puddings, custard, mint sauce, Coleman’s English mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Maldon Sea Salt flakes etc. The fact I’m receiving so much correspondence really demonstrates the interest that people have  in what I’m doing.

Minimal impact to daily activities (automate)

Through the careful selection and use of iPhone Apps keeping up with the sheer volume of output is really quite easy. The fact that the Calorie Counter App has a barcode scanner saves me an enormous amount of time for entering the nutritional details, calories and fat content of the food, and as the database is so massive and supported by so many people and businesses it’s been a great help. Up until recently I had used Co-Tweet in the evenings to respond to my Twitter messages but since this service has closed down I’ve now moved to using Hoot Suite

Build a loyal following for help and support

At the last count (January 2012) I had acquired over 500 new followers on my @Watercolourjrny Twitter account with fans and followers engaging with me on matters relating to weight-loss, fitness, well-being, and even food photography!

Results to date (February 2012)

I now weigh 14 Stone 4Lbs (200 pounds) having lost 4 Stone and 9Lbs (65 Pounds) and my waistline had shrunk from a massive 54″ to 40″ (having lost 14″) all of this has been achieved in under four months. With Andy’s help I became a non-smoker at the end of January and I have no desire to ever smoke again, however I’m finding it difficult to lose my total dependence on nicotine supplements but I’m sure I’ll overcome that hurdle in time.

I still have a long way to go on my journey as I want to get down to my ideal weight of 12 Stone 7 Lbs (175 Pounds) As long as I reach that goal by May 2012 I’ll be very happy. I’m now walking up to 12 miles every week, have started cycling, and very soon will be jogging, then eventually running. Rest assured I will keep you all posted on my progress. Take a look at my comparison photo below and you can see by my complexion, and even in my eyes at just how much more healthier and happier I have become. I’ll update this photo in May and let’s see where I’m at then!

Conclusion

The thing that has affected me the most is that I can’t get over the sheer volume of offers of help and support that I’m receiving every day from what were only a few short months ago total strangers. These people range from nutritionists to health and fitness coaches, as well as cooks and chefs who have offered that I pop into their establishments to try their “healthy food” options nest time I’m passing – I’ve also had several  offers from Health Spa’s and Fitness Centres to use their facilities for free,  as well as food photographers who have offered their advice on taking more attractive and seductive pictures of the food I eat every day. I know that many of these people are running businesses, and that some of them will probably be doing this to help build up their reputation and profiles as experts in their fields, but hey, if you’re in business, then that’s just how you should be using social media – isn’t it?

As I later found out, unfortunately you can’t really see Ely Cathedral from Sutton, but as I was driving around the area I discovered a little back road that was signposted to Sutton Gault. After a mile or so I came across an unusual looking bridge with an ancient Inn beside a river, so I parked up the car and spent the next few hours exploring the area on foot with my iPhone camera at the ready.

Every track I took, and every corner I turned I was confronted with the most beautiful and inspirational sights. In the space of a couple of hours I had taken over 450 photo’s and only after the battery in my iPhone was completely flat did I make my way home.

What resulted of that trip was a massive collection of over 450 reference photographs that I would like to share with all my fans, followers and fellow artists. You’ll find photo’s of moody fenland sky’s, dykes, rivers, streams, bridges, bracken, flowers, details of trees, leaves, barks, fences, stiles, old buildings and even a crumbling, lichen covered UK BT red telephone box. Feel free to use any of the images I’ve captured for your own inspiration and creations, and I hope you find them a highly useful source of reference.

I plan on going back throughout the year and hopefully capture the same details in different seasons and different lighting conditions, and if you would like me to “Zoom-In” and focus on a particular detail on my next visit then please make your request in the comments below, I’ll try to photograph your request on my next visit.

Also on the day I met a really nice woman called Liz (sorry to have raised your hopes - thinking I was from BT and upgrading your local, battered old telephone box!) Thank you Liz for the offer of a cup of tea next time I’m passing – On my next field trip to Sutton Gault I’ll bring my field sketching kit with me and I’ll trade you (and your husband Ian) with one of my sketches for a cuppa!

If you live in the region, and you would like to go with me on my next exploratory foray into the fens and fancy joining me with your sketch books, paints or cameras, please just drop me  line and we’ll try to arrange to meet up and explore together.

Finally, Maggie, thank you so much for letting me know about Sutton Gault, I’m not sure it was the place you intended to send me so I’ll keep looking and snapping photo’s for you until I find it! I do hope you like the photo’s I’ve taken anyway, and I hope they bring back wonderful memories and remind you of your home so far away from where you are these days in California.

These images are provided under the following Creative Commons licensing terms:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - CC BY-NC-SA

Read my review of the book Here>

Buy a copy of the book Here>

I really admire David Bellamy’s watercolour style, and one day I hope to be able to paint just like him. Almost every one of his paintings appears to positively glow with Turner-esque warmth, and he paints with a brevity that defies belief,  being able to suggest a huge mass of detail with only a few carefully placed brushstrokes.

I chose this particular demonstration because it was a winter snow scene that positively glowed with warmth. I wanted to understand how to David managed to inject so much warmth in what would normally be such a cold looking subject.

This project used a palette of 6 colours:

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The stages:

The demonstration was broken down into four separate stages which begins with masking the areas of the painting of the finer snow details. After the masking was dry I applied a wet in wet wash of Naples Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna which granulated beautifully and gives the appearance of a misty snowfall in the distance. Working on the background middle, and foreground, then adding reflections in the water, and finally completing the painting by adding the strong details to the riverbank.

What I learned:

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The simple wet in wet wash sky of Naples yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna positively glows with warmth, and I just love the way that the darker pigments granulated down the paper giving the appearance of snow falling in the distance. I will be experimenting with this technique to see how I can apply this in my future paintings with different pigments. I also admire how David uses this exercise to demonstrate his remarkable lost and found, and negative painting techniques used on the grasses, reeds and bushes. It’s pure genius! With just a few simple and carefully places strokes of the brush it suggests much more detail than is actually there. I’m really looking forwards to dedicating a lot more time to experiment with the knowledge I have now gained of this technique, and to see how I can exploit this more fully in my future paintings.

Buy a copy of the book Here>

Feedback:

If you’ve painted this demonstration, or would like to offer your feedback then please share it with us in the comments below.

Although Dublin Doorway was the final project in the book, I picked it to begin with as I wanted to learn more about painting brickwork,  this project seemed to be a good example to learn from, and I found Terry’s version of the finished painting really beautiful.

Unfortunately though, unbeknownst to me, the paper that I used for this painting was very old, and it wasn’t until I had become really committed to finishing the painting that I realised this. I’ve now found the entire batch of paper and have sliced it into little strips that I can only use as scrap.

This project used a palette of 11 colours:

 

Read my review

Stage one:

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I really enjoyed painting this project, which wasn’t surprising considering I have so many Terry Harrison books! I chose Dublin doorway because it seemed to be the most challenging one in the book. Having the pre-drawn tracing saved a lot of time and enabled me to get started pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the paper that I used was several years old and had not been stored correctly. This meant that the paper was unable to perform as it should, and in fact it made it extremely difficult to paint this project because it seems to drink every drop of water I put on the paper – it was almost like painting on blotting paper. I didn’t notice that anything was wrong as I painted the loose early washes in the first few stages of project, but as soon as I needed to be more accurate in laying down the pigments, (e.g. painting the greys on the doorstep and needing to make a straight line) I realised just how bad the problem was.

Stage two:

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I managed to hold everything together during the middle stages of the project and persevered. The really scary part for me was to block in the Cadmium Red of the door. As I added each successive layer of pigment it began to bleed through the paper, It was almost like blood, oozing its way through the paper towards the pillars on either side of the door. I managed to rescue this by over-painting the red with a very dark wash which I built-up using many thin successive layers of pigment.

Stage three:

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In the final stages of the project things got a little easier for me as it was mainly about laying down glazes and tightening up the detail. But by this time the paper had become so buckled it became really awkward to paint even a straight line. I always enjoy the closing stages of a project, it’s where everything starts to come together and you have that nagging feeling of whether you have done enough, or you should just lock away the brushes before you end up with a muddy, overworked mess!

What I learned:

Never use old watercolour paper

I will never paint on old paper ever again. It really held me back and I began each painting session with dread rather than enjoyment. The good side to this though is that I learned many new tips and tricks to get me out of this situation and help me deal with the problem should it occur in any future projects. In future projects I will make sure to test the paper before I commit to using it.

Take time with masking at the beginning

I really wish I had taken a little more time and had been much more careful with the masking at the beginning of this project. My impatience to get paint on the paper as quickly as possible caught me out because it actually took me far longer to sort out the problem at the end than if I had taken my time at the beginning.

Painting brickwork – Keep it simple

The main lesson I wanted to learn from this exercise was how to paint convincing looking brickwork in watercolour and I felt I have achieved this. One of the problems I’d been having was knowing how to lay down a variegated under-wash, paint only a few bricks in detail while suggesting the rest. Painting brickwork had always been one of my personal struggles in the past but I now know how I can do this with confidence in future projects.

Dealing with bold blocks of colour

I’ve learned to be brave when blocking in a bold mass of colour in the middle of my paintings. Believe me, I had sat and contemplated this for several hours before I’d managed to pluck up the courage to start painting that big red door, for me it was such a scary thing to do! I now feel that I have the experience, confidence and boldness to do this in future without fear.

How to get rid of buckles in a finished watercolour painting

I managed to get rid of all of the buckles in the paper by wetting the back of the completed painting with clear water and pressing it between two clean hand towels, which I then weighed down with a ton of books until it dried.

Feedback:

If you’ve painted this exercise, or would like to offer your feedback then please share it with us in the comments below.

It’s an interesting site with some great examples of his work on display in his online galleries.

The website also includes details of his exhibitions, links to articles that he’s written, and also has a well populated links page listing all of his local galleries in the Derbyshire area.

Derbyshire memories

Many years ago I spent several holiday weekends in  Derbyshire and it is such a beautiful part of the UK with breathtaking scenery. I seem to remember it was cold and it rained a lot, we had many trips out to visit damp mills and caves somewhere around Matlock Bath and we discovered the wonders of hot pots of tea served with freshly baked Bakewell Pudding which was delicious. Burned in my memory is this wonderful image of the lush green, rugged Derbyshire countryside glistening under dark moody skies as the sun set over the peaks – The trouble was though, it was long before I had started my Watercolour Journey. After seeing Greg’s site, and browsing through his galleries I am now inspired to go back, but this time I’ll dig out my stout walking boots, grab my sketch books, my watercolour field painting kit, a map, and I’m going to get myself lost in that Derbyshire wilderness to try to capture the mood for myself.

Greg’s background

Born in 1974 and raised in the Scottish Borders Greg has been painting and illustrating in watercolour for over fifteen years.

As an artist Greg has been fortunate as he was not only raised in one of the most picturesque areas of the UK but also lived in the Cumbrian Lake District a source of inspiration for countless artists.

He now lives in Chesterfield just on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District. Due to this, inspiration for his atmospheric,richly coloured watercolours has never been hard to find and landscape paintings were an obvious choice of subject for Greg.

Informative watercolour articles

As I mentioned earlier, Greg also has a selection of several interesting and informative watercolour related articles which he’s written and had published on EzineArticles.com. One article in particular, “Watercolour Mediums – What They Do and How to Use Them” is packed end to end with some great hints, tips and advice for the newer watercolour artist as it explains the purpose and use of mediums such as; Masking Fluid, Iridescent Medium, Texture Medium, Gum Arabic, Blending Medium, Granulation Paint Medium, Lifting Paint Medium and Ox Gall Liquid.

When painting my watercolours it is a never-ending quest to depict the ever-changing moods and nuances of nature and my personal endeavour to help people appreciate the natural beauty of the country they live in

Greg Howard Derbyshire Watercolour.com

You can visit Greg Howard’s Derbyshire Watercolour website Here>
You can follow Greg Howard on Twitter Here>

With the birds singing high in the canopy of branches above and the rush of the trout stream under the bridge it was a joy to watch swans feeding in the crystal clear waters.

Across the bridge an ancient standing stone beckons visitors into one of the prettiest and most unspoilt places in the country.
Feel free to download any of these photo’s and use them to create, or mash together your own watercolour painting.

These images are provided under the following Creative Commons licensing terms:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - CC BY-NC-SA

Eastleach is one of the locations featured in the Tip Tours project that I’m working on with best selling author Joe St Clair, who shares his tip “Travel New Roads” with me here: www.tiptours.co.uk

I found these videos to be a really interesting insight into Turners work and thought I’d share them with you in the hope that you may learn something from them as I have done.

The Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain is probably the most ambitious exhibition about watercolour ever to be staged, with works spanning 800 years.

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Watercolour celebration

It celebrates the variety of ways watercolour has been used, from manuscripts, miniatures and maps through to works showing the expressive visual splendour of foreign landscapes and aims to question our thoughts on what watercolour stands for.

With works ranging by artists such as  J.M.W. Turner,  Thomas Girtin through to Anish Kapoor and even Tracey Emin I think this is an event not to be missed.

Join in – Follow me on Twitter

I’m planning on going to this exhibition in a few weeks time, and when I do you can expect a flurry of Tweets, Twitpics and Audioboos as I share my experience with my followers in real-time throughout the day. If you want to join in and find out what I get up to on the day then please make sure that you follow me on Twitter Here>

Link to the Tate Watercolour Exhibition

Here’s a link to the Tate site with details of the Tate Watercolour Exhibition should you wish to go yourself, it finishes on 21 August 2011.

Below is the complete series of  Mike Chaplin’s three videos exploring watercolour Line, Tone and Colour. These are from the  Tate channel on YouTube, saving you the effort of trying to find them all yourselves – Enjoy!

Mike Chaplin’s Watercolour: Line

Mike Chaplin’s Watercolour: Tone

Mike Chaplin’s Watercolour: Colour

I’m always picking up bargains at art shops, and I’m very lucky to have such a generous family who buy me watercolour related goodies as birthday and Christmas presents. This has resulted in me acquiring many different tubes and pans of watercolour pigments and I was finding it difficult to keep on top of what I had and what they would look like when I came to using them.

Where the idea came from

I decided one weekend to have a good sort out and I came up with the idea of creating mini colour and tonal charts to keep with my paints so that not only would I know where everything was, I would also know what each pigment would look like when I came to using it. I now have these charts with all my different pigments and now I find it really easy to find the pigments I need very quickly. It’s a great way of organising things, it was fun to do, and I made a few discoveries along the way.

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How to make the colour chart

These instructions work well for the Windsor & Newton Artists’ Watercolour Field Box but can be adapted for any watercolour paint set or palette. All of the instructions you need are in the video, but here are a few additional pointers you may find useful:

What I Learned

I was surprised at the huge variation of different pigments I had, how they actually looked on paper, how they reacted and granulated with different amounts of water, and how they reacted and mixed differently with other pigments in my palette.

This was a great learning exercise for me and I’m now able to select the pigments I use in my watercolour paintings with more confidence and I also have more predictable results in my finished paintings.

Feedback is essential

If you have any suggestions to improve on this, or want to let me know what would you like to see in my next video, or even share you experience with us – then please use the comments below.

Happy painting!

Here’s the video, I hope it helps you on your journey!

You can get the Windsor & Newton Artists’ Watercolour Field Box Here>

I’m frequently designing websites and WordPress themes for our customers, and I thought I’d make something that could be used by artists who wanted to blog about their work, and needed something  slightly more abstract and subtle to aid in the presentation of their work.

The theme is a two column, fixed width WordPress theme and is an abstract design in pastel shades of Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna, and Burnt Sienna.

The theme has a sidebar on the left, it uses valid XHTML, and is fully widgets compatible.

You can explore, rate, and download this WordPress Theme Here>

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If you would like any variations on this WordPress theme, maybe you want it in different colours, or would like something that looks similar just leave me a description of what you’re looking for in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do for you.

For those of you who are not familiar with how Social Networking works, this video should give you some idea about what it’s all about as I take my colleague Mark Peters through the basics, giving him an understanding of what a Social Network is, how they work, and an overview of some of the tools and applications that can be used to get the best out of them.

This module also discusses a variety of hints, tips, and strategies that anyone could employ to ensure they get the most out of their online Social Networking activities.

With this video you get the opportunity to become a fly on the wall, to watch how I explain social media to my colleague Mark, and where he manages to ask all of those questions that most people may be too self conscious to ask themselves.

You can read how I’m using Social Media and connect with me Here>

Introduction To Social Networking