New paintings and regular art updates.
On our walk today round Westport Lake we incorporated a bit of the Trent and Mersey canal. We saw a few canal barges as we walked along the towpath. It made me think of a song we sing at choir which goes ‘fifteen miles on the Erie canal’. Most of the boats were painted dull blues and greys but there was a more traditionally painted cafe boat in primarily green and red but with yellow and white details too. It made me smile to see it.
Yes, we have three cats
Hungry, playful, cheeky
Are not their names
Sometimes together
Sometimes apart
Chasing each other
Loving toys
Liking treats
Eating catnip.
Hiding in, under, on.
Jumping, climbing, causing
Fun and trouble
Things, found, battled
Played with.
Equipped with claws and teeth
And purrs and growls
Formidable felines!
Nine lives!
Sometimes I just have to create something different. I don’t do many paintings of abstracts, I find them difficult to do. I don’t want to have to write a long explanation of what the painting means. I love all sorts of art, but it’s hard to pin down what would be my favorite. This autumn /spring painting is acrylic on canvas. With colours that represent the seasons. The shapes are meant to represent middle age, complexity, confusion, a city scape, and the spring is simple nature. See I said I hate describing what I’m doing, and yet that’s exactly what I’ve just done! Maybe I should do a Winter/summer one?
Cabbage leaf, green and wrinkled, veins branching out like a tree toppled at forty five degrees. I love the squeaky, crunching sound as you chop through it with a knife. I have a strange memory of someone hacking at a cabbage ‘head’ to make the sound effect of Ann Boleyns head being chopped off. This is a savoy cabbage, dark green, leafy, full of vitamins and minerals. Hopefully not too overcooked (I’m making our evening meal).
Digital doodle of a heart for valentines day (February 14th). I might turn it into cards. I used Artrage oils for the background, then sketcher app for the red heart, using a symmetry tool so it’s equal on both sides. I used a slightly paler centre so the heart appears almost hollow. It could also be a dragon with curving wings….
I do love sharing this painting of one of my old cats. It’s about twenty or twenty five years old. Just after we moved to our current house. She used to love sitting behind the flowerpot at the top of the stairs. By the way the weeping fig grew to five foot tall before we had to rehomed it because it got too big for the space in the kitchen where it had to be moved too because it got too big for the windowledge. Thank goodness the cat didn’t grow that big!
Red sky this morning
Weather warning?
But the sky turned blue
A lovely hue
The sun shone
No one cried
The wind just dried
The washing
No rain came
Which was the same
As yesterday
Except that was grey
So red sky
Was a weather lie!
Simply use an app that can flip your photo over and join one image to the other. You can get some surreal images of apparent reflections. In this case I’ve created an image looking like the landscape is reflected in a lake or large pond. Symmetry is a wonderful thing!
The last three days we have done mainly flat walks, but today my hubby and I decided to climb up our hill. We need to get more heart points on my phone and the best way to do that was trying to walk up the hilly side streets in the area. It also got us away from the traffic on the main road. There are some streets that go up, and some across, so by walking up, then along, I managed to keep the pressure off my calf muscle that sometimes gets really tight after I pulled it a year or so ago. Also hubby is not as young as he was so it gave us both a breather. Finally we reached a little park and sat for a few minutes looking over the view and enjoying the trees in the park. Then up again, to reach the main road at the top of the hill and along it’s crest, before taking another horizontal route to get to our road and a few more hundred steps steeply downhill. Four days in a row we have walked. My arm shakes and so we hold hands or he holds my arm. It’s good to be out and about.
This was Monday. Over the last three days I’ve done over 5000 steps and I’ve tried to walk up our hill. It’s been months since I’ve done much walking. Anyone who reads this blog knows I’ve had some health and other issues over recent months and to be honest I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it. I know my muscle strength has reduced. I can’t lift a saucepan with my left hand. My left leg is slightly affected too and I’m getting cramp and my legs feel shaky but if I don’t try I’ll never get better. Sorry to moan, but at least I’m trying, so now, I’m going to have an early night. X
Mallaband-Brown