Aurora again! Can’t believe it!

If the sky looks odd I take a photo now. Just one this time….

Reports say that aurora are due because of big solar flares so I decided to look. The sky looks cloudy, but I’m short sighted and have cataracts so I can’t really tell. Plus it’s too cold to go outside and I don’t want to trip up in the dark so I have a light on in the living room. Parkinsonism makes me shake so as this is a 60 second exposure it’s all very blurry. But camera shake does not change the colour of the sky to green!

Probably everyone is in bed but I give you…. It’s cloudy but the sky’s green again! 3.10 am 5.10.24 in Stoke, England from my kitchen window.

Blurred

Time blurs everything. Thirty years ago I was doing a course at college and for a while I rented a small studio with two other artists. But it didnt work out. One of them was collecting egg boxes to try and insulate the walls as the place was freezing in the winter but also to try and deaden the noise of rock music one of the artists used to like playing. The windows had arched wooden frames that were quite architectural but they were single glazed. I only painted a few things but when I was there and the music was on it would drive me mad. Unfortunately I could only use the place in the evenings and that coincided with the rock sessions. So I gave it up in the end. Now I’m looking at leaving my current studio. It’s too expensive to carry on renting. If it is the choice between paying rent for it or paying the fuel bills I have to make the sensible choice.

Upside down

I turned my painting upside down because I’m struggling to reach the top with my aching and shaking arms. I’m working on the background. But it also helps me see shapes and tones and proportions. I need to decide if I want the background to be blurry? Perhaps I should change my brush size and try and blur the edges. I will turn it back in a while….

Missing fog

No not missing in the fog, just missing fog. I lived in flat many years ago and we were half way up a tower block. I remember looking out of the kitchen window and the clouds were below me. When I walked outside I was in fog. Cold and grey, but it made the world interesting and indistinct. Sometimes driving home at night we would encounter fog patches or banks of fog. Driving in and out of them made me very cautious. There were stories of people following the rear lights of cars into people’s drives because they hadn’t realised that the car had turned off the road and they had been following to find their way around.

These days we don’t seem to get much. Is the air dryer so mist does not form? Is the humidity of the air too low? I miss the fog

I took the photo in Hanley Park a few years ago. I really like the wonderful blurred areas of part of it, unfocused and softened. I like the way it removed colour, making the image monochrome. I miss fog…

Motion

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Motion. This is my motion drawing, I visited Etruria Industrial Museum at the weekend and saw the Princess steam engine running. This is based on a photo but not copied from it. I have tried to remember how it was set up, I’ve also tried to use lines to indicate blurred motion.

Landscapes joined

I joined two photos and blurred them with photodirector to give them a blurred, oily effect. I like the way the clouds have become puffed and swirly. The line between the trees and sky has darkened and become almost castellated. Some subtle blues on the left side flow slightly into the right. I like the way things are slurred and smoothed. I just like it.

Falling glasses

Falling glasses. When you need reading glasses but can manage without them. You rest them on your knees- then they fall off! I was taking a photo of my cat but fumbled with the phone and snapped (not literally) my glasses instead!

What a view

Falling through

The air

Onto my shoe!

You were meant to be

My cat

But as you can see

From where they sat

On my knee

Glasses – not a cat

Fell flat

Splat!