Have you heard of ‘Thunder Snow’?

No? Neither had I.

But in Edinburgh yesterday they got it! Basically it was a thunderstorm but because it was so cold there was snow instead of rain. The descriptions were that the lightening was brighter then normal (the whiteness of the snow made the light reflect more brilliantly). The thunder sounded like an explosion (muffled by the snow and clouds). Some people even rang the emergency services. Apparently its a rare phenomena but not unknown.

Dresdener Streizelmarkt

Today I joined #uskstoke for half an hour and painted this watercolour for the Saturday virtual sketch out. There were only a few of us but it was a nice chatty time. Good to catch up with people. I liked the colours and interesting architecture. Painting the letters was most difficult, trying to add white paint on top did not work brilliantly.

Doodled face

Doodle using a program called ArtRage oils. I started with some black “paint” then used a dry brush to spread it out. If you use this it sort of fades the paint. Then I changed to another brush which again uses a paint. I used a black, then white version of the tools to draw in a few sketchy details. This is drawn with a finger not a stylus.

Mark making

Drawing from April…. Why did I add glitter as the base of this? Then drawing over it in purple and black to include the cupboard and its content. I remember the feeling if the gritty glitter under the felt pens. Rough and making it hard to get straight lines. The teapot is definitely a bit wonky! It was drawn as a challenge with #uskstoke, day six. I like it because it wasn’t too safe. I need to think about style and how things look. This is a favourite although it’s very sketchy.

Hubby’s glass bowl.

Forget when we went to a fused glass workshop at Spode but we both went to a workshop with a glass artist called Angela Ashton and made flat, square, fused glass bowls that were slumped over a mould. I’m showing you this because his design was much better than mine. I overdid it, too many patterns, he kept it simple and classic. I think I could learn a lesson from this.

(slumped clear glass with fused coloured glass and metal pieces including copper).

Started painting a wooden planter..

I’m part of an art project to paint wooden planters. Each artist is producing a different piece of work. I got this a few weeks ago, but I didn’t start because of my bad shoulder. The planter was a bit heavy to work with as it’s solid wood. Now however I’m doing physio and the exercises seem to be helping. It was lovely to pick up a brush. Now all I’ve got to do is finish it! (and get it back to the project in time).

Artrage oils sketch

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.