New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Plan.
My plans were scuppered this weekend. The car isn’t outside the house but at the garage. It went in for one thing but something else broke so they are waiting for a part. Meanwhile I can’t go to the places I want to get to.
Anxious, the world worries me. People are going out again because our government has raised all restrictions. But the office of national statistics has found that Covid cases are going up again in Britain with 1 in 20 people who would have tested positive last week (if people were still taking tests). That figure has increased from the previous week and the Omicron strain had mutated to a more transmissible version. Elderly people who had their booster shots first are catching it. Hospitalisation has gone up. Our flipping government is blasé, ridiculous, uncaring. But so what? We’ve got to learn to live with it.. For live read die. Is it any wonder I want to keep away from people?
Photos, film and video of the War in Ukraine show huge plumes of black smoke rising over burning and ruined buildings, theatres and peoples homes. Meanwhile Putin continues to lie to the Russian people that no civilians are being targeted. He is using the same tactics he facilitated in Syria with President Assad. He is trying to encircle Kyiv and raise cities like Mariupol to the ground. He is evil and brutal. His propaganda to his country is that it is a ‘ special project’ not all out bloody murder.
Set yourself a rule. Draw dots, draw round them, turn the paper over and draw round where the ink has bled through the paper. Turn the paper back and add more, back and forth. Decide whether you just want to add lines, or if as I have, change directions. Once you have drawn the lines fill in some of the lines with a different colour. Keep building up layers if you want. Playing with different ideas but using rules can create interesting patterns.
Another pattern drawing, limited-ish pallette, green, blue, orange silver and black, different shades. It’s hard to know what to do and when to stop. I used to decorate our Christmas tree and I had an idea of where to place things and where to end. I think I use that little skill in art. I don’t think I overwork things to much. But I do like a strong pattern.
Maybe Putin needs Art therapy. To try and calm his mind. He needs to concentrate on stopping the war, stopping killing and maiming people. Stop destroying people’s homes, their cities, their hospitals, their schools. Apartment buildings, theatres, vicious bombing and shelling. Ukraine needs peace. Children and babies are dying. Civilians are dying. Evil times.
Trees leaning over a lake. Perhaps they will fall if the ground becomes too wet or the wind blows too strongly. With global warming making the weather worse you can see how damage can increase.
Some efforts are being made to reduce the damage. In a few places there has been a reintroduction of beavers to lakes and rivers. It seems strange that an animal that actually fells trees could reduce flooding. But by building lodges (dams woven from tree branches that they live in) beavers slow the flow of water in rivers. The water pools behind them and so less water is released downstream. This can reduce the speed of water rising and so stop flooding.
So in some ways it’s good that the trees have been felled. But I guess the reintroduction has to be in a controlled way.
Shared colours
Falling light
Breaks through crystal
Splits asunder
Flies apart.
Subtle shades of light
All created by white
A rainbow hue
A delight.
Red nose day is here today! Every two years in the UK there is a comedy TV ‘telethon’ to raise money for charities in the UK and around the world. Over the years it has collected Millions and Millions of pounds.
This time the noses are biodegradable. Comic relief, the charity behind the red nose supports so many people. Its amazing, fun, helping to change people’s lives.
Plus it’s fun in a bad time. So why not support it. Love, peace and laughter.
Yesterday’s #bandofsketchers prompt was inside my head. I drew a complicated pattern, I think I have a whirlwind in my mind! Felt pens and fine line ink pen. A bit like a chrysanthemum opening up.
Mallaband-Brown