Outside cat update.

You know that feeling when you might be being taken advantage of? The outside cat came in at about 6pm. Had a meal, a good drink, then popped upstairs to sleep on our bed. Now, 11.30pm, he’s come down, come and looked at us for a minute in the living room, gone off, had a drink, then waited by the back door to be let out.

Cats, they really do have humans under their claws! I’m supplying bed, breakfast and an evening meal. I do think he’s getting more social, but he’s got the best side of the deal!

Doodles from three years ago…

These were on my memories from three years ago so I thought I would share them. Yet again a combination of doodling and filters. Probably drawn with a stylus. Using Sketch, sketcher free and ArtRage oils. I like drawing faces in profile.

I’ve found I usually draw left facing profiles for faces and animals. In this case I’ve switched a couple of them round to see how it changes the image. Is it something to do with if you are left or right handed? I don’t know.

Jack Frost

Trying to draw Frost from my memory. Not easy. I couldn’t get the feathery patterns that it makes. Drawn in ArtRage oils. Working between metallic and non metallic white on a blue background.

I remember going to bed in the cold. The Frost built up inside the windows. Our breath condensing on the glass. I was on the window side of the room (I shared with my sister) and the curtains were thin and yellow. Behind them a wide windowledge, then wooden window frames with curly cast iron handles to open them. I’d look out on freezing nights and see ‘Jack frost’ on the panes. If it was really cold we were allowed to put the one bar electric heater on until we got in bed under eider downs and our school macs to keep warm under. I’d often sleep with my coat over my head. Breathe warm air on my hands and try and stop shivering. We only got double glazing to our n family home after I’d left for college I think….

Christmas cards

One thing I do love is getting Christmas cards. I wish I’d got addresses to respond to some of them. They arrive, and I can’t always find the address to respond. I had a letter off a good friend earlier in the year. I wrote back, but lost the original letter. I can’t address a card to ‘my friend’ ‘North of england’. I don’t think it would work like it does for ‘Santa, North Pole’.

I’m not putting up any decorations this year except for the cards.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all.

Hanging around…

Looking out of the kitchen window and the hanging basket I have taken photos of over the months is still surviving. A lot of the flowers have gone. There are still five or six different plants with flowers on them. The other hanging baskets are wilting. But it’s almost the shortest day (tomorrow) how is it coping!? If we ever get a cold night or snow it might die back. In any case I will post again if it’s still going.

X

Looking up

Well, I tried to draw our living room lampshade. But with the light on it is a bit too dazzling. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was looking up.

I used a few felt pens, including a gold and two browns. Also a black and a yellow and finally a grey for the shadows on the ceiling. I outlined the edges with a bit of black biro. I might also do something else as I’m not totally happy with this.

Light

What is light? It’s photons that are little packets of visible energy. They don’t weigh anything, they are quanta (a tiny quantity). There have been different ideas about light, whether it is made up of waves or particles (called a wave particle duality). Probably the most interesting physicist to read is Richard Feynman, he died several years ago. But his book QED, quantum electro dynamics was quite good in helping me understand it slightly (its too complex for me). I liked his diagrams which helped to visualise the ideas….. Anyway that’s another random thing I’m interested in…

Christmas cards?

To send or not? If it were not 2020 I might have sent a lot of my cards via email, or drawn things to add to Facebook or Instagram. But because I can’t visit I’ve decided to send cards. I hope it’s safe. I think they should be OK and I hope they won’t spread germs? But it does make me think and wonder. I am washing my hands after I’ve opened the mail, (and washing any shopping that comes into the house). Life is strange. I wonder what the consensus is about this. Would you post online or in the mail?