Courtney Pine

Courtney Pine is a jazz saxophonist famous for his amazing music. He has a form of synesthesia and sees shapes in his music. I was watching #skyportraitartistoftheyear and decided to try and draw Courtney Pine from an Internet image. I had fun, this took about 1hr…colour pencil sketch, underdrawn with a 9h pencil that scratched through lines into the paper surface…

Rat-a-tat-cat!

I’m convinced our outdoor cat thinks the cat flap is a door knocker! When he wants to come in he rattles it (it’s locked to keep our indoor cats in and other cats, that roam the garden, out).

Tonight I was washing up and rattle – bang-rattle-tap, tap, tap! I didn’t open the door straight away so the cat flap did another bang and crash…

Then, outdoor cat scoots in, eats two pouches of food, some cat milk, some cat treats, then the emploring look ‘can I go out again?’ no doubt he will be back later….

Here be dragons…

Not Welsh Dragons, but at least they are dragons. Today is Saint David’s day, the patron Saint of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales. But the symbol for the day is the daffodil. This is a bit of a confused blog post!

Anyway this dragon fountain is in Hanley Park, Stoke-on-Trent’s. I think the dragons are more like water monsters as they have fishy tails (and this is a fishy tale!)

The Small Dog on Ageing…

I just read this and had to share it x it’s by Sue Vincent, who posts wise words in her blog. Please follow the link at the bottom of the page to find out more….

Sue Vincent's avatarThe Small Dog

She fell on her face and she looked none too happy…

And recently she seems to feel pretty crappy…

Most mornings, I hear her, when rising from bed,

And where once she’d be singing, she’s groaning instead.

*

Now me, I can sympathise, getting no younger,

I still want my walks but without the same hunger,

I still need my ball and my toys and to play…

But these days, I’m happy to sleep half the day.

*

We’re ageing together, my two-legs and me,

Where I can still run, she’s slowed up mightily,

I’ll still make a run for a half-open gate,

The only thing she’s heading fast for is ‘late’.

*

But while we’re both here, we’ll believe in forever,

In loving and living and laughing together,

For one thing that never grows old is the heart

And once filled with love no two hearts ever part.

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Local landmark

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was local landmark. We had a walk round the main Hanley Park and also the small park which had this fountain in. The last time I saw it, it was frozen! But tomorrow is the first day of spring, and it was a pleasant and sunny afternoon. Here is my pencil and felt pen depiction of the fountain.