sketches and drone delivery

This is the latest page spread from my pocket sketchbook. 

 

I had sketched the pizza and garlic bread in ink on Saturday and, yesterday, I thought I'd sketch Liz Steel while watching her Live-stream from her Edges class. I took the class a few years back but, now and then, Liz does a run-through with her classes and the Live-streams are a great bonus. Liz is one of those teachers who goes the extra mile for her students. Great teacher, great personality. I enjoy her classes a lot.

Liz's Live-stream this morning showed her sketching a Stanley knife (box-cutter) and, seeing as how mine has been getting quite a work-out of late, I decided to add it to my page spread. We've been getting lots of deliveries over the past few months and this knife is my favourite tool for cutting the boxes into pieces for the recycle bin. 

OH, and the following monstrosity is my foot. lol I'm giving myself some leeway here as I did this sketch in an almost dark room while we were watching a movie on TV. We like to watch movies with the lights off. The proportions are way out but it does resemble a foot at least.

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After mentioning about drone deliveries in my last post, Aaron (youngest son) decided to give the service a try. He signed up and they offered a complimentary delivery of Tim-Tams (chocolate biscuits/cookies) - free of charge. 

Order placed and we were told it would be just over 4 minutes for delivery. It actually arrived in just over 2 minutes. No kidding.

We'd had rain and it was a very cloudy, dull day so please forgive the dull photos. 

And here it comes...

It arrived overhead and we could see the package tucked up under the belly of the drone.

The drone lowered the package.

Below - The eagle has landed!

The drone automatically unclipped the package, 

wound up the cord and flew away.  

This process only took seconds from the time of its arrival.

Here is a close-up of the package. 

Tim-Tams AND a bottled water inside.

We were impressed with how fast the service was. This has been our only drone delivery so far and I wouldn't rule out any more. Our neighbours a few doors up have been getting drone deliveries also. Surprisingly, the drone was not as loud as I thought it would be. 

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I love when Kya curls up in a doughnut shape beside me. 

Too cute!

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The Delta strain of Covid has been identified in Australia, via people returning from overseas and in quarantine. Some areas in NSW are in lock-down and Queensland is now on restrictions where masks are mandated for 2 weeks. We have already been social distancing, sanitising, and using QR codes at cafes/restaurants. Hopefully, this strain won't spread any further but we may face a lock-down also if any new cases arise in the community.

 

Stay safe everyone, 

Serena x

rose drawing and happenings

Another week has flown by. This winter has not been kind to me as far as my asthma goes. Cold, winter air is a big trigger for my asthma and I had another bout of Asthmatic Bronchitis, though not quite as bad as the previous one. Poor Aaron has been sick with flu and his brother Beau was also sick with flu...negative on the Covid test. Phew! 

I thought I might have been getting their flu too but was spared a severe dose, probably thanks to the annual flu shot and taking cold medication as soon as the first sniffle appeared. 'Nip it in the bud' as my ex used to say.

This is another graphite drawing I did in January, back when I was on a roll. I used charcoal for the background. 

 

 

And below was the graphite drawing I did before adding the background and a bit more detailing.  I love how the dark background made the rose pop. 

 

The reference image credit goes to Karsten Paulick on Pixabay. A direct link to his photograph can be seen HERE. Thank you, Karsten...much appreciated. 

 

You may remember this Sumi ink painting of daisies I did back in 2017 for INKtober. I think I might try painting the rose above in Sumi ink also.

 

 

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Over the past few months, I've been hearing a lot of buzzing/whirring from the sky...kinda like a remote controlled car.  Earlier today, I snapped a rather fuzzy pic of the culprit. It was some distance away. A commercial drone!

 

 

After further investigation, I discovered that our area now uses commercial drone delivery! Cool! Apparently, commercial drone deliveries are only active in our area (Logan) and Canberra, as far as Australia is concerned. Do you get drone deliveries in your area? The company hopes to expand which could well happen as it seems to be quite popular around here. You can order coffee/tea/hot chocolate drinks, snacks, hardware, hair products, clothing, pet products, and even some grocery items, etc...as long as it weighs 1.2kg (2lb 10oz) or less. You can learn more about commercial drone deliveries HERE. I wonder what the delivery costs are?

Another thing I saw in the sky recently was a cloud funnel. I get a kick out of seeing stuff like that so ran for my phone to take a pic.

Apparently, a cloud funnel is made up of condensed water droplets, associated with a rotating column of wind and extending from the base of a cloud but not reaching the ground or a water surface. Interesting!

To end this post, here is a pic of sleepy Kya wondering what that thing is that I'm always pointing at her.

Her look makes me think of the following meme that circulated around social media ages ago. So true...in Kya's case anyway. lol To be fair, she is the perfect cat 99.5% of the time.

 

Will post again soon, 

Serena x