DIY Calibration Chart

 A DIY Calibration Chart for Photographing Your Art (No Expensive Gear Needed)

Ever taken a photo of your artwork only to have it look completely different once it's online? You're not alone. Professional calibration tools from companies like X-Rite or Datacolor Spyder can help fix this, but they're expensive and actually only work on devices you control. The real problem is you have no control over how someone else's screen displays your image.

So, I created a simple chart to tackle the biggest issues that come up when photographing art for the web. It’s a low cost printable calibration chart you can use any time you photograph your art to be shared on-line.

Getting Started

Download the chart (as a .jpg file) and print it at 4 by 6" (10 by15cm) on photo paper. Choose matte or semigloss over glossy to avoid reflections. Any inkjet printer works, or take it to a photo print service like Ted’s, Officeworks or Harvey Norman.

You can use the chart before you shoot, or after, when editing. Fixing lighting issues before you shoot saves time and gives better results overall. Just place the chart on or next to your artwork, under the same lighting conditions.

Why Dynamic Range Matters

Dynamic range describes how much detail a camera captures from shadow to highlight. Your eyes handle huge contrasts easily, from sunlight to starlight, but cameras struggle. That's why bright skies blow out to white or shadows go pitch black in photos.

The chart has grayscale steps down each side, each representing a 2 percent shift in light intensity, plus small target circles for finer detail. The more steps you can distinguish in your photo, the better your lighting is working. If steps disappear into the background, especially on the darker side, add more light, but don't overdo it or you'll blow out the highlights.

With practice, you'll learn to spot overexposure (dark steps look too light) and underexposure (light steps look too dark) just by reviewing the upper or lower greyscale on the chart.

This trick works after the shoot too. Use your photo editing software's exposure, contrast, and shadow/highlight sliders can make changes on your photo containing the chart, then copy those settings to the rest of your batch. Thus you only need the chart in one reference photo per series where all the photos are taken umber the same conditions

Colour is trickier than tone. Our eyes adapt to lighting variations automatically; cameras don't. The chart includes seven reference dots, six colours plus black, representing the core building blocks of the sRGB colour space used in jpeg files. The table below show how each of the tiny coloured lights (red,green,blue) on your TV screen of computer monitor are lit up to get the given colour. Zero indicated the light is off and 255 that the tiny light is fully on. These lights then make up a single pixel within the photo image.

(255,0,0)         R            0 Red
(0,255,0)         G            Green
(0,0,255)         B             Blue
(0,255,255)     C            Cyan
(255,255,0)     Y             Yellow
(255,255,255) M            Magenta

After taking the photo, you could use a colour picker to compare your photo's dots against these values. This won't give you pixel perfect correction, but it'll reveal a colour cast. The main thing to watch for. Do the dots still look clean and bright, or dull and grey?

Dealing with A Colour Cast

Colour cast is sneaky because your brain corrects for it automatically without you noticing. Old incandescent bulbs throw a yellow-orange tint; overcast daylight can add a blue tint. Reflections from walls and furniture are often the biggest culprits, since your brain filters these out but your camera doesn't.

To check for colour cast, look at the white background behind the chart's colour temperature panel. If the white looks yellowish or bluish instead of neutral, you likely have a bias. The nine squares can help confirm this.The three colour squares of the same colour as the bias will appear brighter and/or stronger, while colour on the opposite side will appered duller or darker.

The fix is usually simple, find better light. If using artificial light, Daylight LED bulbs (around 5000k) are cheap and reliable. If using natural light, shoot in soft shade rather than direct sun, like near a window indoors, under a veranda, or in an open garage. A white board opposite your light source can bounce light back and soften harsh shadows.

When editing, use white balance, warm/cool sliders, HSL adjustments, or LUTs, always test these changes on your reference photo first before applying to the batch.

One Final Tip

Avoid the saturation slider orfilters when photographing art. They can make your image look garish, especially on screens where the viewer has already boosted their own contrast and saturation. If colors look flat, use the vibrance slider instead, and go easy with using it.

With this one printable chart, you can catch lighting and colour problems before they ruin your photos, and fix them quickly if they slip through. No expensive gear required.

Another Microsoft favourite bites the dust

I thought I had put off any Microsoft updates for 5 weeks, but the updates happened last night. Maybe it was 5 weeks

It proudly announced that it updated itself and had five things to show me I don't think any of them were particularly new and/or exciting. They just wanted me to let them access my settings which I decided wasn't a good idea. The one thing I did immediately notice was that my phone link had a big message at the top and it wanted me to read the QR code on the screen. I had gotten used to using Phone Link and liked it.

Not unexpected, I had also updated my Android phone (I had trouble recharging my 7-year-old phone battery) and perhaps thought it was to do with a setting on the new Android phone. I did use Android Switch which worked quite well, and transferred most things. There were a few inputs required, I had to re-establish some connections with passwords etc. However the transfer was very smooth.

I aimed my camera at the QR code and clicked on the link, which took me to the site aka.ms (which is where you download the phone link segment for your phone), BUT, and it's a big but, it was a blank screen, so I tried again, investigated what response I could get, waited a while, then tried again and again. I could see from the display on my laptop it was still pointing to my old phone so I went and found it and made sure it was turned off. I went back to my phone and just typed in the address aka.ms to get to that URL. The phone seemed to think for a little while and then came up with a big red warning that my phone was not suitable because it wasn't connected to a VPN, which it isn't. The message also conveniently suggested that I could use Microsoft Azure as my VPN, and again no thank you. I don't really want Microsoft snooping on my phone as well.

If you're listening, Microsoft my trust in you is diminishing everyday

Can Watercolour Paper Deteriorate?

If you've pulled out a beloved pad or big sheet of watercolour paper only to find it's soaking up paint like a sponge, don't panic. You're not alone, and it's probably fixable.

Watercolour paper, whether cheap or expensive, cotton or cellulose, can deteriorate over time. There are two main culprits worth knowing about.

1. The first is chemical and/or biological damage. Acids from household cleaners, food smells, vinegar, even alcohol can drift through the air and quietly degrade your paper. Moisture give the opportunity for mould or algae, attracts insects or animals to stop by and snack. You'll usually notice yellowing, dark patches, tears, crumbling or even holes. Unfortunately, this kind of damage is pretty much permanent. there's not much you can do to rescue it. If this is effecting existing art work, especially if its precious, don’t attempt to fix it yourself seek out professional conservators. There are ways to improve the storage and display that can halt further deterioration.
2. The second culprit, the more common one, is the sizing breakdown. Sizing is the term used in paper making circles that refers to any substance added to or applied to the surface to reduce the absorbency of water. Most quality watercolour paper is coated with gelatine, the same stuff that makes jelly set. It's brilliant for painting because it holds moisture and pigment at the surface rather than letting them bleed deep into the paper. The problem is that gelatin is sensitive to humidity, temperature fluctuations, and light exposure. Humid environments or climates are particular culprits, but even leaving your pad on the back seat of a hot car can cause it to fail in patches. The result? Your paper suddenly behaves like blotting paper.

The good news is there are ways to bring sizing back. The simplest fix for the more expensive papers that will have both internal and external sizing is to wet the entire sheet, let it dry completely, and paint on it straight away. You can add the desired level you require in that new painting session. It sounds almost too easy, but it genuinely works, there are plenty of experienced painters who swear by it. The catch is you really only get one go at this, so time it well.

If that's not enough, you can re-size the surface entirely. Powdered gelatine is one option, though it's a bit fiddly. A more practical route is using a commercial watercolour ground.

I have found acrylic gesso also works well. Thin coats work best, I aim for two light layers, keeping the water content below about 30% to avoid bubbling and poor coverage. The dilution allows better flow/coverage and also gives you control over absorbency. More water leads to more absorbency, so a bit of experimentation and you can get back to something close to the original paper feel.

One tip worth trying: instead of a brush, use a small foam roller to apply the gesso. It leaves a fine, even texture similar to cold-press papers that's genuinely lovely to paint on. Especially if you're working with granulating pigments that like to settle into small dips and hollows.

So before you throw out that dodgy paper, give it a second chance. Chances are, it's not as far gone as it looks.

Towards Building the Perfect Sketchbook Holder

With a paint-out weekend in Castlemaine on the horizon for the Watercolour Society, it was time to build a sketchbook holder that could actually handle the job and coimg winter weather.

After two prototypes, I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for. The foam core version was light and semi-waterproof, but it quickly buckled in the middle. The framing matte offcut held up better until it got wet. The sticky side of the velcro tape also caused problems by lifting the paper surface off the matte board rather than releasing the velcro, when I tried to remove my palettes. 

I found a sheet of 5mm craft wood (MDF) that was sturdy enough to do the job but light enough to hold in one hand. A couple of coats of acrylic paint should ensure the waterproofing. Then came the fun design tweaks. I added internal slots to hold bulldog clamps to nicely hold the sketchbook open. I slightly changed the shaped to better fit A5 sketchbooks in both portrait and landscape formats. Two rows of velcro and a felt bumper to keep my larger palettes snug and secure.

The result is a holder that keeps my sketchbook and palette firmly in place with one hand free to actually paint. Back to plein air testing.

More Nonsense

After spending hours last month untangling the mess Microsoft made by quietly inserting OneDrive into an active role on my Windows 11 machines, I thought I had finally sorted things out. OneDrive had been redirecting my Documents, Pictures and Videos folders into its own subdirectories and syncing them to the cloud, all under the guise of "backing up" my files. In reality, it was removing them from my control.

After some research, I restored everything to its proper location, removed OneDrive and the equally annoying Copilot, and delayed Windows updates as long as possible (note: Windows 11 Home users can only delay updates, not stop them entirely).

Then last week, updates from both Microsoft and Google undid much of my work. Copilot reappeared, desktop icons went missing, my machine started launching straight into Edge on startup, and OneDrive was back, once again redirecting my Documents, Photos and Videos folders to its own directories. Fortunately it was not uploading to the cloud this time, but the intrusion was unwelcome regardless. 

I am clearly not alone in finding Windows updates frustrating and error-prone. A NotebookLM "podcast"on the topic covers the issue well. I’m very conscious that AI generated content is frequently incorrect, just AI slop, however this is worth a watch.

 

Whilst on YouTube I found a video that explains specifically how OneDrive sneaks back through a backdoor Microsoft leaves open during updates, its longish and detailed with steps to keep it Microsoft at bay at least for now.

If you are running Windows on a computer or laptop, good luck! Make sure you keep a current backup of all your files at all times.

Plein Air sketching follow up

What Actually Worked (and What Didn't)

Over the past month, I’ve had a trips down to the Mornington Peninsula, Venu Bay, and I'm partway through the Plein AirPril challenge, whereby I’m supposed to do an outdoor painting every day in April. It has been a great chance to properly road-test my three DIY portable setups I'd been tinkering with.

The clear winner: the sketchbook holder

I haven’t used my tripod easel at all, but I’ve used the sketchbook holder constantly. It securely holds both my A5 sketchbooks, one with a hardcover sewn-spine, the other a wire-coil visual diary style. You slide the book covers behind the holder, fold the pages forward, through the slot and spread the pages to where you want and clip them with large bulldog paper clips on either side, and you're done. Even in the wind, it stays put. It's light enough to hold one-handed while standing, or it just rests across my knees when I'm sitting.

The whole setup takes almost no time: a pencil, a pen, a water brush, and my homemade CD dot card palettes. Done. It pays to be agile when the fickle Melbourne weather decides to throw storms, rain, wind gusts, but is mostly grey and overcast with occasional surprise sunshine at me all in the same afternoon.

The watercolour sketchboard: promising but …

I only pulled this one out a couple of times. It works, but it's heavier, slower to set up, and critically, the prototype was made of matte board. Getting drenched a few times took a real toll on it. The bulldog clip slots are a clever idea, and worth keeping in any future version

Lessons learned the hard way

Bag organisation matters more than you think. Rummaging around for that specific brush or pen mid-session is genuinely annoying. I've since started bundling brushes and pens in cord concealer spiral tubing and keeping them in small ziplock bags. Bonus is less disruption searching,

Using Velcro was trickier than it looks. Its holding capacity between its hock and loop surfaces is powerful. So powerful when I taped it to plastic palettes, the sticky backing kept pulling off surfaces as I removed the palettes. It was also lifting the paper surface off the matte board, strong double-sided tape and hot glue didn't work well either; PVC glue was slightly better. Still experimenting, looking for a heavy-duty version of this tape.

Keep your water brushes topped up. I nearly ran out of water mid-sketch one day. Lesson learned: empty, clean, and refill water brushes before heading out.

The spray bottle is actually pretty mandatory as well because it lets you keep whatever form of watercolour palette you’re using moist and the paint easier to pick up, especially with a water brush.

What's next

I'm planning to rebuild the sketchbookholder in plywood, with slots at the side to hold the sketchbook pages and a slightly bigger top flap for my larger palettes. For larger work or when using larger watercolour pads or blocks, I'll stick with my existing drawing board (the one with the tripod mount) with a camera tripod for a proper travel easel setup.

Overall?  Happy with how it went. Sometimes the simplest, lightest setup really is the best one.

Dealing with Unexpected Expenses in Retirement

As you get deeper into retirement, you start to dread things breaking down and needing replacement. They're often big, expensive items, and we've had several recently unrelated plumbing and electrical issues, with multiple big-ticket items needing repair and/or replacement. Annoyingly, these are things that have to be replaced but don't get covered by standard insurance. You just have to grin and bear it. It is time to consider a careful division of limited retirement funds, what's most important to maintain and what could be tolerated or put off.

Unfortunately, the surprises just kept going on and on with different new problems.

Anyone know how to open the
well-designed Lacie housing?

My current computer problems have become a low priority behind everything else? One extra problem arose when our washing machine flooded laundary and tripped the power. One of my attached drives in the studio failed to restart. I had been gradually building up a family photo library on it from my larger photographic collection. Unfortunately, it wasn't yet backed up. The same hard drive also now housed all my Wednesday Wanderers photos and had become the working area for my website updates, also not backed up.

Is this yet another disaster? Some of the working files are still around on my two working computers. I'm hopeful I can take the unresponsive Lacie drive apart and maybe recover what's on the disk if I can just open the well-designed housing.

The moral of the story? If things get tough, make sure you backup everything and don't just have a single copy of important computer files. Older and wiser, isn't that what they say...

Figuring Out What to Keep and What to Change

Laptop

The good news is that the basics are already sorted. Email, browsing, office work, wifi, bluetooth, and lots of small applications all have solid Linux equivalents, so day-to-day computing isn't a problem. The more interesting challenge is figuring out what to do with the more specialised creative software.

The office computer, the one that died its unfortunate death-by-upgrade, had been the focus for most of the heavy graphics work. It was well set up for it. Dual screens, a BenQ eye-care monitor (low contrast by design but genuinely helpful reducing glare for my eye problem), and enough USB ports to keep all my external photo backpack drives plugged in at once. Replacing that setup takes a bit of planning.

Here's where the graphics and photo software currently stands:

Program	Temp Destination	Linux Alternative	Cost
ON1 Photo RAW	Laptop	Darktable	Free
Luminar Neo	Laptop	Darktable	Free
Corel Draw	Studio	Inkscape	Free
Corel Painter	Studio	Krita	Free
Corel VideoStudio Pro	Studio	Kdenlive	Free
Corel AfterShot Pro	Laptop	RawTherapee	Free?
Paint.NET	Both	Pinta or GIMP	Free
XnView MP	Both	XnView MP	Free (user supported)

The encouraging news is that ON1, Corel, and XnView all offer Linux versions of their software, which opens up some options. The outstanding question is how to transfer licences from the dead office machine without having to buy everything again, particularly if switching to Linux versions. That's a puzzle still to be worked through.

Studio

The way I work has always been a bit like following a thread wherever it leads. An idea turns up when it feels like it, on whichever computer is in reach, so sketches, notes, half-finished drafts, and collected images end up scattered naturally across all three machines (office, laptop, and studio). The office computer was nominally where it all came together, but that's never really been the point. The point is being free to pick up and run with something the moment it sparks, without being tied to one desk, one device, or worse, someone else's server.

That last bit matters quite a lot, actually. The whole appeal of building and managing things locally is that the work stays mine, on my machine, without a monthly subscription, quietly making itself essential to getting anything done. There's something genuinely satisfying about owning your tools outright.

Which brings up the trickiest part of the whole picture. My website has been built using Incomedia's Website X5, which fits that local, hands-on approach perfectly. I can build and preview everything on my machine, tweak the code directly where needed, then upload it live via an old-fashioned FTP (FileZilla) when it's ready. Simple, direct, and nobody else involved. The snag is that Website X5 is Windows-only, with no Linux equivalent on the horizon.

Program	Destination	Linux Alternative
Website X5	Studio	No direct equivalent
FileZilla	Both	FileZilla (Linux version available)

Most things have been recovered and pieced back together, but a few Website X5 gaps makes this a natural moment to stop and ask whether it's time to find a different approach that keeps that same local, independent spirit intact.

Progressing Along Nicely

Office

My Linux Mint desktop replacement is settling in beautifully in the office, and honestly it's way quicker than the Windows 10 machine it replaced. I'm taking it step by step, loading and testing things as I need them rather than throwing everything at it at once.

The old Windows 10 Desktop PC had been with me since my consulting days, so it was pushing close to 10 years old. Over that time it had accumulated just about every piece of software I'd ever owned, and it had gotten painfully slow switching between programs. On top of that, I was dealing with complications from a corneal graft at the time, which made screen glare a real problem. I could only manage about 20 minutes of detailed computer work before it became unbearable. Safe to say I don't miss that setup at all.

For the hardware I went with my old Toshiba laptop, affectionately known as ICE because it's white. It's probably around 15 years old and had a rough patch with what looked like an internal disc corruption. Fingers crossed that's sorted now because it's cruising along nicely. It's also the only laptop I have with an Ethernet port, which means I can connect directly to the NBN router rather than relying on wifi. It's not exactly exciting hardware but it's a comfortable old friend and a reliable workhorse.

The main task now is figuring out what works well in Linux and what I might need to find alternatives for. I started with Firefox and webmail, but quickly switched to Thunderbird Mail for email and found it much more to my liking. I was also keen to reduce my dependence on Google where possible, but still wanted to keep using Gmail, Calendar and Drive. The answer turned out to be Ungoogled Chromium, a stripped back browser that follows the same basics as Chrome but without all the Google tracking. It works really nicely with Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs and Drive, so that box is ticked.

The last piece of the puzzle, for now, was finding a replacement for Microsoft Office. Fortunately LibreOffice was already installed and it's been great. It looks and feels very similar to Word and Excel, and it plays nicely with Google Docs and Sheets too. I haven't stress tested the compatibility yet but for my everyday needs it's doing the job perfectly.

A long way further along than I expected, and so far so good. Best of all, it's all completely free!

Pleasant Surprise at the 9by5 Exhibition

Yesterday I headed along to the City of Greater Dandenong Council's 9by5 exhibition opening at the Drum Theatre and was genuinely impressed. The foyer was packed with both a large crowd, and also with 225 works on show spanning a huge range of styles and media, from a few beginners right through to very experienced artists. Each artist could enter up to two pieces, and having everything the same size (9" by 5") made for a really cohesive exhibition. The organisers did a wonderful job fitting it all in.

My work ended up down the back (as usual), but I was pleased to find a red sticker already on one of my watercolours!

It was great chatting with some of the other artists. Everyone was enthusiastic and grateful for the opportunity to show their work. A point that kept coming up in conversation was how wonderful it is for people to be able to see and buy affordable original art, and I couldn't agree more.

The exhibition runs until 1st. May If you're on the south-east side of Melbourne, it's well worth calling in. and if you can't make it in person, the most works are also available to buy online.

Experimenting with Plein Air Easels and Sketchboards

I'm not entirely sure what to call these things: plein air easels, sketchboards, drawing boards? 

Whatever the right term is, I'm on the hunt for a minimal, easy-to-deploy setup for sketching and painting outdoors. The important restriction is that everything has to fit in my red art bag alongside all my other tools. So I've got three prototypes to test on my next trip.

Option one is a simple drawing board I cut down to fit the bag. I've added a quarter-inch T-nut so it can mount on a tripod, which gives it a bit more stability to the bag. It's just a flat sheet of plywood, 33 by 24.5 cm (about 13" x 9¾"). Nothing fancy, but solid.

Option two I'm calling a sketchbook holder. It's a prototype cut from matte board, 34 by 16.5 cm (roughly 13½" x 6½"). The clever bit is a slot cut into it where your sketchbook spine slots in. The back cover sits behind the board while the pages open out in front, held firmly in place with a couple of bulldog clips. The exposed board at the top gives you space for your sketching and painting media. There are plenty of DIY versions of this out there and I've been particularly inspired by Sarah Burn's design experiments. Commercial versions like those in the Etcher series are also worth a look. For my prototype, I'm using Velcro, though a lot of people prefer magnets.

Option three is a watercolour sketchboard, a bit bigger so it can handle larger sheets like an Arches block or similar pads. It's square at 29 cm (11"), mostly because I had a square piece of matte board handy. It loosely follows Doug's Sketching School design. The extra space means there are two configuration options: one end suits a bigger layout with a full size palette and room for a water container, while the other works better for larger pads but has less room for a palette and no space for water.

All three are light and fit neatly in the bag, so I'll take them all out and put each through its paces. With some creative use of clips, they can all handle pretty much the same tasks. Tripod mounting and a water bowl are the exception for now, but maybe I'll sort that out later.

Hopefully just a Hiccup

 After a bit more testing and reloading Linux from my USB key, I'm starting to think the real culprit was corruption on the laptop's hard drive all along. So I took the plunge, reformatted the whole disc to clear out any lingering issues, and did a fresh reinstall of Mint Cinnamon.

So far, so good!

Ditching Microsoft and Google

Ditching Microsoft and Google

My main (office) PC recently died a silent upgrade death. This was the machine that ran a lot of my personal life, emails, on-line banking and purchases, Zoom, website development, photo management, and my local network. It did a lot without complaint.

My backups were not so good. Photos were fine, but documents and other files hadn't been properly backed up since around May last year. Oops. To make things worse, I'd been relying on Google to sync my browser settings and passwords across computers — except it turns out it wasn't doing that as reliably as I assumed. Lesson learned.

So I'm officially a bit annoyed at both Microsoft (endless updates) and Google (false sense of security). Older and wiser.

My solution? Well, I'm not going to buy a new computer, no Windows for sure, and definitely a different browser. I already knew Linux was an option. I'd previously booted a old notebook from a USB stick running Linux Mint xfce, and it worked well. I then dug out an old Toshiba laptop that had died upon update and been gathering dust for years, fiddled with the boot settings, and got Linux Mint Cinnamon running from USB. After a week of testing, I was confident enough to install it properly. A few disk errors made for a tedious afternoon of troubleshooting, but eventually it booted up perfectly.

I really should have stopped there. I ran some updates, noticed a restart was recommended, and thought — why not tidy up some cables at the same time?

Restarted the laptop.

Bugger… Blank Screen……

Fed Up with Microsoft? You're Not Alone

Well, it happened again. My Windows 10 office desktop has bitten the dust. This time a mysterious "disc error" that I'm not entirely convinced is a coincidence. Why suspicious? Because right around the same time, I noticed OneDrive (personal) had quietly crept onto the machine and started doing its thing: silently squirrelling files away into its own little kingdom, and generally slowing everything to a crawl.

I'd already watched this happen on my two other Windows 11 computers, after updates, but at least I caught it eventually. After it had renamed/moved My Documents, Pictures, and Download folders and was filling its secret directory and also making a copy on the cloud. Once I untangled the mess, which involved copying files back to where they belonged (not moving, because some weren't being picked up properly). It was a tedious, several frustrating afternoons I'll never get back. Not cool, Microsoft.

This is the fifth time a computer of mine has died shortly after an update. Fifth!!!!!  At some point, that stops being bad luck.

As a retiree, I'm done throwing good money after bad. So here's where I stand: two Windows 11 machines still running, one ancient Toshiba notebook happily air-gapped and ticking along on Debian Linux (doing backups beautifully, no drama), and five dead Windows machines gathering dust in a cupboard.

The dead ones are hanging around partly because they once held client data from my consulting days. I occasionally pull out a hard drive, wipe it, and repurpose it for storage. So there is no chance that their data is accidentally revealed to the public.

But honestly? This feels like the nudge I needed. I'm seriously considering tinkering with Linux or even a Chromebook setup to get at least one or two machines revitalised. Once I summon the enthusiasm, that is.

Microsoft, that was your last chance.

The mythical origins of Dragon's Blood

The “pigment” dragon's blood NR31 is actually a resin that medieval artisans used, and despite the dramatic name, it came from a rather more mundane source than you might expect. It was harvested from the dracaena draco tree, a type of rattan palm, which grows in places like the Canary Islands, northern Africa, the Arabian peninsula, parts of Indian sub-continent and famously Socotra island off the coast of Yemen. The resin is a beautiful deep, warm crimson-red with slightly brownish undertones and was prized for painting, varnishing, and even medicinal purposes. Medieval crafts people valued it because it was vibrant and had decent staying power, though it could be pricey, which meant it was often reserved for important illuminated manuscripts or high-end decorative work.

 I’ll leave the best story telling to Evie Hatch, Jackson’s pigment expert and researcher.

Proof reading and summary assisted by Claude Sonnet 4.5 (AI)

What's In My Art Backpack

You know those "what's in my bag" posts? Well, I've noticed my camera gear and travel kit posts get way more views than usual on this blog, so I figured it's time to give you a proper peek inside my sketching backpack. The little red one that's become my constant companion.

The Backpack Origin Story

I picked this up back in 2017 during my Australian Art adventure. I was chasing the sun around the country with a suitcase crammed full of art supplies. When I reach a suitable destination I transfered most things into a carry-on style tote bag, while spacious, wasn't exactly comfortable to lug around with just two handles. I was also carry a lot of stuff I didn't use on a given day.

My first trip was to Tassy and my wife and I started in Hobart, staying near Salamanca Place, One evening, we wandered into the Kathmandu shop on our way to dinner. Kathmandu isn't usually my go-to product range, their stuff tends to be a bit pricey for my tastes. Yet something caught my eye: these clever little fold-away backpacks called Pack&GO.

The genius of it? It folds into itself, tucking into a zippered pocket until it's barely bigger than a wallet. Unfold it, and you've got a proper day-pack with room for lunch, a jumper, a water bottle, and all your basic sketching essentials. Sturdy arm straps, simple design. I bought this 15L red one on the spot.

Finding the Perfect Setup

It took some experimenting to find my rhythm with this. Over time, I've tried everything: sketch pads and pencils, paint palettes, colored pencils, small boxes of pastels, the occasional raincoat on cold days. Those 2017 "follow the sun" trips around Australia really helped me wear it in. The backpack became invaluable, and I genuinely grew to love it.

The game-changer was making a plywood drawing board that fits perfectly inside, giving the whole pack some rigidity. These days I seldom fold the pack up, it lives in my studio, packed and ready to go. I can just grab it knowing I've got everything I need for a plein-air\ sketching session.

What's Actually Inside

Here's my current everyday setup:

Sketchbooks: I carry two styles and sizes, an A4 watercolour cummed block or pad (the kind you can tear off sheets and clip or tape to my drawing board which now has a camera tripod-style attachment), and an A5 bound notebook/journal or spiral-bound visual diary with paper that handles light washes.

Drawing tools: A mix of pencils and pens for mark-making, plus a Pentel water brush for quick field sketches, which means I don't need to carry water. I keep these in a simple pencil roll to avoid having to go fishing amongst a stack of unknown things at the bottom of the bag.

Paint palette: Here's where it gets interesting.

I've converted to using CD/DVD dot chart palettes. Basically just a set of paint dots arranged in the format of a colour wheel on an old CDs. My current one is mostly Windsor & Newton colours with some Cotman paints filling in where needed. I've pretty much worn my most used colours down to nothing and it's definitely due for a refresh.  It is just so quick and handy. I strongly recommend making yourself at least a test one.

I've made several of these CD dot chart palettes over recent years: some based on famous artists' colour choices, others testing specific limited palette combinations I want to explore. 

If I'm planning serious watercolour work, I'll slip some brushes and one of my three portable palettes into the bag instead. and maybe a small plastic jar for carrying water.

The camera: My little Olympus OMD5 usually tags along too. These days I naturally also have my Smartphone with me and sometimes just use my phone camera.

Why Simple Works

Having such a stripped-down setup means I can get out the door quickly. Unpack, set up, start working without fuss. Often I just keep the backpack on while I sketch, staying light and mobile.

Sure, there are times I swap things out and experiment with different drawing surfaces, but those are stories for other post. For now, this little red backpack has everything I need to capture the world around me, one sketch at a time.

Proof reading and summary assisted by Claude Sonnet 4.5 (AI)

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What do you carry in your art bag? I'd love to hear about your go-to setup in the comments below.

Photographing the Aurora in My Style

For longest time one item that has been on my photographic bucket list was to photograph in Aurora from Venus Bay. It’s been frustrating. I’ve managed to photograph the Aurora colours through cloud cover unconvincingly for a long time. The main problem is the difficult to predict when the Aurora will reach Victorian coast. So far I have found the Space Weather service provided by our Bureau of Meteorology is probably one of the best sources of near future aurora predictions. To be visible from the victorian coast the K-index must be 5 or more,

 https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Space_Weather

Last Monday and Tuesday were predicted to have an excellent chance of seeing and photographing the Aurora from coastal Victoria. I went out on Monday night but was not able to see any evidence of an Aurora. Things changed on Tuesday night, I ended up at Venus Bay Beach Qne along with quite a few other families, just in time to see Aurora Australis was developing first of all as a pale green arch/swipe across the horizon and then some purplish curtain of low light going vertically up into the sky. There were occasion white vertical flare adding to the curtain and often reaching a little higher. View with unassisted eyes the intensity was dullish and the colour washed out and more grey. It is well known that the current generation of mobile cameras captures more intense colours at night (especially the purple/pink hues). You just set the phone to night mode, and it seems to capture enhanced colours compared with what you actually see. This image is what I call my “cheat” image. And was taken with my Samsung phone.

I really wanted to photograph the Aurora with my regular camera, my beloved little Olympus , which has a live composite mode and an in-camera long exposure feature that only adds new light sources to a composite image, preventing overexposure and making night shooting easier by showing the effect live on the screen, unlike traditional long exposures which normally blank screen and  just stack all light. It works by taking multiple shots and compositing them, recording only changes in illumination above the ambient exposure  This makes it ideal for star tracking and extra long exposure without overexposing the image. The headlights of cars arriving at the car park were a bonus, occasionally "painting" light the grasses in from of my tripod, which gave a more interesting foreground. The image below was taken over a three minute period.

I believe the K-index number was around 7 to 8 at the time I took these 

AI Slop and the 3I/ATLAS Comet: A Warning About Internet Misinformation

I've been tracking a troubling trend: people don't want to talk about internet slop. Eyes glaze over, topics change. Perhaps it's uncomfortable to acknowledge that what we're told online could easily be wrong.

The 3I/ATLAS Case Study

I've been following the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS since October through reliable sources like spaceweather.com, which a read regularly for aurora predictions. This is the third confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system, a genuine scientific discovery. I even attempted to photograph it myself in December, capturing only a fuzzy yellowish smear, which is exactly what you'd expect from a comet.   Its not a very good photo, a long exposure, high ISO and therefore very grainy it might not even be a reliable sighting. I've taken better comet photos in the past.

Legitimate sources like NASA and Hubble released proper imagery and data showing standard cometary characteristics: CO₂, water, cyanide gas, and nickel vapor. Nothing remarkable, just good science.

Then Came the AI Slop

YouTube exploded with fabricated videos claiming 3I/ATLAS was sending signals to Earth, had its tail pointing the wrong direction, or was an alien probe. These videos featured:

• AI voiceovers narrating alien conspiracy theories
• Deepfaked presenters with repetitive movements
• Repurposed "glowing spaceship" footage falsely labelled as the comet
• Clickbait thumbnails and sensationalist titles

Research from the University of Washington found YouTube's first page of 3I/ATLAS results was dominated by pseudo-science and UFO channels recycling the same speculation with AI narration.

The Real Danger

Why isn't Google stopping this? This flood of misinformation will erode trust in legitimate scientific sources and the platforms themselves. We must learn to recognise AI slop and verify information through reliable sources.

Please be sceptical, even of this post. Check your sources and think critically about what you're being fed.

Proof reading and summary assisted by Claude Sonnet 4.5 (AI)

Refining my "Air Gapped" Backup/Archive, rather than a New Year’s Resolution

I’ve not been so diligent; my "air gapped" archive/backup system has been sitting on the shelf for the past two years, gathering dust. You know how it goes. I had good intentions about checking those old hard drives every six months (they need to be "exercised" to stay healthy), but eye issues and life got in the way.

When I finally fired it up again, I accidentally left the Wi-Fi on, and Ubuntu immediately reminded me about updates. At first, I'd been avoiding updates thinking "I barely use any features, why bother?" But now seemed like the perfect time to upgrade and add some new tasks into the system.

Enhancing the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy

This whole approach really came out of the ransomware era (still very much a security problem). The idea is simple: keep an offline backup so you can recover if something goes wrong, and make sure you're actually verifying that your stored data is correct zero errors.

 Just looking at a photo or document isn't enough to know if it's been corrupted or tampered with. How do you really check a file? It depends on the type of file and format, and there’s a growing miriad of different ones to worry about.

My Practical Approach

For photos, I'm using MD5 checksums, basically digital fingerprints for each file. Adobe has its own proprietary checksum system in Lightroom and new content credential tools, but I'd rather stick with the commonly used standard.

Raw files are trickier. They vary between camera manufacturers and have already changed over time and camera models.. Some photographers convert everything to lossless TIFF files (which can become huge), others swear by Adobe's DNG format, but I'm not seeing widespread adoption outside the Adobe ecosystem.

Video files are a more difficult area, they rapidly gobble up space and I've got formats from software I have no idea about. For now I will just have to stay with VLC video viewer, which seems to cover most video formats.

The Reality Check

I'm being realistic here, I’m getting older, and I have half a million photos. Nobody wants to wade through all of that when I'm gone. So instead of keeping everything organised just by date and time, I need to actually curate the mess and my legacy. Pull out the family photos, separate events and places, get rid of the junk. I'm planning to explore best ways to identify the high-value stuff worth preserving properly.

The plan is to do this reorganisation on my main computers first, then pass over a well-organised set of archives to the air-gapped system. It's a bit scary because I'll be deleting files, so I'm keeping the full backup for at least a year as a safety net. Currently sitting at 5.5 terabytes and hoping to cut my archive at least in half, but we'll see how realistic that is, same time next year.

Why should Sycophancy in AI worry you?

 AI sycophancy is when AI systems tell you what you want to hear instead of what's actually true. It's different from the filter bubbles we're used to with search engines and social media, which just show us content matching our preferences.

With AI sycophancy, the system might actively agree with you or flatter you to gain approval, even when you're wrong. This directly compromises truthfulness and accuracy.

The good news? Companies like Anthropic, who develop claude.ai, openly acknowledge this problem and explain how to detect it. Being aware of sycophantic tendencies helps you use AI technology more safely and critically, ensuring you get honest answers rather than just agreeable ones.