Idyllic?

Hot day, blue sky, barely a cloud in the sky, cattle in a field, reflections in the canal. Memories are made of this, blues and greens, shade and light.

I have memories of days like this, maybe not as hot, but they were calm and happy. I remember a time when things were not scary. Oh there were diseases around, and awful things were happening. But I was a child. I didn’t know about them.

Then I remembered the disaster at Aberfan. There was a land slip of old mining waste. It slid down a hill and landed on a school. Children and adults died. That was the first TV report I remember seeing.

Now rivers rise and places flood all the time, “hundred year events” happen every ten or twenty years. Storms dump three months water on a country while other places suffer heat domes and wild fires.

Will the wonderful days of summer be once in 100 days instead? Maybe we need to sort it out NOW!

I wrote this a few days ago but for some reason it did not publish? Now on a grey, dismal day I look back after another walk and Im sad it wasnt like this, but glad it was a lot cooler!

Ducklings

We saw this duck and her ducklings today, she must have had a second brood.

I took a few photos as one of the ducklings was jumping on and off its mother’s back. I tried hard but it was only fir a few seconds and I think if I’d done a film of them they would have been too far away to capture the details.

They were sweet. Cute. I hope they grow up sturdy and healthy. X

In the canal

On our five mile walk today, saw this young bullock paddling in the canal! It proves how shallow it is. The temperature was up around 28°C and it was lucky that most of the walk was shaded by trees and hedges. We stopped off at the plume of feathers pub where we had booked a table and had a bite to eat. I was more interested in a cold drink.

I’m shattered but I really enjoyed it. I’m just a bit sunburnt now!

Cat paintings

A couple of cat paintings I did for a friend in 2018. The first was a work in progress. I don’t have a photo of the completed painting. I love painting cats, and any other animals. I’ve got a dog painting in progress then I’ve got to paint some purple crabs, that might be interesting! By the way the pink is a chair cover, not part of the paintings.

My style?

A torch shines. It’s light illuminates a running figure. A trail of blood shows its steps.

This was a transformation we had to do in our illustration workshop this afternoon.

How to show up the image? I used post-it notes to show the shape of the surface as the figure is running across the floor. If I hadn’t had just 20 minutes I would have added a chequerboard pattern. As it was it was fun to do.