Long hot drives

I remember the long hot drive to Robin Hoods Bay a few summers ago. It was so hot in the car that I had the window open. I had no air conditioning and the temperature was rising steadily. My right arm was being burnt by the morning sun as we crept our way slowly North and East through Yorkshire. Its a large English County and full of cities, towns and villages, but also farmland and moors.

We visited a cottage in Robin Hoods Bay. It was upside down, with the bedrooms on the ground and basement floors, and the living room upstairs. The photo is my painting of the view from the living room. We spent a lovely few days visiting landmarks and beaches, but at the end I became very tired and aching, I thought I had bad sunburn… It turned out I had shingles. It was a memorable trip, but not necessarily for the right reasons!

Summer memories

Remembering more about our trip to Robin Hoods Bay.

Be warned! The village is very steep with a single lane access road from the roundabout at the top of the hill down to the concrete slped area at the bottom next to the pub… what is that called? Slipway… There is an old chapel sitting back on the right hand side, and there was a shop selling hats as well as the grocers shop and newsagents. Lots of touristy places where you could buy hippy things like geodes and scarves. Its really a delightful place to visit if you can climb up and down a 30?degree slope! When the sun is shining it is a perfect sight. There are other, larger, towns nearby, Whitby and Scarborough, all on the North Yorkshire coast. But to me this was the most picturesque I have visited, which is why I had to paint it!

Trying to draw trees

Two seperate apps, Sketcher free and Autodesk. I don’t often draw with these, they have different tools and I’m not really up to speed with them. But you never learn if you don’t practice. Also if I don’t use my tablet it gets clogged up with updates….so here they are, a couple of practice pieces,

Memory from May

She still plays, she’s got a little fatter, I think it’s lockdown ‘spread’, I probably give the cats too many treats. When you are in a lot of the time and they ask for food, it’s easy to be lax about portion sizes. Plus the house is warm and so are the cats so they are not expending much energy. Still all three get on and seem happy. X

Thoughts?

I just saw this meme or whatever it is on Facebook and had to ‘borrow’ it. It was actually on someone’s memories from four years ago but it was spoken by Tom Baker as The Doctor as it says in 1977. Perhaps he, or the writer of the episode had time travelled to the twenty first century. Of course George Orwell came to much the same conclusions in his novel 1984. (Which was actually written in 1948).

Fake News or propaganda is everywhere. I just think we should be more cautious about what appears on the Internet…..

X

Sun and Moon

#30daysketchbookchallenge, Day 23 drawing. Sun and Moon in an eclipse. I couldn’t get the black dark enough and the colours bright enough so I used Instagram filters on it….

I’ve seen a couple of eclipses in the UK. They were only partial eclipses but by looking in a bowl of water, and also the dark reflective paint on my car I managed to see something. Also the phenomenon of curved moon shapes of light caused by light from the partially eclipsed sun shining through vegitation.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY EVEN IN AN ECLIPSE. IF YOU ARE USING FILTER GLASSES MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT FAKE. IF YOU LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN YOU CAN BE BLINDED!

Virtual sketch out…

Enjoyed the virtual sketch out today with #uskstoke ! I drew our house off Google maps, it was too cold and wet to stand outside. Anyone who knows where I live knows my views out of the house are limited so I drew two other places I know from photos too! Oh how I wish I could get out more…. They are Gladstone pottery museum and Penkhull church. Both drawn as snowy scenes so at least they look a bit like the weather today….

Poor old bike

Poor bike. I last road it seven years ago, and since then it’s been gathering dust. I still love it. Its actually the right size (19 1/2 inch frame) for my short legs. But my balance isn’t good and I think I’m shrinking. The bike still has toe clips in that I think my feet might get stuck in…. But… Now I’ve lost weight I might just be able to set it up and use it… Can anyone tell me where to get stabilisers? X