Trout pout

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Eyes, looking up from below

Bubbles, trickling from the waters depths,

A fishes mouth and gill’s

Scales with a metallic sheen

Jenny lurks below.

Hidden in the weeds

Pike like teeth behind those lips

Clawed hands stir the water

Webbed between fingers and toes.

Bubbles reflected in her eyes.

She sees the feet of a child,

Dabbling on the waters edge,

One grab and down it goes.

Jenny Greenteeth has struck again.

 

Panda drawing

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Another sketchfu challenge drawing I did so many years ago. Pandas have been in decline for years. They are limited by the food they eat (bamboo) and their habitat is disappearing like many places where the pressure of agriculture outweighs the needs of animals.

Panda jaws are very strong to chew bamboo which is why they have a fixed characteristic “smile”.

They are iconic animals and the World wide fund for nature uses a stylised panda as its symbol.

There are breeding programmes but nothing can compare to an animal in the wild, not cooped up in a zoo. Unfortunately poaching is a prolem as with other animals like gorillas.

I loved drawing this. Some challenges were a bit irksome but this was fun.

Brolly

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When you are an artist you get asked to do odd things. Our choir is going on a parade in May and everyone has been given a brolly (umbrella) to decorate. Thus is my idea for it. It’s already black and white so I thought splashes of red. Lips 💋 to symbolise singing and LMW which is the initials of the choir. (Loud Mouth Women). The choir sings all sorts of different songs and languages so the singing mouths are appropriate.

I hope they will be pleased with it.

Giant beetle

 

A model of a waterboatman. They swim upside down on the surface tension of the waters surface. They eat duck weed and algae. Not to be mixed up with great diving beetles or pond skaters. When I saw this I was amazed at its intricate structure.

This model was in a local shopping centre. It was about four foot across. Fascinating

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Live long and prosper

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One of my favourite sayings, even though it comes from a Sci fi series. When I was a child I learnt to do the sign that Spock uses, fingers seperate between middle and ring finger. Spock was my favourite character because of his logic. I also likes Sherlock Holmes for the same reason. I don’t know why logic appeals to me but I do.

Logic and science is denigrated too much these days. Instead of seeing how important it is people turn their backs on it. For instance the turning against vaccination by people and the consequent increase in cases of measles. Or the fake news and lies used to stop people realising that climate change is really happening. Logic tells us that if we see evidence of something we must take account of it. People’s lives are at stake.

Live long and prosper, bur stay safe and care for each other too.

Howling

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The building was old. You could tell that by the wooden shutters over the windows, more like prison bars than anything else. Not a scary place to walk past in the daylight, but on the odd occasion that she walked past it at night she made sure she walked fast, just in case.

In case of what? No one knew much about the building, but it was attached to an old windmill and there was a tall wall leading off into the distance where the building ended. Just one gate, made of old and rotting wood, that was half way down the length of the wall..

When she had walked past before she could swear she had heard snuffling  like a dog, and something scratching at the gate. As she walked past her clicking heels would speed up to get her past. A rush of adrenalin enough to make her heart pound.

Tonight the alleyway was lit by a dim street lamp at either end. Slipping from behind the clouds a full bright moon gave extra illumination. Tonight the cobbles were wet, with a gleam in the light of small puddles reflecting back the moon.

No choice really, walk along the alley and cross the road to the car park, or walk half a mile round the one way system. At that moment a dreary drizzle started. It was the alleyway tonight. The quicker to get home and get warm. Her feet clicked and splashed as she walked along, she almost twisted her ankle on the cobbles. She passed the old shuttered window and heard, what exactly? Snuffling? Panting? She hurried on. Almost at the gate, just over halfway along the alley, point of no return. A sudden rushing sound, like a dog running, then a howl. She froze, there was the sound of something large hitting the old gate. She pulled off her shoes and ran….. The howl followed her…..

New business cards

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I’ve had some new business cards. Shiny, new and based on one if my paintings.

My previous set were based on a painting of a spode plate but it’s good to have a change.

Not much else to say really. I’ve decided to just sign my paintings Mallaband-Brown as fitting the Christine or C in takes up a lot of space. These also reflect my love of colour and experiment.

Maybe one day I will be better known, but I’m trying..

Sunday and Monday sketches

Not good photos of these.  I’ve been using a black felt pen and them a broad nib cartridge pen. I took the photos of them in bright sunshine so they were overexposed. I’ve used the curves option on my phones photo editor to try and get them less bright but on one of them this caused a blue cast.  The drawing of the cup is just a doodle because we were messing about with clay.

Oak man

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I’m a bit disappointed with my phones camera. Although this image of an oak green man came out OK three other photos of similar green men didn’t register. I think it’s because I have too many photos saved and as most of them are MB not KB they are too large as files so they take up too much space.

This oak man was for sale at the Dorothy Clive garden near Woore, Staffordshire. It was rammed with people, there was a great plant sale on, but it was crowded with hundreds of people. We struggled to get a seat and had a quick lunch. I usually go there to see the rhododendrons in flower but it’s a couple of weeks before they will be out in the quarry garden. In the meantime they had a massive plant sale with stalls so we came home with about 15 varied and interesting plants. Glad to be home to get a rest.