Category: Uncategorized

Something staring at me….

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Something is watching me… Not cctv, not a plane or helicopter, not a satellite. Just… Something.

People say I’m mad, I’ve lost my mind. I believe in portents, I’ve seen the films, read the books. I looked at the Internet. The news isn’t fake. It’s real. Aliens aren’t coming, they are here. My friends call it gibberish, flim flammery, but I Know I’m being watched.

The eyes are there, I can feel their power. Watching, waiting, ready to take over. All it will take is one tweak to their gene pool. One extra piece of the puzzle. One grim fact and then……. Man will be subservient.

When cats develop opposable thumbs!

Last challenge with USK Stoke-on-Trent

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It had to happen, after sketching since March this year we have decided to end posting sketches to the Stoke Urban Sketchers page on Facebook .

The thing is that not everyone that joined in is from Stoke or its surroundings. And not everyone wants to draw the challenges, so our pictures may have cluttered up the page a bit. So now we are opening a new page.. It should be up and running in September. If you like sketching and feel like joining pop over to Facebook. I will get the details and post them here.

In the meantime today’s prompt was ‘kitchen’ I decided to sketch part of the kitchen from the living room. I ache too much from my long walk earlier to stand up and draw the full thing!

Rousseau paintings

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Orme challenge

We had to chose one or more squares to paint frome a Henri Rousseau painting as part of this months challenge from the Orme Art group. I chose these two. I’ve looked for the painting online but all I can see is one of him riding a tiger with what looks like bird of paradise plants instead of fruits? So I don’t actually know what this is called. I did two small watercolours and had to blot them a bit to take off some if the colours that were running into each other. The top left one was particularly difficult to do as I had to try and get the leaves to overlap. Also the colours I had did not exactly match the picture. Each image has a yellow number on it, in a large font…. So it’s a bit difficult to guess the details under the numbers. I hope to see everyone’s finished work this week when they are amalgamated together.

X

Quiet rest

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Today I walked 4.3 miles, not far, but part of it was up one of the steepest hills in Stoke-on-Trent. I’m trying to get fitter, and lose a few more pounds in the meantime. We stopped off at a local pub in Hartshill and had half of lime and soda water. The beer garden would have been quiet except for the traffic being heavier today than it has been for ages. I tried to talk to my walking partner, but I’m too slow and I’m also trying to keep to social distancing, so I enede up having to shout a bit, then every time I spoke another car came past so I repeated myself a lot. Well I’m not a great walker, but I did OK. My legs were wobbling by the time we got back. Highlights were seeing five or six bees feeding on Japanese Anemone plants. Sadly no photo unless my friend sends me a copy of hers.

Now Facebook is getting rid of its ‘classic’ pages

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Like WordPress, Facebook is changing. There pages are being changed and from September they are closing their ‘classic’ version.

I feel like giving up. Social media takes up too much time anyway. This is ‘nudging’ me away from it….

Imagine, you have learned to drive on the left hand side of the road, you have always driven on the left. When you get to a roundabout you drive into it and go round it clockwise.

Now, suddenly, you are informed you have to drive on the right, drive counter clockwise round roundabouts. You have to drive at 70 miles an hour on minor roads, and 30 on motorways. No training! No question about what you might like. Imposed!

Thank you. Please change the rules for chess and monopoly too. That’s what you have. Power over us poor plebs who have no say in the matter!

Is he crying?

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Digial drawing.

I drew this simply to illustrate how you can make changes to a drawing by using apps like Photodirector. It struck me when I looked at the picture that I had altered in the style section of the app that the face looks like there is a tear running down his cheek. The eye that looks open in the original drawing I did in ArtRage oils now looks closed. Its amazing how algorithms can change your intention (in this case not in a bad way). I get the feeling this looks like a lino cut or etching, or like a block of wood roughly carved with numerous chisel marks showing, or even like strata in rock. Whichever it is I do like it, I hope you do too….

A year ago

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Looking out of a window of a restaurant looking at the trunk of a tree covered in moss. The trunk was cracked and split. It might have been diseased. It was just interesting to see. It made an odd thing to photograph.

Its outside the Red Cow pub up in Werrington. There are views out into the countryside there and the food is really good (if its being served still).

Trees

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The roots of trees penetrate the ground, anchoring the tree in place. Sometimes in windy conditions a tree can be shaped. Especially if there is a prevailing wind, like at the coast, where the wind blows mostly in one direction. Then the tree is sculpted and sometimes stunted, growing horizontal, pushed inwards towards the land. Like someone’s long hair blown back by the wind. Wild looking. The same can happen on high moors and mountains. Shaped and transformed.

Potteries

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The ‘Potteries’ is the name people call the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the North Midlands of England.

Built on the coalfields of the area, with an abundance of water and clay, it was an ideal place to start making pottery in factories during the industrial revolution. Bottle kilns, or ovens (so called because of their shape) were built across the six towns of Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Fenton and Longton. The six towns were bought together as a Federation in the early twentieth century and this created the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

The Potteries Museum and art gallery is crammed with beautiful ceramics and is situated in the Cultural Quarter of the city centre which is in Hanley. Also worth a visit are the Gladstone Pottery museum in Longton and Middleport pottery in Middleport (near Burslem). There are many places to visit here. Hopefully they will all be open again soon.