a strange painting

It was called Dasies. The figure in the doorway was my friend at the time. But like the painting she was strange. A complex person that tried to do things and disturb my life. I think she might have been OK, but one day she did something that completely lost my trust in her. I won’t go into detail, but she showed an uncaring side that really hurt me and my hubby. I could have forgiven her, I could have accepted her apologies, but why should I?

What do the Dasies and plants signify? Because it was before the split, I think probably I was trying to beautify the image. The garden was not as floriferous as this. It was a gift for either her birthday or Christmas. She was good at hiding her thoughts and the slightly surreal air was trying to capture that. I think most of my paintings are quite narrative. I’m glad I kept a photo of it, I have lost track of the paintings I have done over the years. Perhaps this ended up in the bin?

old lifedrawing/painting

a few years ago at lifedrawing at Burslem Schoolo of Art, just found this photo- watercolour painting.

most of my art is stored on my phone, so I rarely look at my old PC. Sometimkes though I find things I havent seen for years, its like they are from another life. I’m only using my PC because I had problems with my passwords so came on here to change things. Its hard to follow computer instructions, too many variations, possibilities. Makes me wish for the old days when things were simple. Watercolours and cartridge paper, Analogue life.

Nights drawing in

The sun is setting earlier now. It was dark at 9pm today, and the sunrise is later too. In September we will reach the point when day and night are of equal length. Then in October we will revert back to Greenwich mean time and lose an hour of daylight in the evening. Although we gain an hour on the morning I think it’s sad to get darknrss earlier just when you want to cling to brightness.

Why talk about this? I need to get a daylight bulb. I find if I paint in normal electric light the colours I use look different from in the daytime. They are often distorted, I find I can’t see yellow properly compared with white. I also think LED lights are a lot dimmer than the old 100 watt bulbs and you can’t get a bright enough equivalent. I want to be able to see colours properly so I can paint better.

Back to craft fairs?

I have tentatively put my name down for a couple of craft fairs later in the year. It’s taken a while because I’m still concerned about covid and being in crowds. I’m trying to lower my anxiety levels. I went to an outside event at the weekend but still put a mask on when I went inside. As the craft fairs will be inside buildings I will be very aware of the situation. I’m still not going into my Studio at Spode and I think it’s the same thing. My shaking arm appears to be caused by anxiety (I do feel very tense), I might be getting some help, I’ve got to find out what’s available but hopefully I will be able to get back to normal eventually.

Gladiolus

This brilliant red flower spike broke off a gladiolus that was growing in the yard (there are all sorts of plants out there) decided to bring it into the kitchen o we can enjoy it for a fee more days. It’s also an opportunity to consider painting it. I think I might paint it with texture and in close up. Flowers are amazing aren’t they?

Lightning

I’ve been keeping an eye out for thunderstorms and lightning after they were forecast for us for the weekend, but apart from some heavy-ish rain tonight, which caused one of the cats to come in looking like a bedraggled wet otter, there hasn’t been much in the way of storms or anything else.

I do check the weather forecast online and noticed as each day came and went the rain symbols dwindled. But I also look at a website called blitzortung.org which shows real time thunderstorms and tracks them with detectors so you can virtually see lightning strikes within seconds of them happening. The strikes are also colour coded so you can see strikes from two hours ago in red, changing to orange and yellow for more recent ones and finally white for the last twenty minutes. So you can actually track where they have been and what direction they are heading in. I think it’s interesting.

I just looked at the UK which was blank. Then Europe where there seems to be a big storm over the toe of Italy. Then I looked at the overview map of the whole world and saw many storms scattered across North America. I hope they are providing much needed rain and are not as severe as the ones that caused major flooding recently.