Category: Memories

My favourite emoji

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What are your favorite emojis?

The ink block print, “the great wave of Kanagawa” by Hokusai is the basis of the wave emoji that we use today:

🌊

Unfortunately I could not find an image of the original print on the WordPress image search engine, and my phone won’t save images when I click on them. But you might have seen the picture? A towering wave is breaking in foaming pieces over two japanese fishing boats full of rowing men. In the background across the sea the magnificent mount Fuji stands with it’s upper slopes covered with snow.

Hokusai created many images of mount Fuji, but the great wave is perhaps the best known, it is well deserved that it is represented by this emoji. If you want to find out more about Hokusai its worth looking him up online. He was a wonderful artist.

Grey lady

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Self portrait reflected in a stained glass window at Little Moreton Hall in Staffordshire. The idea was to create a ghostly image in keeping with the age of the property. I could have gone all out and added an Elizabethan headdress but I didn’t want to over complicate the idea. The painting is set at sunset when things get a bit more spooky. I do like creating narrative images.

Silver birch face

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My friend took this photo for me as the camera on my phone keeps glitching. I’m part way through painting a green woman for someone and I want the background behind her to be trees.

There are silver birches in the grounds of the community centre where I attend our art group so we went out and I chose the trees I wanted pictures of. It helps to see the shapes of their trunks and branches instead of trying to imagine them. The details of the bark are fascinating and I hope to try and reproduce the patterns.

I’ll post a photo of the work in progress later but I want to tidy it up a bit first, it’s a bit like a mediaeval illustration at the moment, I need to make it more subtle.

I think there’s a bit of Pareidolia going on here as I can see a face in the tree bark.

Science and Art

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What topics do you like to discuss?

That’s why I like trying to paint astronomical pictures, like this tryptic of Jupiters pole based on the photos by NASAs Juno probe.

I’ve always been interested in both subjects, I wouldn’t say I was an expert, I will always check my facts if I write about science, but I enjoy thinking things through. And having a visual mind helps me imagine how things work.

Art is my first love, I worry that I will find it increasingly difficult to create since my diagnosis with Parkinsons disease. I would be bereft if I could not continue. I hope that better treatment becomes available, another reason for being interested in science

A green sea spirit

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Painting that just popped up on my Facebook memories today from 9 years ago. It’s a picture of a green man sea spirit. The image was based on a terracotta face I had outside my back door. There is a crack through it which was caused by frost I think. I changed the colours to reflect its maritime appearance. It has a similar feeling to the Air painting I just published, a spiritual or mythical feeling. Acrylic on canvas.

Air

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Blurry photo of my painting Air, part of four images including Earth, Water and Fire. I imagined the spirit of Air, rather like the faces of cherubs with puffed out cheeks blowing storms across ancient mariners maps the yellow and orange at the top is the sun being hidden behind clouds. I like the cheeky and mischievous face that stares out of the painting. It’s probably a little anachronistic, almost Victorian in style, but it’s a semi abstract acrylic on canvas. I just wish I’d taken a better photo. It is for sale.

Dragon coffee pot

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Something my mother collected, possibly a wedding present from the 1950’s? I’ve always loved this set. I borrowed it off my sister so I could use it in some college work about dragons.

This is a Chinese dragon I think? It might be Japanese, the way to tell is the number of toes on its feet. I think I remember that Japanese dragons have three toes and Chinese have four or five? If you know please remind me.

The coffee set was probably made for the export market and won’t be worth a great deal but I like it, it’s quirky and interesting. I think the dragon itself is quite humerous. I like the colours, also the airbrushing and the slip trailed areas.

I just Google imaged this, it’s Japanese Moriage Bone China.

Finishing work

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Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

I gave up work to mainly look after my hubby whose mental health was deteriorating. I could have carried on, but circumstances were also changing in my job. The way we worked was reverting back to old fashioned ways which I felt was detrimental to our clients. I’d fought hard to help them more and it felt like their needs were being forgotten while money was saved. Services were being slashed. I had to go, and I never regretted it, I just felt sorry for my fellow workers who I left behind. Covid and other problems meant that I didn’t make a go of my small business, but at least I tried.

Old cat sketch

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One of our cats from thirty years ago. Drawing in biro. He lived until he was about 17. He was a lovely quiet cat and I remember him and his sister were sweet. His mum came to us, as a pregnant stray. She was very intelligent and liked riding on my shoulders but her son didn’t do that. But he was still clever and would always come when I called or whistled him. He used to sneak into my neighbours house through their cat flap and he came home once with a huge steak in his mouth, growling when I took it off him. I never dared tell my friends what he had done!