New paintings and regular art updates.
Kingfisher painting that was up for sale at Etruria Industrial museum today. Please to say a friend bought it. What a nice surprise and I know it’s going to a good home. Kingfisher feathers look blue but are actually brown. It’s the irridecence of their feathers that makes the colour glow.
I have some paintings up at Etruria Industrial museum. The museum is open this weekend (31st May and 1st June 2025).
Red horse. This is a painting I did a few years ago, acrylic on canvas. From a friends photograph. I had her permission to paint it.
The Canal festival has all sorts of activities including music and canal boats on display and usually morris dancing. I’m looking forward to it if the weather is OK. I might struggle to walk around but will try my best.
What quality do you value most in a friend?
Kindness in friendship is important. You don’t have to have money to be friends but it’s good to care. People need kindness and compassion.
When you are in a bad spot having someone be willing to give you a hug can really help. Being understanding and non judgemental is important. You can say the wrong thing but be forgiven.
Time passes and life changes, people die and kindness helps. Thinking about it I needed peoples caring and kindness so much over the last few years. Thank you to them and I hope I can give some of it back.
Have you ever noticed how eyes look behind glasses and how the glass catches the light?
I just watched an old film called “flight of the phoenix”. The actor playing an engineer wears glasses, but as it’s a desert location the sun is very bright. Every so often his glasses glint. But you can see it’s a flat surface, no curve on the glass. That means they are not assisting his vision. Also his eyes are a normal size behind the glass. He is clearly using them as a prop to indicate his intelligence.
You can tell how short or long sighted people are by looking at the faces through the glasses. Short sighted people’s eyes look smaller behind their glasses. Also if you look where the edge of their face sits behind the lens the face will appear to go inwards and not line up with the face edge above and below the glasses frame.
Long sighted people’s glasses look different. Their eyes look larger. The side of there face is wider behind the glasses. Almost extending out beyond the spectacles lens.
These amounts vary depending on how good or bad their eyesight is. I don’t know when I noticed all of this, but I think it goes back to seeing flat lenses in a film…
I went to a garden center a couple of days ago. It’s full of all sorts if stuff, a bit like temu in a big shed. To get to the plants you have to walk round lots of displays. There used to be a way through to avoid them but they’ve blocked the routes. If there was ever a fire I think we would be trapped. There’s jewellery, glass ware, pottery, clothes, shoes, houseplants, garden furniture and other stuff. Once you get to the plants there are a miriad of different garden plants (dinosaur included). I didn’t buy any as I need to sort my garden out first. On the way out we looked at toys and sweets and cakes. There were also three separate cafes/resteraunts. It was full of people, that’s where I think I caught this sore throat.
My painting “still me” is finally finished. It’s a self portrait about the fact I have continued to create despite my health issues. My hands still shake but I concentrate and it’s not too bad. I don’t know what I will do if my Parkinsons gets worse. I don’t know how I will cope. But I will try to fight it and remain “still me”. I’ve just entered it to a local art exhibition.
These are props we have previously made and used. These are bamboo and papier mache trees. We are going to repair them as they have been in storage for a few years. Part of the Penkhull Mystery Play this year is about two woodsmen who have been turned into trees by an evil witch. They want to be turned back after 20 years and need to get help from another witch to stop the first witch casting another spell on them. More to come….
I took this photo and realised that it’s been swivelled round somehow. I think is sideways or upside down. So it looks a little odd.
I also like the colours, red, green, pale grey and dark grey. And of course the black in the centre of the flowers, the colours are brilliant in the sunshine. The shapes give it an abstract feeling.
I’ve got too many photos in my phone. It’s crept up to over 17000 and it’s hard to delete them. The personal ones are really hard to let go. I’m attached to so many of them. I’m not sure if I can wave them goodbye. They do hold me in the past. Tie me together like wrapping paper and string.
The WordPress account only allows a maximum amount of memory and I keep hitting 100 %, so every so often I delete pictures. If I can I remove the free photos from the free photo library, or blurry, not very good ones from my own pictures. I know it’s not what I want to do, but I can’t afford to take on a bigger package. Anyway that means some posts are now lacking images. But I try to delete as few as I can. X
Normally by now I would be showing you beautiful photos of my garden, but I hardly go out the back door anymore. My hubby used to carry in bags of compost and I would refill pots with it and buy plants to fill them. But now I need help. I want to be sure I won’t fall or trip up! Must get some help. X
Mallaband-Brown