New paintings and regular art updates.
I close my eyes and wish
For sleep to kiss my cheek
Caress my tired neck
And let me rest my mind.
Instead I lie awake
Uncomfortable and sad
If I could ignore the world
Lose my thoughts
I would be glad.
Night ticks into day
Light blooms in my eyes
I want real sleep to stay
To end my tired gloom.
How would you rate your confidence level?
Yes, OK, I do have reasonable confidence levels after years of lacking it. I think you do become more confident as you get older and more experienced. But (and there is always a sneaky but in there) it can easily be knocked because I sometimes over think things, and then worry and anxiety knock my confidence.
Why? At various times I’ve been bullied in my life, and that makes you question what you are doing. It’s hard to give a robust explanation if the person bullying you is your manager. Then the ability to think things through is an advantage, to realise that you haven’t got it wrong, but it can knock your confidence.
Another thing is the feeling of imposter syndrome. When you get a job and then wonder why you feel confused by how you actually got there? So many responsibilities, and I’m doing it? Having to think up reasons why someone can get permission to do one thing, or be denied another? Get it right and the feeling of elation can give your confidence a boost.
But writing? Looking back at this I’m confident I’ve used too many clichés! Oh to be young with all the massive confidence people have these days? No, I think expecting everything to be wonderful all the time is a mistake. We have to learn from them to grow more confident.
A barge called Lothlorien
Holiday or daily living, canal barges offer accommodation ‘off the grid’. A friend of ours had one for about five years while he was living on his own. It was an old wooden boat, about seventy two foot long, and had a massive lifeboat engine powering it that was started with a huge starting handle like on an old car! It took many turns of the handle to fire up the engine.
His barge was a wooden Hull, so every year he took it into dry dock to recaulk the gaps between the wooden boards. If he didn’t the boats planks would let in water. It was lovely in the summer, but cold and damp in the winter, especially on foggy days.
The photo of a metal hulled boat was taken today on the Trent and Mersey canal.
The tall chimney tapers
High up in the air
Birds soar around its slender height.
Blustery and white
Clouds scud across the blue
A memorial to ancient potters
Who wheezed in its smoky shadow.
Coughed clay into spittoons
Made and created beauty
Paid little
Working hard
In their race to death.
The felt pens came out today for a drawing of the chimney at Middleport pottery. Stoke-on-Trent Urban Sketchers were out at various places around the factory grounds and across the other side of the Trent and Mersey canal.
It was a warm morning, and there were some brief glimpses of blue sky through the bold grey clouds. I could have drawn Middleports iconic bottle oven, but I wanted to sit down on a bench so I drew the chimney and the roofs instead.
I liked using layers of felt pen, I started with a pale blue pen to outline the buildings but then used black to indicate bricks and worked dark to light, with horizontal and little vertical lines to indicate the brickwork. I even used some silver pan for the sky because my grey pan has dried up. A lovely couple of hours spent in good company.
What makes you most anxious?
The world I’d bleak and I don’t know what to say or think. Words and thoughts churn round in my head. I feel anxiety about not getting something right, something I should have done months ago that could have massive consequences now or in the future.
Because I was focused on myself I didn’t see other people or a person who might have needed my help. It’s six months and the Earth has travelled half way around the Sun. That’s 186,000,000 miles. And now I’ve only just realised I should have been there for someone 186 Million miles ago! I feel idiotic, I feel great anxiety that I will not be forgiven. I feel I have lost a chance where I could have been of help…..
Even now, writing this, it seems a trivial response, too self serving, am I writing something that will help, or to just try and exonerate myself. Guilt and anxiety, mixed emotions and sadness…
There is a bench appreciation group that I’ve recently joined. Showing some of the most interesting benches in the UK and around the world. I only joined because my friend invited me and has been posting some beautiful photos. When I looked back on my phone history I only found three pictures out of thousands! This one (which I’ve filtered to hide my hubby) always makes me laugh. There is a shiny wooden bench like a chaise longue? Not sure of spelling. At Trentham Gardens.. It’s hidden inside an arch of several trees. Hubby decided to try it out for size…
Those clouds aren’t real!
Not cirrus or cumulus
Not lenticular or mackerel
You played with the photo
Didn’t you?
Messing about with the sky
Those clouds up high
Could be on Jupiter
Or Mars!
But not here!
Get that clear!
Digital map, playing with textures. I think it looks a bit woven. I won’t explain how I did it, I spent ages colouring it in. It could look like an old TV screen, but it wouldn’t be in colour! I tried to add continental shelves which is why the colours are shaded in contours. Anyway hope you like it.
Here’s a little green abstract to wish you a happy St Patrick’s day.
I once found a four leaf 🍀clover, so it feels like a lucky day. St Patrick was supposed to have cast all the snakes out of Ireland 🇮🇪 and to this day there are non there. I guess it could be that Ireland is an Island?
St Patrick’s day is celebrated in Ireland and in the USA where they have been known to colour rivers green. Its not unusual to have parades of marching bands and floats. The predominant colour is green, even green coloured drinks! The symbol is an Irish man with red hair and a beard wearing green clothes and sporting a shamrock ☘ (which I think is similar to clover, but a perennial plant). Much fun and hilarity is enjoyed by the population on St Patrick’s day.
We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s day as much in most of the UK, I think because Ireland is a mainly Catholic country and mark saints days more than we do.
The green abstract was drawn with felt pens then filtered through photodirector to add texture, and an app called layout to add symmetry.
Mallaband-Brown