Today’s challenge was to draw plastic, so I drew a garden lamp and our plastic waste bin that is covered in glitter. Urban sketches are supposed to be drawn in context so the background is penned in too. Quick sketch about fifteen minutes.
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Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown
I'm an artist based at the Spode factory site in Stoke on Trent. I paint, draw and create digital art. Contact me at mallabandbrown@aol.com
Keyboard problems
I got my computer back today from the repair shop. The computer was fixed and they could find no real problems. We put it down to a bad extension cable that was now dead. Great. It took me ages to plug all the wires in. Screen, yes, video camera, yes, speakers, yes. My mouse was working, but no Internet? Oh, forgot to plug it in. Now I could check my emails. But when I came to typing my responses? No joy. No letters! No words! No number lock or caps lock. I tried all the different USB ports. Nothing. I tried updating Windows, nothing. I tried re-booting, nothing!
Grr! Just a message each time I tried to type. Something along the line of your USB connection failed the last time this device was connected. Windows does not accept it….. No! This was after the computer shop had closed! NO!
Walking!
A couple of hours and about four miles. Up hill and down dale. My feet hurt. I haven’t been that far for years. By the time I walked down our hill at the end of the walk my legs started wobbling underneath me!
It started as a gentle walk up our steep hill. Left along a slightly flatter road to meet (at a social distance) a couple of friends. Then we walked around the contour of the hill we live on. This photo is looking out over the Trent Valley across the school fields. Then right up the hill and saying goodbye to our friends. Me, my hubby and our friend we usually walk with carried on down a side street. Down hill, then up a pathway between roads, I didn’t take a photo but there is a high wall with a huge crack in it. It felt like it could topple and fall. We came out of the pathway onto another road. Downhill towards the old hospital site, past the local cemetery. We walked through side streets, past terraced houses, slowly wending our way towards home. We stopped off at a corner shop to sit and rest on a brick wall under the canopy of a large street tree. We bought ice creams to cool down and sat for a few minutes. When I got up I was feeling very stiff and my feet hurt. From there we went down a hill with a view over the south if the city, enjoying a cool breeze. We left our friend there and we walked up a side street, then down our hill to the house at the bottom. I had to hold my hubbies arm as my legs had started to wobble!
I feel tired but happy to have done another walk!
Colour v black and white
When I think about my vision I am so happy that I can see with the full spectrum of visible light (colour) . I know different animals can only see certain colours, sometimes just black and white and but others like snakes and insects can even see into the infra red and ultra violet.
Then there is colour blindness, where some cells in a person’s eye are not properly developed or can be missing. Then they have colours missing from their vision. For instance red green colour blindness. Apparently males suffer from this more than females. As I say I feel lucky to have good colour vision. X
Keep away from cats!
Lilies, and particularly their pollen are very dangerous to cats. We have moved ours away from paths in the garden so the cat cannot brush past them. I think it effects their kidneys and can cause serious health issues, possibly including death. We don’t normally grow many as they are usually killed by lily beetles. This year we were lucky? They are still lovely flowers, but I might reconsider planting them next year.
Green man?
I create, then wither
I grow and then die.
You breathe my air,
you eat my leaves
you take my fruit.
I let you…
But I am green,
I am life
Chlorophyll,
Xanthophyll,
Phloem,
Xylem,
I nourish.
You damage me at your peril.
I am the green man.
The wooded glade
Our garden has paths through it now, down to the pond at the bottom. We also seem to have a spring coming up in it. The trees have grown massively because they are so well watered. I Saw a couple of house sparrows picking up bird food on the ground this evening after a long cold day of rain. I went out when it brightened up and took some photos. So good to have a woodland glade in the middle of a city!
Chilled cat
My cat has taken to sleeping in this cardboard box, and I just saw the sign on the side ‘Chill 2/4°C’.
I had to get my camera and take a couple of photos on him. He might not be the cutest cat in the world, but he certainly is the sweetest to me.
He half closes his eyes, and I’m sure he smiles! He finds various places to sleep. This is his favourite place at the moment.
Going a bit ‘van gogh’
I looked at last night’s sketch and wondered what I could do to maybe tie it more together? I decided to use one of the style options in photodirector. This is a phone app that allows you to edit your photos and drawings and change their appearance.
I was very pleased with this. I definitely think it has a Van Gogh feel to it. Probably having the chair there with my easle on it adds to that feeling.
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My computer died?
Oh darn! (or worse words!)
Last night my computer just switched off. Everything went black, the monitor stopped working, the printer stopped. The only thing still on was my speakers. I think it was a thermal cut out? One of my transformers was very hot and the extention lead that things were plugged into had stopped working (the light on it was out). So, back to the computer shop. All my course work is on it. I can’t do things on my phone! So DARN it!
