Paint

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Paint is a wonderful thing,  a riot of colours, a rainbow of tones.

Acrylic for ease of colour use, oil paint for staying damp to ease blending. Water colours for transparency and simplicity, Gouache for more opaque colours over watercolour. The types of paint are fascinating. Each has its own method and technique. Even paints such as emulsion and gloss can be used in Art, and of course spray cans are used for graffiti.

From millennia ago humans have made marks, on cave walls, on rocks, papyrus and paper. Canvas and screens. The need to make pictures seems to have been with us almost from the cradle. Children learn to draw at an early age. Scribbling, then with improved hand eye coordination comes drawing, painting, even writing. For what is language, it is an abstract representation of what was once pictograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics show the link between art and language.

Paint and art invade our society. Art and colour are used to design every day objects. Architecture is a form of art. We need artists and painters in our visual society. Art is there in video games, special effects, what colour your clothes or car will be next season. What palette you decide to use to decorate weddings and birthdays. The list is almost endless….

 

In memory of Tig

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This is a digital drawing I did of my old cat called Tig.

He was a stray, and turned up one day at our back door. Our other cat Casey had died following a road traffic accident so we were happy to give him a home .

Tig was a character, he was very friendly and fun, his one fear was of the window cleaner. He would always run and hide when the man came round next door. Whether it was the rattle of his bucket, or his ladder, Tug would absent himself until the man had gone.

He was a climber and loved the trees in our garden. He would sometimes climb up the goat willow tree on the corner of the garden and jump to a neighbouring roof to sunbathe.

Life was sunny for Tig. He loved a fuss, and he had such a cute face. I even started doing tiny drawings on a website called Youdraw that I called “the adventures of Tig”. I didn’t write it for long but people knew about him and liked him.

Then, well , the day came when he didn’t come home after the window cleaner had been. We had put posters up when Casey went missing, and on the following day when he still hadn’t come back I decided to do some posters and print them off. But before I did them I visited the neighbour because Tig used to go in his house for a fuss…….

As I walked out of his front door I saw Tig curled up outside our front door. I rushed over to him, but he wasn’t moving. As I got close I could see he wasn’t breathing.

I didn’t understand how he got there. Then my partner came out of the house. He had been looking for me. He explained he had found Tig in our garden, and realised he had died. He didn’t want me to see him straight away because I would be upset so he had left Tig outside while he went in to get me.

He did not know I was at the neighbours, and was upset that I had found the cat. It was a horrible, sad, day.

It seems that Tig may have been poisoned. We contacted the vet, but they told us even if they did an autopsy we would not know where he had picked it up.

Tig is buried in our garden, under the goat willow. I still miss him.

Tubes

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I thought I would try and write a quick story for you….

Extruded tubes appeared before me, alien, moving like snakes towards me. Garish colours assaulted my eyes. Where was it from, what was it?

It flowed down from the sky one summer night, plastic, solid, opaque. Hidden from view in the forest until dawn light caught its curves. Like a gigantic chrysalis the shell began to split. Each tube containing an arm or a leg. Crawling out from its cocoon.

The weight and mass of the creature made the ground shake and tremble. Trees toppled around it as it raised its glistening body up to the sky. Woodland animals fled from it as its huge bulk shrieked as it moved. Yellow fluid steamed and it oozed from the monster. No shape like this had ever stood on Earth  before.

I cannot describe it, it did not resemble anything I had ever seen before. The only conclusion I could guess at was that it might be part of an invasion ? But what could it want?

The massive bulk moved closer to me. I had the intense feeling that it was trying to communicate. A gap opened in the side closest to me….

“Got any cheese?” It asked…..

Kirk and Spock

OK so I’m a trekkie, I’m a sci fi nut. I enjoyed watching the series when I was a child, in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I loved both these characters, in particular Spock. I was amazed that logic was so important and I would often try to think logically like him. I was clearly a strange child.

Two of my favourite authors were Issac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. I watched the film 2001 a Space Oddessy which is based on Arthur C Clarke’s book.  The images of space flight were really incredible. It was good that the flight to the space station was accompanied by music, it really irritates me when they play sounds when space is a vacuum and sound cannot travel in it. (That was one thing that DID irritate me about Star Trek). I also like the film I Robot, although it doesn’t stick to the book like 2001. Asimov 3 laws seemed to chime with Spock’s logic. I think I had most of Asimov’s Robot books and a fair few of his short stories.

Yes I’m more Star Trek than Star Wars. I loved the character’s, Uhura, Bones McCoy and Scottie, Chekov and Sulu. At one stage I had all the Star Trek books that had been written by James Blish. I lost them when I moved to college.

Kirk is great in his own way, he is such a strong character. My favourite scene is where he opens a grain hopper and Tribbles fall out. I still find that hilarious.

These two drawings were done at sketchfu. A drawing website that us now defunct. The little creature on the screen behind Spock is Fu. The drawing site only had 5 sizes of pen, an opacity tool, a colour picker and a pallette of colours. I wish I could have made the flesh tones more smooth and blended. I enjoyed drawing these two portraits….

I like the new series of films with replacement actors, I hope they get the chance to do more.

 

 

Think

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Don’t think, act…. is that a good idea? Sometimes a moment’s thought can help get you out of a situation that you might have a problem with if you acted immediately, but on other occasions you just have to act. Maybe you should not spend time debating with yourself when you need to make a split second decision, but on the other hand, it just might help.

I remember driving down the motorway to Devon a few years ago. I didn’t have time to think when I saw debris in the road, I had to swerve round it as quickly as I could. If I hadn’t reacted I don’t know what would have happened to us. It was only as I was looking back, that I saw smoke rising from a car in the ditch next to the motorway in my rear view mirror.

Another time I had to fix my car starter motor. I could have rung a repair service and paid for it to be fixed, but I remembered it was sticking at top dead center. I had just come from a job interview and was wearing a blouse and suit. I opened the bonnet and tapped the starter motor with a spanner out of the boot. I tried the engine and it started! If I hadn’t got it working I could have got it repaired, but I didn’t have much money. The man sitting in the car behind me looked surprised. I got the job, and I was pleased that a moment of thought had solved the car problem.

Poppies

There is a whole cluster of poppies in poor soil round the corner from where I live.

These are tall oriental ones. But we also have Welsh poppies which are yellow and orange. We have grown ladybird poppies which are red and black and we once grew a Himalayan poppy, (mecanopsis?) which is bright blue.

So inevitably they get into my photos and paintings…..

Poppy, poppy, I see you flutter, blue sky, red headed beauty

Poppy, poppy, mediaeval sleep enhancer, narcotic, danger.

Poppies, poppy, seeds for flavour, thriving on old building sites.

Poppies, poppies, memories of war, petals fluttering down upon our heads.

Papaver, poppy , horticultural star. Giver of colour and Sun.

Smile

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I came across this last week. It was something I doodled when I was at work and I had it stuck on my computer for a few years…. that tiny little hand/paw trying to hold things together…the mouth stretched wide, with huge jaws…

It says smile,  but really it was a grimace, a smile through gritted teeth. I was feeling very low but didn’t want to tell anyone. It was about work, and people, but I used to just get on with things. I wouldn’t let them know they were getting to me. I would just look at this drawing and smile.

Sweet smile you tear at my mouth,

You pull the sides upwards into a rictus grin.

Corners pulled up like a weight lifter raising kilos above his head.

Crocodile smile?  No, more of a dinosaur grin…

Ancient, creaking, trying not to give in to atrophy.

Smile for the camera, twist your lips, show your teeth.

No don’t cry! Grin!

 

Red glasses

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A couple of years ago I did a doodle on the computer of me wearing my old red glasses. The idea was to draw it as if I was using a scraper board …. you know scratching through a black surface to reveal a metallic coloured base layer.

The red really stands out on this drawing (which has been duplicated in layout).

I think artists need to experiment, even if its just  little ideas that get the cogs going in your brain!

Red glasses hide your eyes behind

Thick glass, makes you think?

Makes your thought opaque, hidden,

Eyes glint under the red frame,

Pale thoughts unbidden.

Will they see the real you,

will they feel your thoughts?

Reveal yourself by showing your eyes..

The pain, the fear, the dark.

Last year

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Last year the garden was lovely, full of flowers. This ceramic head I made 20 years or so ago was full of nasturtiums and lobelia. It sits on the wall by the back door, its glazed in st Nicholas glaze if I remember rightly. Greeny grey in colour. It was hand built with a flat back and I used wet hand towels to support the face while it was drying out ready for firing.

The space inside it is not very big, so plants that can survive drought conditions are best planted in it.

We are getting our hanging baskets this week and I will try and plant some pots up with begonias, pelagoniums, bizzie lizzies and fuschias to cheer the walls around them up.

I would like to do some more pottery heads, maybe green men masks to make the yard more interesting.

Meanwhile in the main garden the trees are getting out of control. We had some work done earlier in the year but the remaining trees and shrubs have gone rampant because they now have more light.

Still if it works and we get more birds like a chaffinch and a couple of robins, plus nesting blue tits who’s chicks have now fledged , I guess I don’t mind too much!

Choir

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I sing in a couple of choirs, one which is all female and the other which is a mixed choir. Both of them are acappella, which means unaccompanied by a musical instrument, except perhaps to give us our starting notes.

Summer time is when we do most of our gigs. Both choirs have things coming up. The mixed choir is singing locally this weekend, we will be singing for about 50 minutes, so we need to know a variety of songs. The gig on Saturday will be mostly Summer songs, for instance, “Summer is a coming in”. Some of us know the songs off by heart, and others will be using song sheets.

Both choirs repetoirs are very varied, the female choir knows more international songs like “Meliswe” which is Hoza I think? We also do Maori, French, Creole, Croatian, among many other songs.

I have to say singing in a choir can be wonderful when we get it right, and sometimes a real struggle while we are learning a peice. Recently we sang with another choir (a lung health choir) at a production of a play for four nights. We were singing to add atmosphere to the play, and we sang an arrangement of “cloudbusting” by Kate Bush, over and over again. 12 times on one night! This was while the audience were being led round the auditorium and getting the spooky, cold feeling of the place (we were at an old chapel that is being restored and it was probably the coldest May for years).

The female choir is doing a walkabout in a few weeks round the town centre, singing and then moving on. Our normal choir leader is away on that day so some of us are taking responsibility to lead the choir. It’s not something most of us have ever done. So if you see some confused women singing out of key….it might be us!