Getting back to normal?

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Day 32, urban sketchers challenge.

Medium, spectrum noir colouring pencils with a metallic sheen.

This morning when I got up I saw another con trail in the sky, this time horizontal north/south. Then as I started to draw I saw a plane and another con trail cut across the sky, west to east. I could see the tiny plane. I knew I would not be able to do it justice so I left it out.

The next door neighbours back yard beyond the trellis fence is a bit boring. I’m waiting for hanging baskets to hang off the fence and brighten things up.

Back to normal? I don’t think so…..

Con trail excitement!

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Just had the excitement of seeing a con trail overhead. Con stands for condensation, it’s when a jet airplane flies high up and the hot and humid exhaust gases from its engine condense out as ice crystals in the very low temperature and low vapour pressure air. Its like when you breathe out in the winter and your breath turns into ice if its cold enough.

For some reason there is a conspiracy theory that the vapour is made of chemicals and that governments are spreading them from the planes.

Ask yourself, why would they do that? There were experiments in the mid twentieth century to try and ‘seed’ clouds to make them rain. But it didn’t really take off!

It is strange how these weird ideas get into the world. I prefer thinking things through. If it doesn’t make sense can it be true?

Anyway I don’t think one con trail makes for the end of the lockdown here, like the old saying ‘one swallow doesn’t make a summer’. And really, I for one would like there to be a lot less flights, or more ecologically sustainable ones when things do resolve themselves.

In the meantime please stay safe.

Good morning.

X

Kitchen at night

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I am just putting my phone on charge and I looked up and saw the light from the back door porch shining through and reflecting off the walls and the windows. As you can see I’m growing a lot of Christmas cacti and other plants including a baby oak and a sweet pepper plant on the windowsill. There are also glass mobiles hanging up there. Why? Because I got burgled twenty years ago and as well as an alarm I decided to make it as awkward as possible for anyone to try an climb through a window without knocking stuff off.

I think this might eventually turn into a painting. Night all

X

Russian vine

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I don’t have a photo, but this afternoon we removed what feels like miles of Russian vine from our hedge. I think it’s also called mile a minute. It’s also growing at the back of our garden, and bits of it have grown up the telephone wires and even into our shed!

It was hot outside, so we worked in the late afternoon as it started to cool down. The Russian vine is wraping itself round a couple of leylandii, up an old willow tree, into our walnut tree, and around the Holly tree. It’s tough stuff. We should dig out the roots, but it’s too entangled. So we are cutting through the largest vines, then you pull at it, and strands of vine twenty foot long come out of the hedge. Each vine splits into branching thinner pieces. The leaves are green and heart shaped. It looks like a nice plant when you get it. With small white bunches of flowers in the summer. The bees like it, but our privet hedge flowers and that is more pleasant than the vine.

Unless you have a massive garden don’t grow it!

Solstice

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As the year waxes and wanes,

as time passes,

light rises and falls.

Life comes and goes,

hearing bird song, then silence.

Summer solstice,

the world is warm,

but days will shrink and shrivel.

Winter solstice,

the promise of warmth,

locked in ice,

day lengthens, nights slowly shrink.

North and South

seasons, polar opposites.

Hot in one hemisphere,

cold in the other.

Unless, near the equator,  

seasons are less obvious, 

No frozen wastes here.

World floating in space,

around Sol, the Sun, our star,

Earth tipped at an angle,

anchored by moon,

held in mutual gravity

Eternal?

 

 

 

 

Usk challenge, day 31

The challenge today was ‘first thing in the morning’.

Difficult for me as I have been going to bed very late and getting up late. So at 2am this morning I decided to draw this. It’s a view of my TV. There is no channel 7 here, but I just wanted a generic image on the screen. I coloured it in this far and decided to go to bed. I was going to continue with it, but when I got up I decided I liked it as it is. Its nice I think. Anyway I’m having a cup of coffee and thinking what to draw next.

X

Moon up

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Yet when they looked back, the gods saw the world was beautiful.

They flew on into space, leaving the blue planet, its fascinating surface, watery and dry, cold and hot.

They had seeded it with bacteria and viruses. They had given it a satellite, called Selene. So the water flowed back and forth, and would eventually encourage life to flow onto the land.

They knew billions of years would pass and agreed to return when, and if, a major species grew up and made efforts to fly beyond the world.

They called the planet Earith, home, Gaia, and waited to see if their seed bed grew.

In May 2020 they returned.

They saw the oceans polluted, the mountains denuded of snow. They saw the glaciers melting and the oceans rising. They could see all the problems.

But they were gods, they could will things to change, eradicate the major species, allow the wilderness to return.

They agreed that this was not possible. Man must learn from its mistakes. Let us return in two millenia and see what has happened they said.

They left, wondering what they would find on their return.

X

Possible painting

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I have a very complex, photo shopped picture of my hand I did years ago on my mantlepiece. But for my drawing today I changed it to a more colourful pattern and made it slightly more abstract. I’ve seen pendants with two thumbs, I’m not sure of the significance of the symbol, so I will try and find out.

I really need to paint. Get past this feeling of dread and give myself freedom to do things again!

X

Day 30 ‘ornament’

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I decided to do a more colour drawing for #uskstoke challenge today. I have lots of ornaments, mostly covered in dust I’m afraid.

Today is day 30 out of 38, so it’s just over a week till it finishes. A few people have kept going through the whole series and others have dipped in and out.

See you with more tomorrow…. X