Yellow sky.

Posted on January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cold, Sky, Sleet, Snow, Warmth, WeatherLeave a comment

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I was looking out of the window and the sky was so yellow I knew it was going to snow. I don’t know why I know that but there is a certain tinge it takes on when the snow is coming.

I looked out later and indeed big white flakes of feathery snow were falling, mixed in with a cold rain.

The cats are curled up and warm and I’ve got an extra heater on and I’m sitting here with my hot water bottle (for my bad back). I’m huddling, watching the sleet and wondering if I should go out shopping. Life goes on.

Amaryllis

Posted on January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Amaryllis, Blogging, Bulbs, Colour, Flowers, Fun, House plants, Life, WateringLeave a comment

I have 4 Amaryllis flowers growing this year. The bulb sends out a long shoot after it starts to grow leaves. This flower spike will grow rapidly as long as it gets plenty of water. There can usually be 1 to 4 flower buds. All my Amaryllis plants have deep red flowers but they do come in other colours.

We got another plant in a deep glass vase which was in flower. Now the flower stem has gone over (died back) but its putting out leaves. I have two more plants that I have kept for years. One still has a long leaf on it from last year. Both are responding to being watered by starting to come into leaf again.

A tip, Amaryllis go dormant for a while from autumn. You need to start watering again mid winter to get them to start to grow. If you need to repot them only go up one size. They like to be quite tight in their pots. Use a good house compost, maybe a bit sandy to stop them getting waterlogged. Then sit back and enjoy the amazing flowers.

Pre Christian Celtic Art

Posted on January 14, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Celtic art, Celts, Design, Drawing, Fine Art, Illustrations, Learning, Life, Pen and ink, Thesis4 Comments

These are some of the illustrations I did for my thesis on pre Christian celtic art from the fifteenth century BC to the first AD.

Sorry they are not beautifully photographed but it’s 3.30am and I was excited because I found it and it’s the first time I’ve seen it for about 38 years!

I see now where I get my love of patterns from and that I could do some of these drawings now. I don’t know where I started with some of them…. Oh the confidence of youth.

There are photographs in the thesis but I haven’t included them as they were taken by a friend. They are starting to fade but surprisingly the pen and ink drawings I did seem to have stayed stable. Probably because it’s been stored in a drawer…

Right. Bedtime I think.

Ultima Thule

Posted on January 13, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Blog, Blogging, Learning, Life, Science, Space, The sky at night, TVLeave a comment

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Excuse the picture. I tried to draw what Ultima Thule looked like.

I just watched a programme called “the sky at night” a BBC programme about the Nasa New Horizons mission that flew past a tiny planetoid called Ultima Thule (pronounced Thooley) on 1st January 2019. This was the same probe that sent back beautiful photos of Pluto a couple of years ago. Ultima Thule is only 21 miles long and the probe showed that it is made up of two lumpy spheres of material stuck together at a neck. There is only one clearish photo so far but they also know that it probably is a red colour. The pictures they published have been brightened to show details but the thing is probably a dark red colour.

The probe was apparently travelling at around 15 kilometres a second so it sped past Ultima Thule and is now several hundred kilometres past it and travelling further into the Kuiper belt (a ring of debris spread in a flat layer around the outer edge of the solar system). New horizons is nuclear fueled because solar panels would not work in the darkness so far from the sun.

It will take two years to stream all the data thay have collected from the probe back to Earth. This is the furthest world we have ever seen close up.

I love informative programmes like the Sky at Night. Its been on TV since the 1960’s I think. I have learnt a lot about astronomy over the years from it.

Street names.

Posted on January 13, 2019January 13, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Fun, Life, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Stoke-upon-Trent, Street names, The potteries2 Comments

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One thing I do notice is street names. There is a Christine Street in Stoke-on-Trent and other names that are part of my family.

But one thing I have seen is where names have changed. For instance this name was changed to Spark Street. But what was it before?

It starts with P, but that’s all you can see… As I’m an incomer I don’t have a memory of it changing. I suppose I would have to look at old maps. If I do I think I will find a few more changes. I’m guessing it might be from when the six towns became a federation and turned into the city of Stoke-on-Trent. The towns are Stoke-upon-Trent, Burslem, Hanley, Tunstall, Longton and Fenton. Also known as “The Potteries”.

The painting’s on the wall.

Posted on January 13, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Banksy, Blog, Blogging, Graffiti, Life, PaintingLeave a comment

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There is a form of art called graffiti that has been created for centuries. But there is a modern take on it by artists creating pictures using stencils. The most famous of these is called Banksy.

Recently a painting has appeared on a garage wall in a Welsh town called Port Talbot. It’s of a fire burning on a garage and a young girl standing in that pose when you are standing in the snow, arms and face held upwards with the snow falling on them. But in this case the snow is actually the ashes falling down from the fire. I think it questions what sort of world young children are growing up in. Banksy paintings are worth a lot of money, so a fence has been erected around this one. His work has been defaced, painted over, removed and sold, and in one case shredded. It all goes to show what an influence he is having.

Art is fascinating because it is ubiquitous. Without it what a dull place the world would be. If we have to have graffiti I would prefer a Banksy to rude or crude images that sometimes appear on local walls. Art can be interesting, startling, ugly or beautiful. As can life.

Buying papers, the cost

Posted on January 13, 2019January 13, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blog, Blogging, Budget, Cost, Finances, Learning, Life, Money, News, News paper, Papers, ReflectionsLeave a comment

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I did a calculation today because I love newspapers and we get them virtually every day, but a friend asked how we could afford it…..

The result was scary! It turns out if we buy a paper every day of the week it costs hundreds of pounds!

Hiw on earth didn’t I realise this. My partner also buys a magazine every week… Help!

Luckily I’ve realised if I subscribe just for the weekday papers it would cost 2/3 the price (or we could stop buying it completely, which is possibly the more sensible option.

We want to keep informed and find out what’s going on in the world. But with fake news on the Internet and a biased press I prefer to read a paper I trust…. So we will consider the subscription route.

Combining drawing apps

Posted on January 6, 2019January 6, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apps, Art, Blogging, Design, Digital art, Digital sketch, Doodling, Drawing, Fun, Internet, KaleidoscopicLeave a comment

The first three drawings are based on a drawing done in a kaleidoscope app. Then I changed them in picsart using the stretch/spiral tool and then the colour curves tool which allows you to change the hues and tones.

The fourth drawing background was done in ArtRage oils which is a free Google play store app. It was then drawn over with sketcher free which allows you to draw with different brushes. I used the ribbon option to draw a masklike face. The fifth drawing was a quick sketch of a face, drawn in a sketching app. In this case I used picsarts colour curves to change the levels of colour, then a stretching app to change the shapes. Finally I used a tool to create an embossed feel and then the mask option to layer up lighting effects.

I’m using my phone a lot of the time and I tend to forget there are more options on my tablet. Then today I realised that there was a drop down menu on the masks option, so I found a whole new section of the app to play with.

What I guess I’m saying is don’t be afraid to play with drawing apps, you learn more when you do, and you can come up with some really interesting ideas.

I used digital art as a sketchbook. I may not use it in the analogue world of oainting, but it fascinates me.

Where are you?

Posted on January 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Digital art, Digital sketch, Shorter story, Tiny story, WeatherLeave a comment

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I look out of the window, see the scudding clouds blowing along parallel with the coast. The house is too quiet, no sounds of you around the corner, or upstairs or outside in the garden .

You must have gone out before the sun rose, before the moon set, while I was asleep curled up in bed.

The door was locked tight after you. I searched for my keys and dressed quickly. Now I need to decide whether to look for you or wait?

The wind is blowing stronger now, the clouds are black and the rain falls in great engulfing rivers, like all the world’s grief descending from the sky.

Two hours of darkness followed the dawn, then gradually a glimmer of sunlight stole under and through the cloud layer. Now I can go and look, now I can see over the sea out as far as the island. Now I might see him? Standing on the pier, holding onto the metal handrail slick with water. I watch, and wait.

(This could also be called “which tense are you writing in? Past or Present?”)

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Blogging