Another art package I was using a lot last year is ArtRage oils, a free drawing app where the pens in it look like oil paint that can be adjusted to look more or less metallic. The difference with it is the ‘painterly’ effect is more pronounced and more difficult to control. There is not really the precision of other apps but it makes up for it with robust colours. There is a paid for version has more pens and tools, so gives you greater variations and the ability to go to town on interesting images.
Misty and overcast, branches and twigs reach out like witches fingers. Darkening mist twists and turns. Hidden eyes watch as the gloom deepens. Footsteps trail through the bracken. Water lies in droplets across the dead and dying wood.
She had seen light from the footpath. A cottage.. A campfire? What was there. Goaded by her imagination she stepped off the path. Feet tangling in blackberries and vines. She stumbled and the branches reached down….
Watching Sky Portrait artist of the year. I couldn’t find pictures of all the sitters so decided to draw Catherine Grainger from a photo on the Web, ten minute sketch.
I want to watch the programme so leaving it at this. I might do another one later.
My photo of cut paper duplicated to make an interesting pattern (I think these photos are from a couple of years ago). The fact that the paper was folded makes for a more interesting image, increasing the texture.
When I cut the paper I tried to keep the cuts to a similar size. I might use this as the background of another image. I will have a play with it in another drawing app.
I always like to make paper cut snowflakes at Christmas. I did a few a couple of years ago. I always fold my paper into six so that you get a six sided shape. To do this I fold the paper in half, then fold about a third over at an angle, so you have the same amount on either side, then fold the last third over the other two. You end up with a pointed end, and the other end has different shaped areas. Then you need to cut off the excess so that you have a hexagonal shape. Cut patterns through the foldes sides to make a lace like pattern, unfold. (The paper might stick together and rip) Be careful. Flatten the paper out and put up on windows or hang of shelves to decorate. Fun for children but make sure scissors are safe and have rounded ends.
About fifty years ago I used to watch ‘Flipper’ on the TV. A 1960’s show it was all about the adventures of a dolphin called Flipper. I didn’t know then that there was more than one dolphin and I think I remember reading they were not well looked after during filming?
I remember finding a book in the library called ‘Dolphin Island’ by Arthur C Clarke. It had the effect of waking an interest in science in me. I remembered a boy being shipwrecked and rescued by dolphins. He ends up on a Pacific Island and goes through several more adventures until the inevitable happy ending.
Recently someone mentioned the book so I decided to order a second hand copy. What I got was bitter sweet memories. The book was a lot shorter than I remembered. I read it in a couple of nights. The adventures that had been in it are now seen through older eyes. Where I had been on the edge of my seat, the tension was no longer there. It was still interesting, and I would love to know if there is any chance of finding a dolphin language. But I don’t think I will re-read it. This is an old fashioned Children’s Book. Give me 2001 a space odessey any day.
A slightly confusing sign if you don’t know where the museum is. Turns out both footpaths lead to the same place, just by different routes. I don’t suppose it matters, but I think they should at least put an arrow on it for one way or the other. This is at the Etruria Industrial Museum, at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Drawing from August 2020? my reflection and my little sketchbook in the patterned swirls of glass in the back door. So often is it that I’m holding my phone that I thought that was what the black square was when I looked at it again. Black pen and coloured pencils to get the effect of glass. I have a lot of sketches from over the period of the pandemic. I was already drawing a lot before it arrived, but I hope my skills have improved over that time.
Just to be awkward.. an Orca I drew at the sketchfu website. Simple tools so its a bit blurry. I’m not sure, but I think Orcas (killer whales) may eat Dolphins?
I know they are very intelligent. Often swim in pods (groups) and use various techniques to catch fish. one of their skills is to collaborate in a group to blow thousands of bubbles, their actions create a “bubble net” that enclose a school of fish and then they grab the fish that have been surrounded.
I also know thwy are Mammals and evolved on land before returning to the water, hence they have blow holes to breathe through the tops of their heads. Their front fins are formed adapted like paddles, but the bone structure is similar to that of a hand. I think I remember that they even have vestigial leg bones attached to their pelvises?
Orcas, Dolphins, and other whales are all part of a family of mammals called Cetaceans. They are some of the most intelligent animals on the planet, and humans have almost driven some of them to extinction or actually hunted some of them to extinction. I still think Whaling should be banned.
