New paintings and regular art updates.
Halloween in the Southern Hemisphere?
It’s getting sunnier in the global south. Spring is in the air. Are there spooky ghosts frolicking in the daffodils or their equivalent… The shadows are lifting. Witches must be wearing smart floral dresses… Vampires? No fruit bats. Werewolves. Or Tasmanian devils. Even dragons are different, wise and peaceful. But there are places that celebrate the day of the dead. So the question is how spooky is the South?
Youdraw.com was a simple black and white site with small and large black pens and erasers. The space to draw in was tiny but people drew wonderful images. For a while I drew and moderated at the site. It was trying to collect 500,000 drawings to represent population growth. I had to delete rude and racist pictures, and spent hours on some days deleting the same scrawl over and over again till the person posting eventually gave up. The site then had protection put in place to block the bad posters, so things improved. Then I found I couldn’t make enough time to volunteer anymore so I had to stop. This drawing was one of mine X
I forgot to ask how these were made when I saw them at the weekend. I don’t normally like fake flowers but these were cute and life size. I think they are made of cloth. I suppose you could wash them if necessary. It’s fascinating how many crafts there are, and what you can make things out of. Like plastic, wool, wood, cotton, paper, ceramics and metal. The world is full of “stuff” , often nice “stuff” but these tranklements take up a lot of space, and are they necessary to enhance your life? You choose.
What food would you say is your specialty?
My trifle is based on my mother’s and her mother’s recipe.
It consists of a fruit and jelly bottom layer with a touch of sherry or port.
Middle layer? Blancmange (not custard). Either the same flavour as the jelly or something different like chocolate.
Top layer, a decent amount of whipped double cream, with possibly cherries, strawberries or raspberries on top or grated chocolate.
You can’t really go wrong with that X. Usually I make it at Christmas or for birthdays.
The clouds shone like copper tonight, not red or gold. This is the closest I can get to the colour like in this photo. I’m still looking out for a view of the comet that’s in the evening sky after sunset when it’s clear, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
I wish I could have taken a photo of the actual sunset but I was driving and my camera was in the handbag on the back seat and I couldn’t find anywhere to stop. I will try and look again tomorrow
Time flies forward
Slides past
But falls back
Next weekend.
An extra hour
But darker earlier
The light fades
Time seems to slow
Nights distances lengthen
I hate it.
Bring back the sun
Or leave the clock alone!
Paintings from the weekend. The central painting was done previously but the rest, smaller ones, were painted over the previous three days. I was happy with the outcome. Unfortunately I only sold one, my excuse? Gale force winds and heavy rain made for a grim morning. Thankfully it improved in the afternoon. But we only had a few customers.
Today? It’s caught up with me! I’m shattered, tired, absolutely knackered. Just fell asleep typing this!
A cat moved into the warehouse where we held out art and craft show. It has a home in a local housing estate but I guess because the warehouse is heated it’s found a place to visit. The main problem is there is a ladder up to the loft space and on Saturday it climbed up and went to sleep!
There was a panic because they couldn’t lock up the building until it was found. Luckily someone bought some cat treats so it came down!
Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?
Some days I need to rest. I will have tried to be active on the previous day and then it catches up with me. Often I end up playing a game on my phone, or staring into space, thinking about what I want to do, but my energy is too low to do anything. And sometimes I just have to have a nap. That’s when I get brain fog and feel disinclined to do anything.
Moving things around frustrates me. My arms are weaker than they used to be so moving heavy objects, or even emptying the bin? That can be difficult.
So I guess the answer is unproductive, but in a bad way. I procrastinate and just start to worry about it. Maybe I need more help. But I hate to ask.
I drew this in the 1980s I have it on the stairs and it’s badly faded. I might use filters to try and restore how it looks? It’s sad when you have created something but the sun destroys it over time. I don’t know if you can buy ink that is resistant to sunlight? Maybe?
Mallaband-Brown