New paintings and regular art updates.
Portrait, today’s #uskstoke challenge. Hubby in the kitchen, looking out the window. That’s some oo gauge track on the cupboard, soon after he went out to work on his train set. That’s why it’s a quick drawing. Looking forward to tomorrow’s challenge….
The foreign country on our doorstep. With wonderful singing, beautiful landscapes, sandy beaches, castles, neolithic artifacts, mountains, pleasant green hills, and narrow guage railways.
Home of authors like Dylan Thomas, R.S Thomas, O.M Edwards, Vernon Watkins from Swansea or Eric Madden who has written stories based on Snowdonia folk tales.
I would love to go back and have Bara Brith, a type of friuty bread, or Welsh cakes full of butter, and a nice cup of tea. Other delicacies include lava bread made with seaweed.
Driving through the country is sometimes slow. A lot of the roads are ‘scenic’, narrow and twisting. But they are beautiful. Driving over a pass and into a new valley with different field patterns, or plantations of trees is a pleasure.
There are waterfalls like swallow falls near Betwys Coed, the wooded hillsides which gradually become moorland, covered in slate as you drive into Snowdonia.
Snowdon is the tallest mountain in Wales. There is a footpath to the top, or you can take the mountain railway. Great for views, except on the day we went up when everything was enveloped in fog.
North Wales is closest to where I live, but there is a lot to see in Mid and South Wales too. In Mid Wales there are places like the national centre for alternative technology at Machynlleth and towns like Aberystwyth where there is a funicular railway and a narrow gauge line up to the Devils bridge waterfall. In the south you can visit Tenby which is a tourist attraction, Laugharne where Dylan Thomas wrote, and the capital of the principality which is Cardiff.
I’ve only included places we have visited. There is so much more to see.
The strangest thing, as you drive into Wales the signs on the roads are in Welsh and English. I find myself trying to pronounce them!
I’m a big fan of Star Trek, and one of my favourite characters was Jean Luc Picard from the Next Generation series. I think the actor Patrick Stewart gives the part a great gravitas, although sometimes it can get a little weird.
I don’t have a favourite episode, but I do like the film where the Borg go back in time to an Earth where Zephram Cocheran is about to use warp drive for the first time. I can’t remember what it was called. Something like First Contact. But that’s the title of a Science Fiction film with Jodie Foster, about aliens contacting the Earth. Written by Carl Sagan, so I’m not sure.
This portrait was drawn on the sketchfu website that I used to work on. I think this is about seven years old. I will probably find more of them popping up on my Facebook memories.
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I wish I could direct my dreams, if I could, I would travel to the seaside, or to a hilltop above a wood. I would look over at the setting sun. Red auburn hair of clouds wrapped round the bright orb. Wind blows streamers of air across the waves, or treetops, glistening light flickers over the boughs and branches. Gulls rise, then fall to roost. Night ascends, stars glint as shimmer. Sleep deepens. I doze.
We all agreed after completing the thirty day challenge that London Urban Sketchers had put together that we would like to continue. We have a new list of about 37 challenges, which may well see us out of the lockdown.
Today’s challenge was ‘local to you’.
I was going to draw all the lovely terraces up the hill behind us. But I failed to realise how much next doors bushes have grown. So this is the cat and the 70’s houses behind us. Then someone walked into the bedroom opposite. It was like a scene from the film ‘rear window’ so I retreated!
I have the list somewhere. I’m setting the daily challenges. A few people have joined in so far.
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The cat sat in the box.
Not on a mat,
or in a hat,
not on a roof
or under a hoof.
Not in a car
or on top of a door.
Not up the stairs
or on the chairs.
But in a box
where it lived,
or died.
It was Schrodingers
purring..
Cat.
A sketch of the inside of the Liverpool metropolitan cathedral. This is the Catholic one. There is also an Anglican one. This was our Saturday ‘sketch out’ with urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent.
We did this on Zoom again, although I couldn’t remember how to log on. So although I could see people talking and hear them I could not interact. I decided to sketch it quickly as I was late to the conversation. I tried using blocks of strong colour. The lighting in the cathedral is bright and colourful. This image was taken off Google maps as we are not allowed to visit these places yet.
Imagine my delight when I saw this yesterday. My lovely friend Stephen Talbot (his copyright ©) has been doing a series of caracatures and this is the one he did if me, in the guise of Miss Marple played by Margaret Rutherford.
If anyone hasn’t heard of the author, she was Agatha Christie. She wrote many detective books, with sleuths like Miss Jane Marple, and Hercule Poirot.
In addition to the books there were several films, made from the 1950’s onwards. Some of them starred famous actors, like Elizabeth Taylor.
There have also been television adaptations, of which my favourite was Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.
Recently the BBC have done a few adaptation of Christie mysteries. But the most recent strayed a long way from the book it was based on. I’ve forgotten what it was called… I think they tried to over simplify the story,, so removed some of the characters.
I would love to see “murder at the gallop” again, its an old film, with wonderful music. Lots of fun.
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Baked beans and sweetcorn with added hot curry powder and breaded chicken fingers.
It’s not what I would normally cook for a meal, but it was definitely filling.
Not much else to say about it, except the sweetcorn was frozen. I served it on pretty Portmeirion pottery plates.
Well, I don’t think I’ll say anything more except it was orange coloured! I guess I could do a series of pictures of different coloured food combinations, green cabbage and brocolli maybe, with green cheese sauce?
Perhaps not!
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The urban sketchers challenge (Stoke-on-Trent) has just finished. We had to do quick three minute sketches each hour to show how our day had gone. I didn’t see the days challenge until just after two, because I got up late. Its amazing how fast an hour goes when you have to document it. And my day was more varied than I thought it would be considering I didn’t do any gardening today. I finished at midnight. Tomorrow we are doing a sketch through Zoom, the meeting app, of Liverpool cathedral. I might try and do a drawing of it. If I get up in time!
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