New paintings and regular art updates.
Autumn puddle, a rather strange painting I finished today. Acrylic on canvas.
I started by picking up some leaves and tried to paint them and get the colours right. It then got left while I was not feeling well so I decided to try and do more work on it. I think I’ve not done too badly. The leaves are now floating in a puddle reflecting a blue and white sky. Should I do more to it?
Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?
I don’t know any tropical beaches, but I love the British coast. It’s often rugged and rocky, with rock pools to explore. Sand castles and seahorses to draw in the sand. Looking at barnacles and looking for crabs and fish trapped by the tide. Sandflies on seaweed. Finding out about local tides and how the moon affects them. I particularly like the Welsh coast as its so varied and interesting.
Lighthouses and Ancient burial sites, castles on headlands guarding ports. Welsh names to try and pronounce. Islands and boats, fishermen and tiny villages. I love it.
I keep getting ads in my time line to order my 2024 past book now.
Anyone who follows me will know I don’t need reminding. I have had the worst 12 to 24 months in my life that I never want to live over again. I hope to get through December and have a better start to 2025, although I worry about geopolitics. I don’t want one! I don’t want reminding, please don’t make me!
OK that’s enough..
There were good times too, I have some good photos, but I’m not in the mood to share. I’ll hoard those to myself, keep them safe.
I saw you in a dream
Echoing through my head
High on a hill,
Climbing a crag
Cycling on narrow roads
Blossom twined in your hair
Life in the 70’s
All love and peace
Working at Machynlleth
You saw Dylan
At the isle of Wight
Your free spirit
Was my joy untold
When I met you, so bold
Never enough time to be
In that world with you
Dragged into work
Instead of adventure
With you.
How to describe how I feel at the moment? Cold, boggy, marshy. With a dollop of cat trying to cheer me up. Trying to keep my thirst topped up as a drizzle of germs escape my pores.
The cold is in my house, November is wet and drear now, the snow melting into puddles, possibly around my feet. A muddy, gritty, sloppy mess. My central heating works downstairs, but I can’t sleep in heat so the radiators remain off upstairs. The cats are clothed in fur so are OK. My clothes are warm enough with a brown dressingown to top it off. I need scrooge’s nightcap and a candle to make it perfect.
Hands increasingly wrinkled, my ribs a sheet of ice that crackles under the skin. Stretch too much and it pulls on the margin of the cartilage. I’m feeling my age, and slowly seeing it emerge from my mess of greying hair.
I don’t normally like to be too descriptive, but today I’ve just tried to give it a go.
This was for my sisters birthday, a few days ago. Decorated with glace cherries and chocolate buttons.
It’s jelly with raspberries and port, strawberry blancmange, and whipped cream on top. This is something I usually make for birthdays ot Christmas. It is indulgent, but I use sugar free jelly and I use sweetner in the blancmange.
This can serve up to eight portions, so sometimes I make about half the amount if there are only a couple of us having it.
I hope it’s obvious what I’m talking about!
I won’t go into detail but I’ve lost 3kg over the last couple of days. I think I have caught a virus, and that and a damaged rib has made for a painful few days. I’ve not been out of the house in a while. Luckily a relative visited but I wasn’t on my own. But I ache all over and she made me small meals to keep me going. I’ve slept in an armchair because I couldn’t get upstairs or lie down. I just hope I’m feeling better soon.
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
Thinking about this prompt was hard. If I wanted to meet one of my favourite people it would be likely to be an artist. My first thought was Leonardo Da Vinci. I admire not only his art but also his inventivness. In the renaissance he could be said to be the renaissance man. Full of designs for flying machines and war tanks and other ideas as well as his beautiful art.
But my problem is I wouldn’t understand my surroundings, I certainly would not be able to understand the language, and being a woman would demote me to a basic life. How would I get his attention? I don’t know.
I think when asked if we could meet an historical figure people would choose the most famous, not the one we could connunicate with. Choose wisely!
What is your favorite place to go in your city?
A working pottery at Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, England. It also includes a museum, with lots of industrial archeology. They sell various tableware in the pottery shop, there is a large selection of patterns for sale. There is a good cafe that overlooks the Trent and Mersey canal. There are small studios for artists and potteries, and a row of shops opposite the entrance to the pottery with small galleries and crafts for sale.
There is also a handsome bottle oven facing the canal that was covered in bright red ceramic poppies to commemorate Rememberence day a few years ago. You only have to pay to go round the museum section. Tucked towards the far end of the site is a working steam engine which runs at various times. I’m not sure exactly when? Worth taking the time to visit if you can find it (it’s tucked down some narrow side streets.
It also hold pottery classes and was also used for the great pottery throw down a few years ago to before it moved to the Gladstone pottery in Longton.
Leaf leaves tree
How long will it be
Before naked branches
Are clothed again?
First frost, then rain
Maybe snow will come again.
Icicles hang on gutters
Defrost as cold rain sputters
Then one day a bud bursts open.
Spring comes slowly,
Time is sullen.
In these months leaves are rotten
And autumn colours are forgotten.
Farewell friend
The end….
Mallaband-Brown