Sore hand

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Ow, washing my hands all the time, washing up, cleaning, my hand, particularly my right one is getting very sore. I use the mildest of detergents, but something in them makes my skin bubble up and peel.

I try using hand cream but it doesn’t help much. I wonder what I can do. Find something with aloe Vera? Or coconut milk? I need something. I can’t use steroid cream. Sorry to moan!

Changing pictures with filters

In this case I drew the image on the left in photoshop years ago it’s me in the style of an Escher drawing. Today it popped up in my memories in Facebook so I decided to see how it would look if I put it through the photodirector app. I used a tool called style. You have a choice of six options, and I think I used the second one for this.

I like the way it concentrates the lines in places and gives it a sharper look. But I do prefer the original… Substance over Style?

Koi

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Since there wasn’t a sketching challenge today I thought I would draw a couple of koi carp and some water lilies.

I sprayed green ink onto the paper first, then outlined the lily pads, fish and flowers with black ink. I coloured in the fish and lilies, and added some blue curves to enhance the water. Then I added some sparkly purple with a brush pen. Finally I put some black contours around each of the elements.

I enjoy Koi!

I want to visit somewhere nice.

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A few months ago we were regularly going out for walks. Now I stay in as much as I can. My health problems mean that I have to be very careful.

As people have stopped visiting places there have been less disturbances for nature. Apparently there have been less casualties of baby birds like ducklings. Boats are not travelling up and down rivers and washing out birds nests. There may be more Grebes and Moorhens this year than for the recent past.

I don’t begrudge my walk if it means nature gets its turn!

Baby birds

The blue tit babies have fledged and were on the bird feeders today. My hubby saw eight of them in a row on the fence this morning. Unlike previous days it’s been quite cold, but at least there has been rainwater about for them to drink and we provide fat balls and seed and mealworms for all the birds in the garden. There are blackbirds and robins, green finches and house sparrows in the garden, plus wood pigeons as well as the blue tits and also coal tits. We also see wrens. In fact I think we have done really well for bird life this year. I just hope the cats keep away from the birds.

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A-Z

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As part of my coursework I need to come up with a different mark for each letter of the alphabet. The first decision is to choose what tool to use to make these marks. I have used a 0.8 tip unipin ink pen. But I could have chosen charcoal, or a brush, or some other form of mark making. Then I could choose colours as well as shapes. I am not sure if I have chosen the right sort of format. The next step will be to draw something using shapes for a few letters only. Say five or six of them. Maybe my shapes are too small? It’s all like a big puzzle.

Usk challenge Thursday

Black and white and then coloured in sketch. View from my kitchen window out over the cherry tree in the garden. A few cherries are starting to ripen, but most are still green. The plants on the windowsill have grown up so they seem to merge into the garden. I’ve limited the palette of the pots and ornaments so that it is not overpowering the bottom of the drawing. My sanctuary away from the rain…

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Old film stars

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Tyrone Power, a portrait I did of him at an old website called sketchfu about ten years ago. He played Zorro in a fantastic film from the 1940’s? I’m not sure when it was made. I remember watching old westerns when I was a child. They would be on a Saturday matinee on TV. I think that was when there was only one TV channel. Wow, a long time ago. As you can tell, I’m feeling old today. Big birthday coming up!