I found these two canvases tonight, they have modelling medium on them that I turned into rings or ripples on one and autumn leaves on the other. I’m still playing with colours and want to mute some of them and pick up the sculptural elements in them. They are a bit patchy but they are getting there.
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Having a curry
It hasn’t arrived yet so I’m just having a tonic water. We came out to sort out a meeting on Friday and because I’m still laid up with a cold I decided not to cook tea and order a curry instead.
I was inspired because my friend sent me a text ‘havin’ a curry, oh yes’ I think I took it as a challenge. I hope its good!
Better go to bed
Better go to bed
I said
As sleep fell in my head.
Better try and sleep
And count some sheep..
Better lie down and rest,
Sleep time is the best..
Try and grab eight hours
Not wake as dawn flowers
Pink sky all lit up
My mind ready to wake up.
My world ready to break up
My life already shattered
Sleep is what mattered.
So better go to bed,
Before night has fled.
Holly
Sharp and spikey. Holly was a hard nut, she knew she was right every time and would fight anyone to prove it. She had been warned several times by her boss about her attitude, but like so many young business people, she could be very arrogant and snobbish.
Today she’d got into a battle with her elderly father, Joe. He had asked her to help him with his model train set. Really he had wanted a quiet word about her attitude ( She was twenty six and thought she knew all the answers) but she had refused. She told him train sets were for boys. She was going to go out and pamper herself and maybe buy a designer handbag.
Holly still lived at home, her mother cooked and cleaned for her, and her father supported her financially. She didn’t earn enough to buy anything decent in London and could not afford the deposit to rent a flat.
That night she came home late, she’d been to a party which had turned into a squabble, then an argument. She had slapped her best friend and drunk too much wine. She had told her manager, who was at the party, what she thought of her. She would probably be fired when she went into work on Monday morning….
So when she turned the key in the lock of her parents house she was hoping to creep up to bed and get some sleep. What she got instead was her parents standing there. Give me your key, her father said. You can sleep here tonight, but you leave in the morning.
Holly felt shocked and sick. Where shall I go? I don’t know and I don’t care. Your friend rang in tears and told us that you had slapped her! Your behaviour is totally unacceptable and unless you change we don’t want to see you again.
That was the day she changed. That was when she started working for a charity. That was when she learnt compassion. That was the day she grew up.
Cold
Last night it was minus 6°C in parts of the United Kingdom. There are homeless people living out there in this country, huddled in doorways, or visiting foodbanks. People are buying sleeping bags and hot water bottles to use when it’s cold (for children too) rather than put their heating on.
It’s all become normal in these days of austerity. People are working in the gig economy and are so low paid, or get so few hours work, that they have to claim benefits, and yet the take up of benefits is lower than ever.
What to do? How can things be like this? I’m scared it will only get worse. I heard a homeless man froze to death in car park last night. I could understand if it was a polar explorer, but not a man in a town or city centre. This has to be wrong.
Lunch in the mist
I just wrote a blog post about taking my sister out to lunch at the Red Cow at Werrington, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. But I fell asleep and pressed the wrong button, so the description and information disappeared!
I was trying to say the view from the restaurant is wonderful and the food was great. Hot, tasty, delicious.
The leaves that are remaining on the trees are sparkling with copper, gold and bronze, the fields are still green.
Anyway I’m posting this now because I’ve dozed off again three times already.
Coughing and spluttering
Yesterday, at choir practice I started with a tickly cough. One of those ones you get sometimes when you hold a note for too long. But then I started wheezing… Lovely… Now this morning the coughing, sneezing, and spluttering has started. I hope I’m not in for a bad bug or anything. I’ve got stuff to do, people to see as they say. X
This picture of me indicates how muzzy headed I feel. Now you know. X
Owls
This is a tiny painting I did a few years ago, I’ve got twenty tiny canvases to paint over the next couple of weeks so I might do another one of these.
Other subjects will include Holly and Ivy, Christmas tree baubles, some snowy images and frost patterns.
Why? I have to do some art work for two upcoming craft fairs, and I wanted to do something seasonal but not too clichéd or twee. X
Some of my other murals at the Leopard Hotel…
These are three of my murals in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent.
The first is a painting of a design by Clarice Cliff called Umbrellas, a painting of a woman who may have been murdered in the back room, and gives rise to the possibility it is haunted, and a portrait of the artist Arthur Berry, together with a painting of his in the background. Arthur was one of my tutors at college.
There are other paintings but I need to take good photos of them. They were painted about 12 years ago.
X
Witch night
Sitting in the dark, feeling scared. The air around her was buzzing with static electricity. The witches were meeting outside, dancing in the darkness. Hiding their power in the night.
A splintering scream shattered her nerves. Then the chant, come forth woman, come here now! Over and over again, till her ears rang and she shook with fear. Green glowing eyes peered out, finding her shape within the building.
One witch, their leader, came forward. You will come forth woman, she cried. No female is allowed to be free. Witch you are, as witch you shall be….
No she cried, never, running to the front of the house, out of the front door, out of the gate. As she got to the pavement they grabbed her.
Witch you are, witch you shall be….. You are ours now.
