Having Fun With My Webcam

 

Death At Dawn

 Woken from deep sleep by loud bangs.  The village was surrounded by hunters who had been called in by the Mairie to shoot the pigeons.  We have far too many and they damage buildings and make a terrible mess.

When we went out into our garden, we found two dead pigeons. I had to shovel them up and throw them over the wall for the hunters to take away

Map Of Arran

 

This is a map of the island of Arran, which is in the Clyde, drawn by Katy Donaldson in 1945.  If you look closely you can see me in the sea with my mother. We were having a holiday at a village called Sannox. Then look a bit to the left of that and you will see my father at his easel, painting.  At the bottom where it says Kildonan is the famous sculptor Benno Schotz, who was also on the staff of Glasgow Art School.

FUTURIKON Animations

Watch this short animation on Vimeo and then watch Miniscule - The Private Lives Of Insects on BBC4 on March 17.  Here's the link.   Some of thier animations are already on iPlayer but maybe you won't be able to see them in time.

Mini Me

  Sorting through Katy's papers tonight, I found this tiny photograph in a small brown envelope.  On the back, it says it is David L Donaldson outside the studio where we lived in Renfrew Street - near the Art School.

I guess I must be around two years old and this is one of the earliest pictures of me.  People didn't take very many photographs in those days (1945)

Later on, on Monday, I found the second photo.  It must have been taken about the same time, outside a different door of the studio.  Some light has got in to the film and bleached me out.  Remember that you had to be outside on a sunny day to take a photo then.  That is my mother, Katy, and she must have been 21 years old at the time.

A Doll's House

Is the title of a very famous play about marriage, written at the end of the 19th century by Norwegian playwright Ibsen.  Rachel phoned to say that Alfie has got a part in a new production of the play in Manchester.  This would be as a result of him being in the Christmas play Rat's Tales.  Well done, Alfie!

Not Any Old Iron

 

Tuesday 5 March.  Today we finished re-painting our railings at long last.  We started work on them a week ago when the weather turned sunny and dry and we thought it would take a only couple of days' work.

Problem was that because they are as old as the house - 105 years - they have been painted many times in many colours over the years and now the paint was very thick and cracking up with rust showing through.  Our plan was to get rid of all the loose cracked paint but, once we got started, it became clear that we had to get almost all of the paint layers off.

We tried caustic paint stripper: that didn't work.  Then we tried a blow-torch to burn it off.  That worked OK on the flat bits.  The sculptured panels needed a traditional method: chipping the paint off with a hammer and then using a round wire brush in an electric drill.  It was back-breaking hard labour!  And it must have annoyed the neighbours ... hours and hours of CHINK-CHINK-CHINK and CLANK-CLANK-CLANK.

When we got all the paint off, we could read the maker's name - Macfarlane & Co, Glasgow.  This iron foundry was one of the most famous in the whole world.

Finally, by Monday, they were ready to be painted with two coats of a special thick paint called Hammerite and even that took two whole days.