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Playing with photos

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My friend Tim sent me this photo, I think it’s in the Yorkshire sculpture park. I could not resist turning it into a symmetrical pattern. I use an app called layout that allows you to turn and flip photos. I tried the picture in various orientations but this was my favourite and I felt it was the best looking.

I just feel so in contact with the Earth and summer when I see a landscape like this. The umbelliforous flowers in the foreground remind me of the bubbles in a champagne glass. The sculpture is not the focus of the photo, it seems almost to merge into the back ground trees.

I hope Tim forgives me for using his image.

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View of Dartmoor

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This is a painting I did a few years ago of a friend standing beside one of the outcrops at the top of a hill in the Dartmoor national park.

The rocks have been weathered over the millennia to create flat plate like structures stacked up on top of each other. Sometimes the base will be of softer rock and so the stack will be formed above a narrow neck of rock where the surrounding stone had been worn away. Another place to find these sort of outcrops is in Yorkshire. You can also get limestone pavements where the rock is at ground level but there are large cracks going down deep between the rocks with plants growing up, taking shelter between the stones. These can be found up at Malham cove in Yorkshire.

My friend used to fly gliders over Dartmoor, so he knew his way around the area. It is a beautiful part of the world, high up above the surrounding countryside with rolling hills and wide skies. Sometimes it snows up there and it can be very bleak in the winter . I can imagine trying to shelter behind these rock on a cold winters day with an northerly wind blowing snow and sleet at you. I guess Dartmoor ponies might even have sheltered there.

The painting was quite small and was painted with acrylic on canvas. It went to a good home.

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Ways to prove the Earth is not flat!

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I keep hearing about people who think the Earth is flat so I decided to do a thought experiment to see if it is possible…

• If the Earth was flat it would be daytime all over the world at the same time, or night time all over the world.

• The sun would rise at the same time everywhere and set at the same time.

• There would be no equator, and all parts of the world would be at the same temperature.

• There would be no north and south poles and no northern or southern lights.

• There would be no need for time zones.

• Flat earthers say the horizon is flat, but that is because the globe of the Earth has a very large circumference.

• If the Earth was flat boats would not go over the horizon.

• If the Earth was flat you would be able to see all the way to the other side using a powerful telescope on top of a big building.

• If the Earth was flat we would be able to travel to the edge.

• A flat Earth would cast a flat shadow on the moon during an eclipse of the moon. (this is because the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon when it happens and if the Flat side was facing the Sun if would be overhead and you would not see the moon, but it would cast a circular shadow).

•  Finally….If the Earth is flat….what’s on the other side? Is it Elephants and Turtles all the way down? ( according to Terry Pratchett)

The live and dead tree

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The live and dead tree sits hard on the ground.

One twist of bark still attached…

Like Ivy clinging to the trunk,

Twisted knotted rope like round and taut.

 

Green leaves, large and serrated, sprout out,

Twigs and branches caught in the embrace,

Dead wood holds up life to the sun,

Wise, wide trunk so aged.

 

How did you die?

We’re you struck, hit, broken, by wind or storm?

Did you find disease in your skin?

Is the clinging umbilicus of your wooden baby your clone?

 

Your age is ancient, your body skeletal.

Your upper limbs and branches peeled of all skin.

But still you sit hard on the ground,

Immortal, in a way reborn.

Today’s drawings

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Today I had the pleasure of going out with The Orme Art group for our annual trip to a landscape venue at an old house and its grounds in Staffordshire.

The weather was very windy,  so I decided to take a small sketch pad  and coloured pencils,  soft pastels, and fine tipped ink pens. I thought I had my portable chair in the back of the car but it wasn’t there when I opened the boot. Luckily there were chairs in the garden of the large house for us to use.

The other artists there were either painting with watercolours or acrylics, but we were in a reasonably sheltered spot, so they were not affected by the wind. There is something wonderful, sitting in a green space,  looking at the landscape, the shapes of the trees and leaves. Noticing where the shadows fall, which direction the light is coming from. Choosing the medium which is most appropriate for the drawing you are doing. I find using black pens are good for quick sketches, and outlining and shading shadowed areas. The pastels bought out the colours on an old tree, where only one section of bark was still attached and so only a few branches were still in leaf. I used the coloured pencils to try and give an impression of the solidity of the house with feathery leaves superimposed on the walls and windows. Finally I drew a quick sketch of one of the other artists as she painted the tree that I had drawn.

Having a small A5 sketch pad that is ring bound is really useful. You can draw across the whole page without it flipping shut on you. Yes the holes and wire can get in the way a bit, but being able to fold the whole book back allows for easier handling. You can use it in portrait or landscape positions, and it is easier to fold shut if you get caught in a sudden rainshower.

I spent about an hour on the drawing of the house, and 20 to 30 minutes on the landscape/tree. The quick sketch of my friend took about 15 minutes.

The one thing I should have worn is sturdy shoes! There were a lot of insects about and I’m lucky I didn’t get bitten!

Swirled

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I did another doodle today, just because I can I guess. I wanted to do something bright and colourful. Something cheerful during this hot spell of weather.

Primary colours with a touch of green and orange to brighten up my day. A tiny bit of black for contrast….curves like a fountain give a flourish to the doodle.

I’ve explained I the past what apps I use, I don’t want to bore you again!

Sometimes I can see animals in these patterns, today I think I see cats or dogs…I used to see patterns in old wallpaper and curtain patterns. There is apparently a name for it but I cannot remember what it is.

All the best and have a good weekend!

Twins?

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One of the things about being a painter is being asked to do copies of your work. This was the case with these paintings. The original was painted by looking at the photo on my mobile phone. The second was copied from the first.

Question, can you tell which is the original? When I asked my husband he recognised the first one straight away ( although he had seen both of them being painted so that was not difficult).

It’s actually quite hard to copy a painting, especially as I do it free hand without drawing it out first. I think I didn’t make a bad job of it and I hope its new owner will like it.

Why this painting? Because I like both the colours and the challenge of painting her hat/snood? Trying to get the colours and details right. I hope you like it too….

Premonitions

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What makes the world go round? How do we experience time? What is a premonition?

Some people pretend to prognosticate, be aware of portentous events before they happen. Other people do not give these ideas credence, or use logic to work out what is actually happening.

On a few occassions something will happen that I thought of the day, hour or minute before. For instance yesterday I remembered hearing a radio play with a particular character in several months ago. Today another play with the same character was on the radio….it made me quite confused. Could it be I had had a premonition? When I look back on my life I can remember other instances when I knew something was going to happen. Almost as if Time was playing in reverse, so I knew because it had already happened?

Then the sceptic in me woke up. Perhaps I had heard a trailer for the play on the radio yesterday but only on a subconscious level? Maybe other premonitions were coincidences. Although I can’t explain when I dreamt that I would meet some friends on a cycle ride and have to take shelter from a storm in a bus shelter? That actually did happen!

Weird, maybe something to do with quantum entanglement. But thats another story. This thing has never allowed me to predict lottery numbers or winners of horse races. Although I do win more than my fair share of raffle prizes!

Colouring books….

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My partner is not an artist, but he does enjoy art, so he has started colouring adult art books. The themes in them don’t seem to have progressed much more than in children’s books, but they do allow him to relax by concentrating on a subject.

The art in the books appears to have been drawn with a bit more skill, and if you choose something with a specific theme they appear to be of higher quality. He recently bought himself one based on the Lord of the Rings books.

I dont know how anyone else feels about this? Is colouring in  a book an art form? Is the artist the person who draws out the initial image or the person shading in the image?

I guess its like old fashioned painting by numbers….however it is a hobby for those who want to engage in artistic projects.

It would be interesting to see how an artist tackled filling in the pictures. Would they use traditional felt pens, or more interesting methods such as acrylics, oil paints, different types of charcoal or even collage and gold leaf. Turning something which is mundane into a spectacular rainbow of colours.

So maybe that is a challenge. To take one of these books and transform it into a true piece of art….

Thunder

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If you search blitzortung on the internet you get taken to a site en.blitzortung.org

This is a real time lightning display around the world.

There are several maps, so you can hone down the areas you want to see, for instance to North or South America, or Asia. Then you can refine your search even more, down to particular countries or States.

The site shows you where lightening has struck over the last couple of hours, the colours of the strikes changes from white (within the last 20 minutes) to deep red for one’s that happened a couple of hours before. You can choose to see where the detectors are which are picking up the lightening signals, and also include sound, so you hear a click for every strike. Its almost as if the thunder is happening in sequence sometimes, as if one strike cascades to another strike over vast distances…

I like this site because its free, you can see if storms are coming your way. You can also see storm fronts developing and moving over countries. It’s just interesting!

My only quibble is that only capital cities or state capitals are marked on the maps. I’ve looked at another web page that does pretty much the same thing but the maps have more info. But when I realised they were getting their information from this site I just reverted back to blitzortung…