What to give up?

Posted on July 9, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1992, Gardening, Harmony, Hedge, Laurel, Life, Nature, Plants, Tree2 Comments

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

If I had to give up something it might be one of my trees at the bottom of the garden. Why? Because the neighbours don’t like it, it is a huge laurel bush/tree. It shades our garden and their garden too. I won’t be cutting any others back though. I like our little nature reserve. Laurel bushes are evergreen so they give shade and shelter to birds and squirrels all year round. But they do block out the sun. The trouble is ours is about forty feet high and thirty or so wide. It’s also right next to our fence line and about six feet away from theirs.

I know there have been huge legal battles over hedges and trees, and I don’t want to fall out completely with my neighbour, but I also cannot afford to have it pollarded or pruned. We will have to see what happens in the future. I hope it doesn’t get to legal action!

happier

Posted on July 9, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged carpet, Found, hammer, Hubby, Lost, Pattern, Sketching, Stairs, tacks4 Comments

I just sorted something out, and I feel a bit happier. It was just a simple repair, but I needed a hammer to fix the stair carpet in place. Could I find the hammer? I’d put it in a “safe” place. So no. It was lost. Then I moved a bag with one of hubbys remote control cars in it and it was there. I found a tack and fastened the carpet back in place. The cat has been sharpening her claws and pulled it loose. Tomorrow? I’m going to buy more tacks!

Bottles 2020

Posted on July 9, 2023July 9, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged 2020, Bottles, Challenge, Drawing, Facebook memories, Felt pens, Fern, Glass, Sketching2 Comments

Drawing from 28.6.2020, bottles, just came up on Facebook memories. The other photo was imported from the free images media here. I’d imported my drawing twice and can’t work how to delete the other one, only replace it. Of course I just realised how to delete it! So this post will probably end up with one photo, and a long rambling explanation why it had two…. Hang on. Sorted, I can see three pictures in the preview but only one in the post!

Repair

Posted on July 9, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Colourful, Drawing, Life, Recycle, Repair, Reuse, Sketching, stitching, threadbare, Worn out4 Comments

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was repair. I’m currently trying to sew up jeans that are falling apart. I’m trying to do tiny stitches to hold things together. Left side, actual stitching, right, my attempt at a drawing of it!

Elongated drawing

Posted on July 9, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Book, Hubby, Italic pen, Portrait, Reading, Sketchbook, Sketching2 Comments

When you lay a sketchpad flat and draw something or someone it makes the image elongated if you look at it from above. This is because the image stretches but is foreshortened by the angle you are drawing from. I hope this makes sense? Anyway this is an ink drawing with an italic pen. It is of my hubby reading.

Repairing split jeans

Posted on July 9, 2023July 9, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blue, Colour, Cotton, Jeans, Life, Memory, Painting, Sewing, Thread, threadbareLeave a comment

My old painting jeans. They are years old. When they started to split I started to sew. One patch of sewing covers another. Trying to keep up with the holes!

Mostly sewn with cotton reel thread, a few strands of embroidery silk. My stitches are no longer neat and small. My shaking arm makes it hard to hold the material while I try and stitch. The yellow is the latest cotton. I will swap to another colour soon. I just need to catch the rip below the pocket before it gets any worse. It’s really threadbare…

This is like the story of the old broom. It’s had three new stales and two new brush heads… But it’s still the old broom you always knew… X

Classical

Posted on July 8, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged ballet, classical, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1991, genre, Life, Memory, Music, operas, symphonies, Time2 Comments

What is your favorite genre of music?

Stravinsky, Holst, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mozart, lots of older and more modern classical pieces. Including opera, ballet, symphonies and anthems.

I particularly like the Rites of Spring, and the Planet Suite. But almost every piece of classical music cheers me up.

But one of my difficulties is I can never remember what half of the melodies or composers are called. I will remember the music when I hear it, but ask me to name specific pieces and I struggle. Oh I know Ravel wrote the Bolero and Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake (I hope?), but I have a blind spot. I can remember some physics or biology, or information about art and artists, but music of any genre? I really struggle. It’s not in my head. And yet if I’m singing with the choir, I don’t remember the song until we start singing, then suddenly its there, words and tune. I must have a strange brain.

Weighed

Posted on July 8, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Balance, Ceramic, cloakroom, Life, Photograph, pots, Scales, Spode site, Weight4 Comments

In the washroom at Spode studios site. A series of plants and objects are clinging to life on the old brick windowsills. I like this in particular. The two ceramic pots just look right sitting on top of the weighing scales. The frosted glass sets it off. It’s OK in the summer but in the winter it’s freezing. The plants still survive though.

Getting better…

Posted on July 8, 2023 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged abscess, antibiotics, Black and white cat, Cat, pain killer, Recovery, Tuxedo cat4 Comments

His eye and face are much better now. We are still giving him antibiotics, difficult as he won’t eat them mixed in for, so we wrap him in a towel and try and open his mouth. It’s a tricky situation, but I think he knows he needs the stuff. The only thing is he won’t stay in, so it’s a case of pouncing on him and grabbing him. Does anyone have a good way of giving medicine? I might crush a bit of tablet and use his other medication syringe (to put liquid medication on his food) to give him the tablets mixed with water. We will have to see.

Fair fat and forty?

Posted on July 8, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blurry, fair tat and forty, Fine Art, Recycle, Repair, Reuse, self portrait2 Comments

Blurry photo from my Facebook memories

I called it “fair fat and forty”, which was actually a statement radiographers used to use for the risk having gallstones!

I must have been feeling a bit fed up when I painted it. The picture was taken off another photo so it’s a bit pixelated. I shall have to find the painting and take a better photo. I was wearing a favourite tee shirt recycle, repair, reuse. And I’m in front of books with humourous titles that I made up… I can’t read them here. I tend to do a self portrait every ten years or so. X

Mallaband-Brown

Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown