New paintings and regular art updates.
Yesterday’s walk was past trees coming into blossom on the Cauldon arm of the canal. The white bridge over it is in the background. I decided to make a collage if it, post it notes cut up for the blossom and leaves. I used some black monoprint for the tree bark. Then I added black ink and graphite. This was for the #bandofsketchers prompt regeneration. I’m afraid the blossom looks more like butterflies.. But I tried!
Although the nature reserve is on a steep slope, there is still a pool on it. The end with the bridge over it might be a dam. I don’t know the history of the place but there are steep steps down into it and in some areas what paths there are, are quite slippy.
I had to lean on my friends arm to get down one section, not socially distanced but I was wearing a mask.
Today was sunny with very warm temperatures, the warmest March day since 1968. Red admiral butterflies were flitting about in pairs and triplets. The bird song was loud and liquid. Buds were bursting and insects humming.
I did another five miles today, that seems to be my upper limit for walking at the moment. Tomorrows planned walk is about the same length!
Imagined Islands, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones looks like a lot of fun. Lots of different maps by illustrators in different, fun, styles. I think it will help me get a feel for the map project I’ve got to do for college. In the meantime my cat seems to want to help me by interpreting the word ‘archipelago’….
Farewell to a friend I never met. A woman a little older, and a lot wiser than me. Someone I admired and thought of often. I knew that she was going, but I didn’t want to believe it.
Waking up this morning and hearing on an email that she passed away has made me feel very sad. Wishing that she had been given a bit more time. But this is real life. People die and leave big or small holes in your life. I’d followed her blog for two or three years and always enjoyed it. I probably read most of her posts and enjoyed joining in her Thursday writing prompts. I particularly loved reading what her small dog felt about what was happening.
She bought interest into my life and we chatted in the comments on her blog occasionally. I’m sure there was a lot more about her that I didn’t know, and this is meant to be a small tribute to her. To say Farewell and to offer condolences.
I am want to say thank you to her partner Stuart for letting us know it has happened. Not knowing and just finding someone has disappeared is awful. I hope it is OK to have written this.
Rest in Peace Sue Vincent. 29.3.21
Narrow boat in the bottom of the canal lock as the water started to fill it up. Seen on a walk today.
I couldn’t stop to see the lock fill up fully as my friend had walked further on and I don’t like walking along the canal on my own.
It was quite warm today for a change and the breeze had dropped a bit. We carried on along and I half expected the narrow boat to catch up with us but we got to the next lock and it was still well behind us.
Great to feel sunshine on my face properly for the first time this year. I even took my coat off!
Magic Mountain Creek is a novel I began last June during lockdown. It was inspired by an article in The Smithsonian Magazine about the packhorse librarians in Kentucky during the Depression. I have self-published it, and is available free to read on Issuu or as a Kindle publication from Amazon for £4.99. “1934, Depression-era Kentucky, […]
Full moon through a dirty window. It’s blueish hue reminds me of those old songs, moon spoon, June, tunes of the past.
A glowing cold ball in the sky. Full now, but no longer linked to lunatics and howling wolves. Perhaps the fluorescent glow from sodium lights has drowned out its flooding influence.
But the tides still turn under its gravity, pulled upwards, the sea rises with the moon above it, while on the opposite side of the Earth the sea is held less firmly and slacken into another bulge. That is why there are two high tides and low tides a day.
And the Moon is tidally locked with Earth, so one side always faces us now. The Moon may be the result of a cataclysmic impact when a small planet struck Earth a glancing blow and lifted matter from Earth into the sky. The matter from the collision coalesced into the Moon and its orbit around Earth began. Now it is gradually moving away, a few centimeters a year. As it orbits Earth it is gradually slowing our spin. We used to make one rotation of the planet in around Twenty three hours. Now we have slowed to twenty four.
Moon. So much to learn.
Sign of spring
Fluffy and pink,
Clouds of colour
Coming through
Brief but beautiful
Soon to fly away
Torn by the wind.
Confetti of nature
Dancing on the breeze
Blossom.
I was depressed by the amount of rubbish floating in the canal today. It was in an area close to Stoke Town centre.
I saw many old plastic bottles, they were dirty, as if they had been stored somewhere outside and then dumped together into the canal later. There were bits of broken wood and even an old set of mudguards from a bike floating on the surface. It makes me angry, because this section of canal is part of our city. How disgusting that stuff can just be dumped. Then further on towards Dolphin Boats but on the other side was a burnt out motor scooter. No one seems to care. I tagged in the Canal and Rivers Trust. I hope they can arrange a clean up.
An old drawing done in 2019. When life was comfortable, the cats were snug. I hadn’t started doing my illustration course and I was drawing for pleasure.
I’d done another challenge, a hundred days drawing challenge, I think this was done on the third day because I’ve highlighted the date in red. I don’t know which of the cats this was. It isn’t our outside cat, because he was still living outside then (now all I have to do is whistle by the back door and he comes).
Anyway this just popped up in my memories, so I thought I would share it. A happy black and white cat, asleep, with no worries.
Mallaband-Brown