New paintings and regular art updates.
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Day 17 of the challenge on Facebook, today it was an ethical tee shirt design. I said I would like the world to concentrate on finding peace, and supporting nature by cleaning up the environment and taking the climate crisis seriously. I did think of adding flames but that seemed too much. My only concern is the tee shirts would have to be ethically sourced, carbon neutral and any workers paid a living wage. Too much to hope for?
X
Before dawn someone in will die. The wolves are howling, it is not safe to go out…
So said the old man as he sat in the shack in the woods. He was with his best friend, a man twenty years younger, who had decided to visit for the weekend. I have my gun loaded, said the old man, I will protect us.
But no one has been killed by wolves in a hundred years, said his companion. Why do you think it will happen? Because of the blood moon came the stern answer.
As they settled down for the night clouds drifted over the moon, soon the storm hit. Snow fell deep, piling onto the shacks roof. One foot, two, four, finally eight. The snow was suffocating them, the fire had been allowed to burn low and suddenly snow fell down the chimney. The roof started to collapse, snow sifted in like sugar, through the cracks…..
The younger man woke with snow covering his face, cold, wet and smothering. It was pitch black, then the feeble rays of the blood moon penetrated the dark. With its help he struggled free. He had to locate his friend, the man was breathing, but unconscious. He dug him out with his hands and the help of the rifle.
Outside his truck was covered, it would take him ages to dig it out. Until then there was no chance of shelter. The shack was a jumbled mess.
All he could do was keep digging, hoping to get to a door, though whether his key would open the lock he doubted. It might be frozen shut.
A howl drifted through the night. The sound startled the digger who fought harder to shift the snow. The howl was closer, creeping towards them. He checked his friend, still breathing, but deathly pale and cold. If the wolves didn’t get them the freezing wind and snow would.
But slowly he was tiring, he had barely moved a few feet of snow. The sweat he was generating was freezing on his body. He started to shiver and his teeth chattered.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glowing eyes. First two, then four, then more. He closed his eyes, waited for the bite….. It didn’t come. Instead he felt the warmth of one of the wolves leaning against him, then another on the other side. Wolves are large creatures and the weight of them pulled him down to the ground. The warmth after the cold was making him drowsy.
In the morning the search party found both of them, fast asleep. There were indentations in the snow showing where the wolves had lain down. A rough count showed that twenty or so wolves had slept around the two men, helping warm them.
Later the old man admitted he didn’t believe it, but it must be true. The gun would never be used again…
( don’t try this at home folks, it’s just a story,).
Blurry photos, we are doing Aladdin for our panto this year. Someone else started it but I then asked if I could help. It’s bright and breezy and as colourful as I can make it. Im not publishing this on Facebook so you are getting a sneak preview. This is the Act one scenery.
Widow Twankey is Aladdins mum. She owns the local laundry and here is the market stall she has in her village. Expect excessive silliness!
When this is finished I will be doing the scenery for Act two. That’s is of a cave in the desert. I might add palm trees. At least its got me painting again, I was a bit down but this has helped.
The North Wind doth blow
and we shall have snow,
and what shall poor Robin do then?
Poor thing.
He’ll sit in a barn,
and keep himself warm,
and hide his head under his wing,
poor thing….
Image from my post on the 64 million artists January challenge, I cut out a shape of clouds and drew a face puffing out wind and used that to frame the view of our annamometer and weather station.
I’m enjoying doing the challenges, some require more ingenuity than others, but it’s making me think.
If it was summer
The dawn would be arriving,
If it was autumn
The sun would be up in a while
But winter fails the light
Sun stays abed
Darkness rules
And my mind
In need of peace
Stays awake
And I stay with it
Up late
Before it’s early. Tired
Dozing in a warm glow
of remembered sunsets.
Unexpected item in the bagging area…
I’ve been thinking about using automated tills. I decided if there are cashiers at checkouts I queue. If there are none and you can only use an automated one I just take my time. It is after all my time that I am using. If it takes ten minutes to scan three things that’s how long it takes. I used to try and do it quickly but now, I don’t see why I should. For instance I can take a minute finding the bar code, and another bit of time picking up my groceries after I have scanned everything.
Three maps, dated 1970-74, 1997-2001, 2015-19. There were others but I didn’t snap them in time. So we are getting hotter. Life will change, and possibly catastrophically if we don’t do something. I remember doing a collage about population growth in the 1970’s. I did a picture of earth with a line of people snaking away from it towards the moon. I’ve always been conscious of the environment. I was a tree warden in about 1975 and told people off for damaging trees. I think I got carried away once and really told some boys off about their behaviour. Fast forward several decades, and things are only getting worse. X
There is an artistic challenge I’m doing on Facebook. It’s called 64 million artists January challenge.
Day 15 challenge. Self portrait, left and right handed. I’m right dominant. The challenge said colourful so I tried using some coloured pencils. They did not show up very well so I put the drawings through photo editor. I’ve tried writing left handed in the past so I know I can get relatively accurate letters…. So, I used green for right and a dark pink for left. I don’t have a mirror I can use, so I used a selfie from Christmas. I didn’t realise how hard I would have to press on the paper left handed. That stopped my hand wobbling too much. Also the left was harder to do so I got less done in the five minutes allocated. Result, I might try and do some painting with both hands, good challenge.
The other reason why I drew a slug.
I had fetched a takeaway meal from our local Chinese restaurant last night but had to go out for an hour before coming home to eat it with my hubby.
An hour turned into two (as it does), so I came home hungry and ready to eat.
I said hello, and my hubby complained he had lost a bottle of beer. He could remember drinking one but could not find the other bottle. But he proudly said he had made a loaf (he likes making bread). We went in the kitchen and he showed me the bread he has made. So where’s the takeaway I asked, looking in the fridge which was empty. Oh I put that outside to cool down, he said!? What?
He went out and bought the bag in, together with the beer bottle which he had taken out too.
Both had slugs on them!
I’m sorry to say it went in the bin. The little trays the food was in were covered with hungry slugs. The beer was empty, not because he had drunk it, but because he had put some in the bread. I was not a happy person.
Next time I’ve told him to use the fridge!
The Anderton Boat lift is somewhere I would like to visit. Its near the village of Anderton, in Cheshire, England. It is fifty foot high and joins the Trent and Mersey canal to the river Weaver. Boats go from the canal or river into a lift filled with water and the boat and water is either lowered or raised to the other one. It’s called a two caisson lift lock, although I’m not sure why it’s called that.
The lift is a scheduled monument, and was built in 1875. It was closed in 1983 because of corrosion, but luckily it was restored in 2001and reopened in 2002. We intend to visit later in the year, there is a visitor centre run by the Canal and River Trust. I’ve checked and it is open at the weekend.
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