Fears

Posted on March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Anxiety, Fears, Insomnia, Life, Memories, OK, Sadness, slack, Thinking, Time, Tired, Upset, WorldLeave a comment

Today is a hiding day. Lots of thoughts and fears roaming around the inside of my head. I need to get things done but I don’t feel like doing them. I’m going to give myself some slack, just a few hours to feel safe.

Yesterday I was more optimistic, I got some things done I’d been putting off. I’ve even started my gratitude book again. And later I will go out as the cats won’t have anything to eat if I don’t. But yesterday afternoon something happened that put everything into another perspective. And I just froze. I’m only hinting, I’m not going to say, and I think I will be OK, it was something mental not physical. I’m OK. I will be OK.

Cadmium colours

Posted on March 28, 2024March 28, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged analytical chemistry, Art, Cadmium, coffee jars, Fine Art, Memories, Paint, Pigments4 Comments

Back in the eighties hubby brought a whole load of cadmium colours back from the company where he was doing chemical analysis. I had about eight coffee jars full of cadmium ranging from pale yellow to red to deep maroon. But I didn’t know how to mix them, it was before Google and I had them on a shelf for a year. I also knew Cadmium is a heavy metal although these colours were pigments so hopefully they were safe.

Then a fellow art student asked about them. I agreed to give them to her. I know she used them in many paintings! I often wonder if she used them all, I haven’t seen her for forty years.

An artist!

Posted on March 28, 2024 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artist, Childhood, Colouring, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1891, Drawing, Etch-a-sketch, Figures, Life, Memories, PaintingLeave a comment

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Give me crayons, give me colouring books. Books with paper covered in dots that you wet with a paintbrush and colours emerge.. Dot to dot books, pages with squares on that I could turn into patterns. I might have been a bit older than five for some of these, but I always wanted art things for my birthday or Christmas. I must have heard of artists because I always wanted to be one. I got an etch-a-sketch machine to draw with, I loved that.

My sister wanted to be a musician, she eventually borrowed a violin from school. I got jealous because my parents said I was doing art and they couldn’t let me have a musical instrument, so I overtightened the strings on the violin and they snapped ( bad/very guilty memory!)…

Now? I’ve been an artist all my life. I started drawing when I was a child such as historical people in tudor dress, Asterix the Gaul, horses, clouds, all sorts of things. I still do that, anything is interesting to me.

Science

Posted on March 27, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Astrobiology, big bang, Chemistry, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1890, hard, Memory, Programme, Science, TimeLeave a comment

What’s something most people don’t understand?

Science is hard, it is very difficult to understand or often to explain. I think the world is split into people who get science and those that do not.

I don’t know if you have to have a particular brain? I found science hard, and being a girl didn’t push myself forward in classes. The boys always had their hands up shouting me sir, me! Answering the teachers questions.

And yet I eventually found I loved science. I used to watch a BBC programme called Horizon which had a great many subjects from Chemistry to Astrobiology, to the Big Bang as subjects of hourly shows. Suddenly my interest was piqued. I started to understand things and got more aware of science and it’s ramifications.

I also loved the Sky at Night, a monthly astronomy programme, it’s only short, 20 minutes, but really interesting. And then children’s programmes used to be informative, including the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. I remember seeing one about magnetic levitation of trains, it was a lecture by Professor Eric Laithwaite. Wonderful.

So my take from this is that you might not like science, but give it a chance, it helps you understand the world..

Squally shower

Posted on March 27, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged gusty, Life, March winds, Myth, Rain, Reality, springtime, Squall, Time, Weather, Window2 Comments

Wow, it’s just rained heavily. A real squall with gusting winds. The gutters were overwhelmed and water poured down the window. Now the sun’s back out and the dark grey clouds have blown away. I love the sound of raindrops clattering against the glass and the gusts of wind whistling through the gaps in the window frame. It’s never been properly airtight, but I don’t mind and in the dawn light I can hear the blackbird singing on the top of next doors chimney. Music of nature playing around my garden.

It reminds me of the myth or saying about the month of March and March winds… If it is a gentle start to the month it comes in like a lamb and out like a lion, while if it’s windy at the start of the month the opposite, in like a lion out like a lamb tends to be the case.

Ginger cat

Posted on March 25, 2024 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Cat, Fine Art, Floral, ginger cat, Memory, Painting, Stray cat, WindowsillLeave a comment

I painted this ginger cat a few years ago. He’s based on a stray that moved in with us for a while. He would sit on a windowsill and stare out at the garden. I decided to make his view a bit more floral, and almost Mediterranean.

Unfortunately we had to rehome him because he would fight with our other cats and ended up with an abscess in his paw. I spoke to the vets and they agreed to find him a good home. I hope he was happy and it was sad to say goodbye to him.

I don’t

Posted on March 25, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged ambition, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1888, Life, Memory, Poem, Poetry, Prompt, Stress, TimeLeave a comment

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

Look at the sky, it’s blue,

I love that wonderful hue

I could ignore it

Pass it by

Be driven hard

Ambition charged

But then I’d miss the best of life

While dealing with the anxious strife

No time to stop and stare they say

Is not, for life a good way.

Try not to stress

Though I confess

I walk on sometimes

And miss sunshines.

Koish

Posted on March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, distortion, Fine Art, Fish, Koi, Memory, Painting, Reflection, Water2 Comments

Koi carp I pay a few years ago, it was part of my recent exhibition. I thought it was worth showing on its own here. I love painting reflections and the way some parts of the painting can be seen through so you can see the fish. Other things include the distortion of the window bars in the water. Acrylic on canvas.

Timely ability

Posted on March 24, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged ability, Cooking, counting, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1887, measurement, Oven, Thinking, Time, Why?Leave a comment

What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?

I have a strange ability to do with time. If I’m cooking something in the oven and set the timer for whatever length of time the dish needs cooking I will have an urge to get up and check the time at exactly one minute to go! It happens virtually every time. It’s weird.

Other timely abilities included knowing when my hubby was coming home from work no matter what time his shift ended. I could not relax until a few minutes before he got home. This was despite the time not being a regular thing and no phone calls (he wouldn’t use a mobile phone). (One of my cats was always waiting for me when I came home, the same thing?).

Finally, I can be sitting at traffic lights and if I count to ten, the lights will usually change before I finish counting. I’m not sure why but it seems to work say about 70% of the time.

My thoughts are that I’m living time backwards! I can’t understand how it works. I know we humans have ‘timing’ cells in our brains that regulate our ability to measure time. Perhaps my cells are very accurate? It’s a mystery.

Breezy

Posted on March 23, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Breeze, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1886, Flying, Kite, kite festival, Memory, Time, Weather, WindyLeave a comment

What is your favorite type of weather?

Kite flying on a breezy day, enough breeze to lift the silk or nylon covered structure up into the air.

We went to a kite flying festival in Wales years ago. I had made a kite out of bamboo tied together with melamine silver plastic taped to it. I’d painted a Japanese symbol on it, I can’t remember what it was (this is about thirty years ago).

It wasn’t just breezy, it was very windy, and most kite flyers had decided not to bother. But I tied a tail onto my kite and tried to fly it. It wasn’t very happy so we added a plastic carrier bag! Then it flew, horizontally, just above the beach, but it flew. I was so proud!

The next day there was a gentle breeze, I took off the bag and the kite rose high into the air. I have always loved kite flying weather since then.

Mallaband-Brown

Category: Memories