New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was tubes. Couldn’t think of what to do until I thought.. Vacuum cleaner! I do like his eyes! It’s fun having a friendly character to help with the cleaning.
Tonight’s portrait drawing session with illustrators on my course. We each take turns to sit for each other. Ten minute sketches. I admire how still people can be!
That was not fun!
We had been out for our afternoon walk and I decided to go out again because I’d forgotten something from the shop up the hill. I asked my hubby if he wanted to come out again. Yes, so I got in the car and he walked round the passenger side only to find the rear tyre was completely flat.
That’s OK we have a tyre inflating pump? In the car? No….? Hubby thinks he’s ‘borrowed it’ to inflate his motorbike tyres. He also ‘borrowed’ my car keys to look in the boot of the car….
It wasn’t in the boot so he went off to look in the kitchen (as you do) and then the shed….Half an hour later, the only thing he could find was an old footpump and a bike pump with a shrader connector. I couldnt find my keys- until I spotted them stuck in the passenger side door- where he had left them when he went in search of things walked off!
I said I would walk to the local garage while he tried the foot pump. I decided to go and buy another inflator so there would be enough air in the tyre to drive down the garage and inflate it fully with their air machine. Off I walked while he, having given the foot pump a go and not getting any air in the tyre started with the bicycle pump! I came back with a new air compressor to find he had managed to half inflate the tyre! We then tried the new compressor ( I turned on the engine- he attached the valve to the tyre) No, it didnt seem to work! So I decided to drive us down to the garage…I asked where the foot pump was and he said he had left it on the pavement,
The flat wheel registered at 22 psi- thats not bad going for a bike pump! the other three were worryingly about 24. They should be a lot more than that, I pumped them all up to 33psi, although one did seem to lose a bit of air, perhaps its because the car has been standing still for most of the last year- I’ve only filled it up once every four to six weeks!
We went off to get some shopping and then came home. I thought I saw something like an old tin can next to the pavement in the road…CRUNCH! It was the footpump he had left.. Next to the kerb! I hope the drivers side tyres will be oK!
Little Oak tree
Not great yet.
Just middle aged
Not ancient
Will you survive
Into your centenary?
Have your acorns grown,
Have you got galls?
Surviving a winters day
With a squirrels dray.
We had to discuss limited and free colour palettes today. I chose this red car from the children’s TV series Captain Scarlet. It was one of my favourite series when I was growing up. Sometimes a bit frightening. It was about the Mysterons from Mars who were trying to invade the Earth.
Red was my favourite colour when I was little. Not pink, never blue, just red. I don’t know why…..
I found the car in a charity shop and had to have it. I like the limited colours of red, black and silver. I had to have it.
If you do a line drawing of your cat and you want to fill it in with colour, you don’t have to use black. I’ve used green and red as complementary colours. It’s a very quick sketch and it’s meant to capture the cat without over working it. I think even a little experiment like this can send you off in a new direction.
Coffee or tea mug, pencil sketch with watercolours on top. Plain and metallic. Trying to get accurate ellipses. I usually make the mistake of having stronger curves at the top than the bottom, when actually it’s the other way round!
Snow between bricks and cobble stones #bandofsketchers Tuesday 9.2.21 prompt ‘Winter’ . Watercolour on cartridge paper.
A rescue cat. Another photo from forty years ago. This was our old cat. He was due to be put down because he wasn’t wanted so we took him in. He lived another year and died of old age and kidney problems. I did a painting of this photo on an old wooden cupboard door as I didn’t have the money to afford any canvases while I was on holiday from college. The painting was exhibited and sold to someone at Stoke Garden Festival I think? And I did love him, even though it was for a limited time.
photo across the ages from forty years ago when I first went to college. Why? The sky was dirtier, there was dust and smoke in the air from places like the Michelin Tyre Factory. I don’t know if that’s a chimney in the distance or a crane.
Why keep blurry old photos? They link you to memories of a time long gone, of a changed world. Where there was some interest in pollution and ozone holes, but not enough pressure to improve things.
Maybe I should just delete this, but this was a prompt I wanted to use.
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