Old oil painting

Posted on July 22, 2023 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat, gate posts, Jump, Life, Oil painting, training cats, Tuxedo cat2 Comments

Old oil painting of my cat leaping between gate posts. She was really clever and if I tapped the gatepost opposite where she was sitting she would leap across the gap. She would also come to me when I whistled for her. This was taken from a photo using a 35mm olympus camera. It took a few shots to get the image to paint from.

I used to paint in oils when I was in college and just afterwards but eventually started using acrylics when I found how quick and easy they were to paint with.

Sorry for the blurry photo but it’s high up on a wall and I would have to stand on a, step ladder to get close enough for a good photo.

Chess

Posted on July 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Challenge, cheating, Chess, Christmas, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2004, Fun, Games, monopoly, scrabble, Time4 Comments

What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?

I don’t really have a favourite game, but chess has become a way of socialising with a friend.

We only just started playing this week, but I found I enjoyed the challenge, and after ten years of not playing it, it made my brain work overtime! My friend is quite good and I was surprised how evenly matched we are.

I’d like to get better at it, but I don’t have the ability to think several moves ahead, I’m more of an artist, looking for patterns in the next move or so. It also means I can make random moves that surprise ‘real’ players. Is that an advantage? Maybe.

I used to like Scrabble, but the one friend we played against used to make up rules. For instance he would add words to another word to make a sentence! He insisted this was OK and would argue and lose his temper when we disagreed. So those games stopped (he would also sneakily swap tiles if he didn’t have good letters).

The final game I used to play was Monopoly with my sisters, that was very competitive. We used to squabble a lot over who was winning. It got too argumentative at Christmas when we used to play, so I was glad when we stopped playing it. X

Bench by a lock

Posted on July 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bench, bench appreciation, metal bench, Stoke-on trent, Trent and mersey canal, View2 Comments

Trent and Mersey canal with a thin metal bench. It’s not the most picturesque view I’m afraid, but I’m a member of a bench appreciation group, so I keep an eye out for them. It’s sometimes nice to find a beautiful place with a comfortable bench, but more than likely it’s a seat in not a nice place.

Patterned

Posted on July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged ArtRage app, Design, Dots, incollage app, Line, Metallic brushes, Pattern, skewed, turned, Twisted2 Comments

Artrage drawing played with in Incollage and Instagram. You can do all sorts of things by playing with a digital image, you can make interesting patterns and skew and tilt images if you try. I have often done things like this quite frequently, but it’s a while since I’ve created something like this.

Mirrored poem

Posted on July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Collage, Flowers, interesting effect, Life, Mirrored, Poem, Poetry, Reflected, Short poemLeave a comment

You never know

When you reflect

What you will get?

The yard

Posted on July 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Back yard, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Green, Hanging baskets, Life, Overgrown, Plants, potting on, Time4 Comments

Very leafy, I need to pot some small flowering plants on but not while my arm is shaking and sore. I’ll try and use some pain killers to stop it hurting so much. Hubby has dumped a big bag of compost in the way and I need to get it moved so I can get further up the yard. Some of these plants survived the winter, they are very leafy, to be honest I could move them into the main garden but I don’t have the energy and there are some dodgy steps as you walk round the back. I must get hubby to get some sand and cement to replace some loose bricks.

English breakfast

Posted on July 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Breakfast, Food, full English breakfast, Penkhull, penkhull sandwich shop, Tasty2 Comments

We had to go out early this morning so we popped in a cafe at Penkhull for breakfast. It was nice to sit down and eat in although there was only one table inside, (there are more outside but it was raining).

I don’t normally take photos of food, but this struck me as an image that explains what a full English breakfast is. Hiding under the tomatoes were two slices of bacon. It also came with toast and a cup of tea. Additionally you could have mushrooms and black pudding, but this was too much! I was defeated and left some toast and beans.

I’ve never been sure about hash browns though? Are they part of a traditional full English breakfast? I don’t know.

I love cooking

Posted on July 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Butter, Cherries, cherry pie, Cherry tree, Cookery, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2003, Flour, Gale, pastry, Water2 Comments

What foods would you like to make?

The answer would be cherry pie!

I’m a reasonable cook and food is fun to make. I can make a good trifle, roast chicken dinner, pizza, curry, paella, and many other things including cakes and bread. But I’ve never made a homemade cherry pie.

I could probably make the pastry, I’ve made apple pies and tarts before. But I don’t know what to do with the cherries? Do you de-stone them then put them in raw? Or do you cook them first with sweetner and a dash of alcohol like cherry brandy?

We only got a few cherries this year as the majority blew off our tree in a gale. They were pecked by the birds so I left them on the ground for our hedgehogs too.

So does anyone have a recipe they can share please? I will have to get fresh cherries from the shop. I don’t want to use a tin of pie filling which would be full of sugar. So if you can help I would appreciate it. Thanks x

Idea for a semi abstract painting based on rain.

Posted on July 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Abstract, Art, ArtRage app, Commission, Design, digital finger painting, Drawing, Fun, Sketching2 Comments

I have a small commission and I need to create something gentle based on the idea of rain. I’ve used the theme of raindrops and water running down glass as an idea. This was drawn in my Artrage app and it’s a digital finger painting. I will try and do the painting in metallic acrylic paint.

Fruit

Posted on July 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Colour, Drawing, Felt pens, Fruit, gin, Lemon, limes, SketchingLeave a comment

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was fruit. Lemon and limes sitting in a bowl for gin and tonics, but I haven’t had any gin in for weeks! Felt pen drawing, as usual. But I tried to use a minimal amount of black and not use much outlining, so it’s more solid colour.