Angel cat

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“Remember Felix?” she said.

“Yes, he was a good cat”, he said.

They sat quietly and remembered their adventurous cat.

“Remember that Saturday, when he came through the cat flap with a sirloin steak?” he asked.

“yes” she replied “I had to take it off him!”

“And a week later he came in with half a chicken?” “yes, I think it was from the neighbours?, I couldn’t tell them, and I think they blamed their own cat!”

“I still miss him, he was cheeky”.

They looked at each other.

“I bet he’s in heaven”, he said.

“You don’t believe in that stuff do you?” she said.

“bet he wangled his way in, and there’s a big ginger cat up their sporting a pair of wings?”

“maybe” she smiled.

Digital art

About seven years ago I was doing digital drawings regularly at a website called sketchfu which closed down. I had a notification on my Facebook page because my drawing of Amy Winehouse popped up on my memories. I thought I would put some of these on here.

These were drawn with simple tools, no layers or filters. Just five different sized pens, a colour picker, a pallette, an eraser and opacity and transparency options. I’m sad it closed because it was somewhere I could share my art and enjoy the community of fellow artists.

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Being isolated.

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That feeling of being trapped, a prisoner. But should that be our first feeling? In these weird times we can use ideas to try and cope. I’ve been talking to a friend, and I said that I thought being enclosed in a home is more akin to being a priest or a nun. Let me explain. I don’t mean in a religious way exactly. But if your home is safe, then it’s like being closed off from the rest of the world. Even to the extent that some people became hermits. Clearly this is not out of choice. But the point is you don’t have to feel imprisoned.

Yes it’s frustrating. I would really like to go to a restaurant or a pub or go out for a walk. And because I can’t go out I think about it more. But it is a temporary situation. It’s bad, but it’s not going to harm me to stay home. Stay safe.

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So much blossom

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As I sit quietly at home I’ve realised how good the weather has been, and how much blossom is on the cherry and pear trees. And then, my friends have all been posting photos of blossom near them. Clouds of pink and white.

I will try and get a photo against a blue sky, but I just wanted to share this. The bees have been buzzing so they are happy.

I was thinking how the blossom comes out before the leaves. Is that to make it easier for insects to pollinate the flowers?

Now we need rain, it’s been dry for most of the month. Without it the farmers, who are struggling with lack of workers, will struggle even more. Time will tell…. Cherry’s and pears will ripen, hopefully.

In the meantime the Russian vine we planted a few years ago has started taking over a couple of parts of the garden. It ‘rushes’ along, growing fast, and wrapping itself around everything. My arms hurt after spending a couple of hours trying to cut it back.

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Adding some flavour

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That was today’s USK challenge, draw something that adds flavour. Trouble was I’m getting low on tasty stocks, the strongest thing in the cupboard was English Mustard.

There was vinegar, soup, custard powder, a hot drink mix, pilchards, sardines and tuna in there together with the mustard. I think there were probably some lentils in there too.

Funny what you realise you’ve got. It should keep us going for a few more days.

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Today’s draw, something old, something new.

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Sketch of new cherry blossom and old Ivy. It was black and white, drawn in uni pin 0.1,0.5, and 0.8 fine line black ink pens ( made by mitsubishi). On A4 paper. USK Stoke-on-Trent 30 day challenge. Day 27…. ! Really? Where has that gone?

Once I’d finished I decided to use a couple of green permanent markers to define where the ivy and other vegetation was. This had the effect of making the blossom more visible.

I’m pleased with the result. I hope the blossom all turns into cherries. We get them from the bottom half of the tree, the birds get the top half!

Close-up

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I just thought I would show you a close-up of the apple I drew today, so you can see the effect of layering up pencil crayon and permanent marker, black ink pen, and charcoal pencil. I enjoyed using fine lines to define the shadows. I was going to leave a patch if white paper as a highlight on the apple, but when I looked at it, it was to white. So I used orange, red and pink permanent markers to try and make the apple stand out. Using different colours and textures is really exciting, it makes the image less flat. But I’m not trying to make it 3d either.

Setting up a still life.

These are a few pictures I took when I was at college. They are pictures of objects I considered to turn into still lives. I finally did a painting based on the shiny plastic melanin? These pictures were taken almost forty years ago in my studio. The final one is oil paint on board. In one corner if you look closely is the painting of a hill covered in terraced houses that I did a copy of recently.

It’s good finding an old sketchbook with old hotis. It reminds me of what I was doing then. I also found pictures of old friends. I might post a couple of photos of them.

Stay safe and do Art!

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Keeping up

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A forty year old photo of a river I took when I was young.

It reminded me to calm down, try and relax, maybe ignore the news for a couple of days and get some rest.

I’ve also had to leave some of the emails I get. I can’t keep up with all the notifications of news. I want to read everyone’s posts, but I have responsibilities that I need to take care of. Even in this mad situation you still have to cope.

So anyway. I hope everyone is doing OK. It’s hard to think of people stuck in their homes. Not allowed out. In lockdown. I imagined that the world was linked and that people would feel each others pain or loneliness. But of course that isn’t true. Otherwise when people in different countries went through famine or disease we would know and help them… But sadly it doesn’t work like that.