I’m still confused 😕

Posted on September 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Confused, Cursing changes, Help, Is this a draft?, Learning, Life, What does this mean?, WordPressLeave a comment

WordPress, it’s like looking in a mirror with your face obscured. You can see it’s there, but you can’t work out what is going on! I tried to update a post that I might have published, or might have been a draft, and I ended up in one of those endless loops, where you don’t know where anything is? I found myself being told the post was empty, that it was a local draft. That I needed to go to a preview rather than editing the post. Then I was told again the post was empty… Feels like fighting with bureaucracy. Not knowing what the other side knows, only what you suspect….. Anyway it eventually posted… I think!

Leaves

Posted on September 3, 2020September 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Children, Colour, Crisp, Leaves, like glass, Pattern, Poem, Poetry, WeatherLeave a comment

Leaves on fire

Bright like stained glass.

Arched and curved.

Twisted and crisp

Like brittle sugar glass

Crispy or soggy

Under children’s feet,

Kicking the fallen leaves.

Leaves because they’ve left?

Painting scenery

Posted on September 3, 2020September 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylics, Bottle ovens, Emulsion, Flat scenery, Hardboard, Life, Penkhull, Penkhull mystery play, Picture, Random, Scenery, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

I just chose a random photo from my gallery. It’s a scenery flat for the mystery plays a few years ago. When you are painting on a board eight foot by four foot you don’t need a lot of detail. But I love these iconic bottle ovens, so of course I decided to paint every brick. Plus it means I can give a bit of perspective rather than leaving it flat looking. I also hate when I see scenery and the perspective is wrong. I have seen some that are really weird. It’s distracting (for me anyway). I can spend more time on looking at scenery than at a performance.

A lot of scenery I’ve done for the Mystery plays was painted very quickly. When we have prepared and rehearsed for them the time we can have to use the hall we work in is limited so that we don’t have to spend too much money.

I don’t know what will happen next year? Will there be another one? I don’t know. For me by next summer it could be a real boost to have it on again.

So I did play…

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Bubble wrap, Design, Editing apps, Layout, Life, Photo director app, Photos, Playing, RandomLeave a comment

I’ll just leave these three here. I do like messing about. Goodnight all.

Insect eye view?

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apps, Blogging, Bubble wrap, Insect, Photo, photo editor, Playing, RandomLeave a comment

No, just a photo through a sheet of bubble wrap, then multiplied in a photo editing ap, there you are, a vaguely insect like photo. Now I could put it through a couple of other apps and see what happens? Shall I….

To be honest I don’t know. If I did it might be OK, but I haven’t decided yet. Sometimes you can have too many options at your fingertips.

Cat shenanigans

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Abandoned cat, Boy cat, Cat, Cat flap, Fun?, Girl cat, Life, Living with cats, Random, ShenanigansLeave a comment

Hes just discovered the cat flap is working, so he went out into the dark night. The thing is that now both of my cats are inoculated they can go out. But there is the abandoned cat outside and he’s twice my boy cats size and even bigger than the girl cat.

So boy went out through the flap, but couldn’t get back in because the abandoned one was hanging round for food. Solution. Put a tray of cat food further up the yard to distract the abandoned one, then call boy cat in. Finally lock the cat flap for the night…. Result he can’t get out! Will open it again in the morning.

Crop

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apple, Autumn, Blogging, Food, Fruit, Gardening, Life, Pear, Plant, Random, Tasty, TreesLeave a comment

Days are getting shorter now and the fruit is getting ripe. We have plenty of pears on our tree, but of all five apple trees only one fruit. But then after weeding the allotment this morning we were allowed to get a tub of apples in exchange. Some of them are different varieties, a lot of them are a bit holey but I’m hoping they will taste nice if I stew them up or cook them in a cake. If it turns out OK I will post about it.

Tree

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Drawing, Environment, Life, Nature, Poem, Poetry, Sea, Sketch, Sketching, Tree, Woman artist2 Comments

Tree, look after me,

Let me climb up and see

Where the world ends

Where the sea sweeps

High views

Cliff edges,

Sand bars

Tree you let me see far

Over hill and vale

Into the distant waves

Crashing across the earth’s face

Like tears and mountains,

Flying spray

Blowing limbs from the tree

In a gale.

Hubby digging

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Etruria Artists, Friends, Garden, Life, Meeting people, Nervous, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Portuguese cafe, Sketching, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

Fork in hand, pulling up weeds, tweed overcoat on, wearing a deerstalker hat, and enjoying a showery morning at Shelton allotments. No sketching challenge today, but we later met with some friends at a social distance so I got my sketch pad out again while enjoying a pleasant coffee in a Portuguese cafe. My nerves were a bit jangly after two seperate meetings with people so I wore a mask on both occasions and gloves when I was weeding. It’s hard to think the world might be going back to normal even though covid 19 is still here.

On an allotment

Posted on September 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Allotment, Art group, Blogging, composting, Digging, Etruria Artists, Gardening, Helping out, Shelton, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, WeedingLeave a comment

Our art group met this morning to help weed an allotment for a local community group that has taken over a couple of them. There was lots to pull out, but also some beautiful ornamental poppies which we tried to leave in. I was pulling out couch grass, dandelions, euphorbia, dock plants and other weeds. I do think allotments are a good way to get fresh air and exercise when you want to also produce some food for yourself. My hubby was so kern he started asking about getting an allotment to grow fruit trees. We shall see.

Mallaband-Brown

Category: Uncategorized