New paintings and regular art updates.
The tree across the road a few years ago. Covered in ivy. This was drawn for an old #bandofsketchers prompt. The prompt was ivy.
I haven’t been doing these challenges for a few months. I think I ought to try again. It seems a shame that I stopped but life has been getting me down. Art is a great cure for sadness I think. I’ll try again soon.
This week has been really cold. Last night it was minus 19 °C in Altnagar in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. I was below zero here.
A couple of cats, a ginger and this black and white cat have started sneaking in. Last night both popped in for food, but this one came and sat down in the living room, all the while being stared at (but seemingly accepted) by my own cats.
I managed to take a photo of this boy cat, and put a post on our local lost and found cats page. I have had people offering to check it’s microchip but it must have gone out in the night.
Anyway at least I’m offering a warm space during this cold weather. I’ll have a chat with my vets on Monday. X
My grandfather carved this ship from wood, probably in the early 20th century. It had no masts so I put the the bamboo sticks into it when I was young and I was going to try and put sails on it. It has thin strips of cardboard nailed on along the sides. I painted it up because it was so shabby.
This was a watercolour sketch I’d done about 4 years ago and I’m mourning the fact that I could still draw and paint neatly.
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
I miss that tee shirt
It was orange and white
I felt like a pirate
Fun to play in.
I was only a child
Wore it forever
But it wore through
Holes in the cotton
But wouldn’t let it go!
Eventually grew out of it
My mom used it to dust!
A fat cat drawn using an ink roller that I did a few years ago. It came up on my Facebook memories and I really like it. It’s only a small drawing, I can’t remember where it is now? Maybe in a sketchbook upstairs somewhere.
It’s cool for cats?
Not if you want to stay warm!
Sharing a chair
Which side is yours?
Not much space
To pace about?
So cuddle up
Snuggle down
Purr and sleep.
Someone asked a question on Facebook about posts sticking up through a beach in lines.
I have a relative at the coast and had wondered the same thing myself. I asked and found out that they were used to slow something called longshore drift. It’s where over time tides moving along the coast shift sands sideways. Groynes (boards) between the posts held the sand back and stopped the beach being washed away.
My friend sent me this photo (I don’t have an attribution for it). This was a few year’s ago when it was open and the Leopard Hotel was running ghost tours and serving lovely food.
Then one of the owners died and it was taken over by a family member. I don’t know what happened but I think Covid didn’t help. In the end it closed and the owner moved elsewhere. Although the frontage looked OK it needed a tremendous amount of money spending on it as it was partly derelict in the back upper floors.
The hotel stood empty for months, it was bought by an entrepreneur who may have been going to turn it into flats. Unfortunately someone got in and apparently set up a cannabis farm in it (what I heard). Then it simply burnt down. Some of the frontage may remain but the place is boarded up.
I was involved for a while because I painted the murals in the back room, the Arnold Bennett Suite. I never got decent photos in there. I do hope it can be restored.
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
Old, not a word I dread, as long as my mind and body continue to work. I want to keep going. I don’t think there is anything after life, I seriously doubt it, so I want to be me for as long as I can.
Health is the problem. Co-morbidities are flung at me at a rapid rate. One thing or another to take tablets for, carefully balanced to keep me going. Unless the pharmacy can’t get my pills, they are out of stock, suppliers let them down. Almost every month there is a problem where I’m left owed something.
After all that I would like to leave a legacy of my art. I hope my paintings won’t get thrown out, maybe I can keep going for seberal more years. I will try.
A beautiful ginger cat came in today and was eating my cats food. I had wondered why the bowls are being locked clean. This is an addition to an almost totally black cat that keeps coming in. That one doesn’t eat food but I have caught it sleeping in the spare bedroom. I’ve used flea spray and keep washing the cats bowls.
I don’t want to be horrible to them as its freezing at the moment. My own cats stand nonchalantly by, they were rescue cats and seem quite tolerant. If I can find their owners I’ll ask them what’s happening?
Mallaband-Brown