New paintings and regular art updates.
Insomnia bites at my mind.
Makes sleep impossible,
Hides the remote to my dreams,
It gives no respite to my need to rest,
I am a prisoner held in its bright grasp.
Sleep, eludes, escapes, disappears.
5am ..the sun is rising on another day….
Shall I try again for a brief nap?
The click clack of the clock invades my ears,
Makes me hear the dawn chorus….
The radio susserating quietly by my bed…will I drift on …
Onto a narcoleptic ocean, softly, softly, gently falling…
AWAKE!
You glow in the dark to light my way….
Triceratopsically whimsical
Moonlit Dino, horned and frilled,
plastic printed 3d pet.
Your noble stance hides a part of your leg.
Broken off foot, you hobble across the cattle grid trivet
On top of the microwave…
How do you light my way?
Unique l.e.d light, recharged through a usb port.
Your battery flat now after a night on the tiles.
Left on by mistake to light the way of hunting cats,
tigerish moggies that stalk their catnip prey…
So my millions of year old pal, I shall renew your light,
Recharge , rebuild, modern but also ancient
Dino, Tri, Cera, you are Tops!
If ever there was a strange cat it was Casey. He would jump in to any box, and kite! Black and white, with golden eyes, white paws, weighing in at around 5 kilos.
Casey was a stray, he kept going into a local shop and walking along the shelves, knocking things down. I was asked if we would take him in as no one else had claimed him. So he became our cat for a while.
But Casey was not clever. Every day he would sit on the white line on the centre of our road, every day, just after 5, when cars were driving down the street. Every day risking his life. I would drive round the corner, get out of the car, and call him in. I never knew why he did it, but as the evenings got darker I became more worried.
Then one night he limped in through the back door. We took him to the vets and they said he must have been hit by a car. The head of his femur had been broken, where it fits into the hip socket. We had to let them operate to remove it, the hip would recover if he was kept quiet and not allowed to move around much. We got a small cage and he had to stay in it for 3 months…..
Eventually he was allowed out. He was fit and healthy again, but I doubted his ability to stay safe. It was winter so Casey was given luminous, sparkling collars so that if he did go onto the road he would be visible to cars.
Nothing happened for a while. I took a photo of him playing in the kite and decided to paint it.
Then one night he went out and when I looked for him in the morning he was nowhere to be found.
Worried, I put up posters, I rang a local cat charity, and then as it was the weekend, I had to wait for Monday to ring the council to see if their waste trucks had picked up a black and white cat. But there was no news.
Finally I rang another charity, yes they had collected a badly injured cat, they told me which vet he had gone to. It was on the other side of the city, it was the emergency vet that they used.
I rang in hope and fear. Yes they had received the cat, but it was badly injured when they got it so they had put it to sleep….. I was shocked. I asked why, and they said it was because no owner could be found! I asked what would have happened if I had found out where he was earlier? They would have operated to remove his leg! I could not get over the fact that he had been euthenised because I had not contacted them….I was so upset. His life was taken because there was no one available to pay a large bill….I was totally broken, felt so guilty. But there was no way I could have known where he was. It was before microchipping came in. My cats are both microchipped.
I still miss that mad, weird cat…..
Phantasmagoria….
I looked up the definition, it says it is a “shifting medley of real or imagined figures, as in a dream”….. noun.
I had not really thought about the word Phantasm until I saw it on a programme earlier today. It makes me think of ghostly figures and ectoplasm.
I don’t know if I believe in them, but there are people that do. A local pub which used to be a hotel is supposed to be one of the most haunted pubs in the country. The Leopard in Burslem, Stoke on Trent, is know for its spooky atmosphere. Several TV shows have been filmed there to explore the ghostly emanations. There is a story that there are phantoms in the cellar, and ghost hunts regularly take place there.
I can imagine figures walking through the public bar, or in the back room. Floating above the ground, disappearing behind curtains or into walls. Spirits caught between the past and the present. The stairs that lead downstairs feel particularly eerie. There us a geological fault in Burslem and the building has a strong lean to one side. If you drop a ball on the floor it will roll to the other side of the room. The Leopard has a long history and is very interesting to visit.
I have not seen anything myself, but some of the staff and customers say they have. Whether there is such a thing a Phantasms is not something I can prove or disprove. I think I will keep an open mind.
We saw a bit if rain at the weekend, but not enough.
RAIN
The Sun is shining, it’s not raining.
The air is hot, its not raining.
The fields are dry, its not raining.
The clouds are gone, its not raining. ..
No water, no clouds, no green, no flowers…
It’s not raining.
The reservoir’s run dry, its not raining.
The rivers are low, its not raining.
The canals are closed, its not raining.
The grass is burning, its not raining…
No fish, no frogs, no newts, no fogs,
It’s not raining.
The crops are withered, its not raining.
The cows are hungry, its not raining.
The sheep are thin, its not raining.
The moors are burning, its not raining.
No chill, no cold, no frost, no fountains,
It’s not raining.
The jet stream is north, its not raining,
The pressure is high, its not raining.
We cannot bathe, its not raining.
We cannot drink, its not raining.
Global warming? Climate change? More to come?
It’s stopped raining…..
Green men tangled in a big green square,
I just wrote a really bad poem about Green men but I decided to delete it and not inflict it on you!
These were drawn in ArtRage oils, a free app from samsung galaxy. They were duplicated in an app called layout. The colours were enhanced using Instagram filters.
I like the way the digital brushes give it a more 3d impression. You can use ArtRage with 4 brush styles and metallic or non metallic paint. There is also a slider to change the size of the brush head.
Layout allows you to choose up to 9 pictures that can be moved or flipped to make new patterns. As you work your way through editing the pictures you end on a page that takes your drawing into Instagram, here you can edit the picture further. Eventually you end up with whatever image you want modified to suit your requirements.
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The UK is one if those weird places in the world where the weather can change at the drop of a hat (or a cold front). The hot dry weather we have experienced over the last few weeks has taken us a bit by surprise.
British people expect changeable weather. If its sunny for a few days, and hot, we expect a thundery breakdown of the weather, raining cats and dogs…. (metaphorically)…If it is raining we expect more of it, or fog or snow, or hail….we can’t get used to it….and yet we are fine if we go abroad, where its always sunny!
Britain lies in a temperate climate, with winds coming towards us from all directions…East winds bringing cold Siberian temperatures or rain from Europe, North winds with storms and snow, West winds with Atlantic gales and low pressures, or areas of high pressure that can bring sun or frost. Heat rising on winds from the South, dragging up sand from the Sahara ….
There are many sayings in Britain along the lines of “if you can see _____ its going to rain, and if you can’t see _____ it is raining.” That is why its such a green land.
But, we are using too much of the water that we have in reserves, there are canals being closed for the summer because they don’t have enough water. Some reservoirs are almost empty…it is not a crisis yet. It may not get that bad but we are hearing about possible hose pipe bans.
Maybe It is global warming, all I can say is I hope humanity decide to do something about it…..
After our first night at Morecambe we could not resist a drive up to South Lakeland. Part of the Lake district. It only took a short while to get there.
The first place we visited was the lakeland motor museum. Situated near Haverthwaite in the south part of the Lake district, the museum is just off the main road. There is a large selection of motor cars, from the oldest cars and getting younger as you wind your way through the collection. Interspersed with shop window fronts full of museum exhibits, the cars are very interesting. I decided to draw part of a blue Bentley that was owned by Donald Campbell. He lost his life trying to beat the water speed record on Coniston lake. The colour of the car is not authentic because the car was restored in the past. However it was a beautiful example of the workmanship of car makers. There are also bicycles and planes on display in the museum.
Then it’s a few meters down the road to the Lakeside and Haverthwaite railway. I sat and drew the bridge over the train tracks while we waited for the steam train to arrive. The train was pulled by an engine called Repulse. I’m not sure but I think it was a Bagnall engine. They also have the only two Fairburn steam engines still in existence. (The rest were broken up by British rail when diesels were introduced to the railways).
We took the train up to Lakeside and then travelled on the Tern, an old converted steam ship which is now powered by a diesel engine. Tern took us to Bowness about half way up the Lake. The mist and rain was falling off the hills and from the sky. After several weeks of summer heat it was actually quite pleasant to feel the cool damp air. We did not have time to carry on up to the top of the lake to Ambleside because we were running out of time. So a short break at a Lakeside cafe and we came back on another, smaller boat. Back to the train and back to our starting point at Haverthwaite station.
Back in time for a quiet meal in a Chinese restaurant in Morecambe……
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside/estuary.
Lovely sunset, tried to capture the colours but because it was getting dark I couldn’t see the colours if the pencils and if I had put the light on I would not have been able to see the view….
I do like sketching instead of photography but in this case the coloured pencils did not do it justice…
Anyway it was another gorgeous day in the sunny UK. I have just read a short story by another blogger about the world drying up through man’s insatiable needs. I do wonder if this is further proof of global warming.
So much to mull over….
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S…?
Sea?
No….
Sky?
No….
Sun?
No……
Sand?
No…..
Shell’s?
No……
Starfish?
No……
Sunglasses?
No…..
Shingle?
Nooooo. …….
Sails?
No……
Seashore?
No…..
Scallops?
NO!
Shallows?
No….
Swimmers?
NO!
What then?
SHARK!
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