Age

Dry skin, wrinkles, aging, it is the culminative effect of life. Very few animals and plants can live longer than 100 years. But trees, for instance Yews, can live thousands of years, some spread out and as the centre dies the outer skin continues to grow. In the case of things like jellyfish, some of them can revert back to a younger version of themselves (not sure of the science). Then there are more complex creatures such as Tortoises which can live over 100 years, another aged animal can be Parrots, they can outlive their owners!

Age is catching up with me. My arms and hands continue to wrinkle, I feel like I’m old in some areas of my body, and still have some youth in other parts.

Emotion

Todays band of sketchers prompt was emotion. I tried to draw myself doing an evil laugh. Permanent marker drawing. I was drawing by the light of a standard lamp to excentuate the shadows on my face. It’s a bit scruffy and odd because some of the pens are running out and it was difficult to differentiate between the colours on the pen tops. I wanted to say ‘Grr Argh!’ which was the sound that was at the end of Buffy the Vampire slayer programmes, oh yes I was a Buffy fan.

Potbank and canal Roses

Painting, acrylic on canvas, from about three years ago. This is loosly based on the yin yang symbol. The blue is for water, the canal runs next to a lot of potbank, it was used to transport pottery around the country. The flowers are meant to represent canal Roses. They were a design that was used on metal objects on canal barges, like pots and tin watering cans and jugs. They are also painted directly onto the barges as decoration. The potbank shape curves round and is sometimes held in place by metal bands.

Ginger beer

Digital sketch I drew in my old version of photoshop. I really ought to get the new version. The one I use was published in 2002 but I’m very nervous of changing because of the cost and whether I would still understand it. Maybe I should look into it instead of umming and ahhing. I need to find out what advantages it would give me. My old photoshop is glitchy, when I get near the edges of a drawing it suddenly will only draw straight lines at 90° to the sides. It never used to bother me, but as I use it more it bothers me…. Anyway enough moaning….

Autumn woman

Acrylic on canvas from five years ago. I get so excited by colours and patterns, sorry its a bit blurry. I don’t have the painting anymore. I think I did a second version of this, they both sold. I wonder sometimes whether I should do more paintings like this or are they too abstract/not abstract enough….

As people who know me know, I enjoy doing various things, that’s why I call myself an explorative fine artist, and perhaps an illustrator.

Fireworks

Bang! Crash! Flash!

It’s not bonfire night and yet fireworks are going off all over the place tonight! Don’t know why but it sounds horrendous. When I opened the back door to let the cat in he didn’t want to come in though. He’s a tough outdoor cat. He prefers being outside. So I gave him extra food. I keep going to the door and calling him, that wsy if he does decide he wants to be in I can let him in….. I’ll put him some more food out later…. At least the whiz bang crashes seem to have settled down now!

Ball lightening?

I was just reading an article in the New Scientist on line about the phenomenon of ball lightening. Then I remembered that I visited an old lady as part of my job, twenty years ago. We were having a chat over a cup of tea. She told me about when she was a lot younger. She was in her living room, maybe in the 1950’s? There was a lightening storm outside and she had got her window open as it was a hot day. Suddenly a ball of light floated in through the open window, bounced off the floor and then disappeared again. She had never seen anything like it but thought it might be ball lightening? I didn’t ask her much because I didn’t know what to ask. She went on to say that from then on she always unplugged everything electrical in the house and kept her windows shut in a thunderstorm in case it happened again.

I would love to see something like that. But would it be dangerous and knock out electrical equipment if they came into contact with each other? Strange how memories you’ve never had before can suddenly come back to you.

Orchids

This is a duplicated photo of the orchids in my window. I thought they were hard to grow, but they seem to thrive on the neglect they get from me. I generally just give them a bit of water once a week. I think you are supposed to mist them with water and give them orchid food but that doesn’t happen. I did try repotting them but I killed one because I didn’t know they like clear pots so the roots get light. Some of the roots are ariel ones that need to be allowed freedom from the pot. One of my plants has sent out two flower spikes since I got it. I’m hoping it will do it again.