New paintings and regular art updates.
Another four year old picture from my memories. Another one done in ArtRage. Just a bit silly and fun. I think it started out as an attempt to draw an egg, then I got a bit creative. I’ve illustrated a book before, and this could be used for that sort of thing.
Drawing from your imagination is more difficult because you have to have an idea of what you are drawing in your head. I often describe what I’m drawing to myself so that I have an idea of how to depict it. I want to get my mojo back!
This is about four years old too. I think I drew it in ArtRage oils, but I don’t really remember. I like the way I managed to get a flowing, wet in wet effect. I don’t generally copy photos for my digital drawings, but I think I remember working from a picture for this? It’s either a labrador or a golden retriever? Eople who own them will be able to tell the difference.
I’m looking at old images and using a colouring in app to try and break through my current artistic block. I’m beginning to recognise this is a winter thing with me. I hope once there is a bit more bright sunlight I will rise like lazarus ( OK that’s a bit over the top!). But at least start creating again!
These images are about four years old. Drawn in sketcher free, then altered in another app that I don’t have anymore after changing phones. I wanted to get a feeling of printing, maybe a monoprint or an etching. I like doing things in one app then playing about with it in another. That way you get more effects than using just one digital application. I want to do more with other filters. I’m thinking of downloading other art apps.
It’s a leap yer this yer, 2020. That means February gets an extra day. As it says in the rhyme “30 days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except February alone which has 28, but 29 each leap year…”.
So why the extra day? Because the year is actually about 365.25 days. So if you didn’t add the extra day on every four years the year would drift and that would throw the calendar out. So in a few years new years day, for instance would be earlier and earlier.
It’s for the same reasons that we have lea seconds added every few years, that makes our time more accurate. The fact that our year isn’t exact effects things like GPS, so it has to be adjusted. When we had old fashioned clocks it wasn’t so important, but even a few centuries ago it was recognised that the year had drifted and the calendar was changed. People actually complained about it. I don’t remember exactly, but I think they had lost a few days of their lives.
I feel sorry for people born on the 29th of February, they only get to celebrate their birthday every four years.
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Staffordshire Pikelets, cousin to the Staffordshire Oatcakes. Made with the same oat batter, but smaller and thicker. With added dried fruit (currants, raisins, citrus peel).
Toasted under the grill then added butter and as it was shrove Tuesday yesterday I added some lemon juice from the lemons I got for my pancakes. All hot and tasty.
Different parts of the country have different special foods. This one is very tasty and filling!
Ladybirds sleep,
Tucked in the crook of a branch.
Butterflies hang dormant,
asleep in shed roofs.
Frogs start to spawn
ignoring the cold and ice.
Plants hunker down,
below the ground.
Fish are deep in the pond,
torpid, sleepy, quiet.
Where are the bats?
Hibernating in a loft,
huddled and shivering,
waiting for warmth.
Last years temperature was 21°C
Today it is 3°C…….
Cold garden
chilled fingers,
icy wind,
frozen nose….
There was a programme on the radio this morning called ‘the light scientific’. I only caught the end of it but it was interesting, they discussion was about human perception. The scientist had been responsible for the gold/white dress or black/blue dress controversy that went viral a few years ago. She explained that when the image was released she had no idea what a massive argument it would cause between people. Her team had taken a black and blue dress but photographed it under a mixture of yellow and pale blue lighting. When the viewer looked at it their brains subtracted the lighting in different ways, and their perceptions were distorted or changed. As she acknowledged some of the different perception could have been due to the quality of the displays people were viewing it on. So they tried the real dress and carefully lit it. People were then allowed to view in real life. Amazingly they saw one or the other versions. The explanation is that we all perceive colours differently. My red could be your orange. Add to that some people are colourblind. Makes for an interesting world.
So what us my image. It’s an edited view of a window on the new twenty pound note. Not a figure in a funny hat (which is what I see).
We are living through a bad patch of weather. A couple of named storms, then more rain. Now the forecast is for snow and ice or hail. Watching the news tonight there are towns on the river Severn which are flooded. The flood defences that were put in to protect properties next to the river in one in a hundred years storms have been used many times in the last few years. At the moment the county of Shropshire is affected. Shrewsbury is badly flooded in places. Bewdley and now Ironbridge (heart of the industrial revolution) are in danger. In two places Red, danger of death, warnings have been issued. The defences are being overtopped. That means people who have refused to move out are in danger.
Our society makes things worse by building on flood plains, laying concrete and brick ‘features’ and parking spaces in our gardens, not maintaining the countryside and removing trees and hedges. Even in the light of all the floods we still want HS2 (a train line whichmeans people will be able to get from Manchester or Leeds to London about 20 minutes more quickly. In the plans for the train line ancient forests will be dug up and villages demolished or cut off. All for the massive cost of over £100 billion! Maybe we should spend that on greening the environment instead.
Now I’m waiting to see if it snows. Whatever happens I hope for respite for the flooded areas.
I’m trying sketching in an app called sketcher free, it’s interesting drawing with textured pens, but it’s not easy to control. This is drawn on a tablet, so the format of wordpress is different in it, not wordpress classic. I’m not sure this is going to work. Anyway you only learn by having a go at things, if you don’t try you never know if you can do it. I’ve found the categories tab but I can’t find the sharing tab . So at least I’m doing something , still not feeling well.
As I read social media, and the comments my friends make, I think how kind and good they are. And yet some of them are being bullied by eople in this country because they are not from here. They say things like the atmosphere has changed, and that they might leave and go back home!
This is I think part of the ‘hostile environment’ our country is perusing. Treating people like those from the Windrush generation as if they are second class citizens and deporting people only because of the colour of their skin!
Now with Covid19, it seems like they (right wing xenophobic people) have another excuse to bully incomers.
The world wasn’t split into countries by some infinite being. We are where we are mainly through luck. You don’t get to choose your place of birth.
I was bought up to think this country was caring, compassionate and fair. I don’t like the ugly way things are turning. I can say “not in my name” but can I get people to revert back to some sense? I don’t know….
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