I didn’t see it.

Apparently there was another aurora show last night but I must have been asleep. There is another one due tonight in the UK but now it’s raining! This bad photo is from a few weeks ago. I have a tremor  and as this was a long (night) exposure over 60 seconds it means I have awful camera shake. Anyway it seems Auroras are increasing because we are close to solar maximum (the sun’s magnetic poles get more and more tangled until suspots explode out as various coronal mass ejections or solar flares, maximum is every 22 years) Then in 11 years later it returns to solar minimum. I’m sorry if this isn’t explained very well.

Cloudy view

This was what I tried to finish painting today. I wanted to paint a cloudy sky and over painted patches with a sponge to give the clouds a fluffy feel . I even tried to paint some Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds above the mountains. They look like rolling waves on the sea. It’s a tiny portion of the painting and probably not that apparent.

Anyway, acrylic on canvas. (cheap canvas, you can really see the warp and weft.)

End of the rainbow

I just read a post on Facebook about a rainbow and it bought back memories from the 1980s.

I was outside on a sunny day when dark clouds piled up as a shower passed by. I noticed a rainbow forming and unbelievably the end came down just up the street from where I was, about fifty yards away. I walked forward and it moved away. I tried jogging, but it kept the same distance away, then gradually faded as the sunlight was blocked by clouds behind me. I really think this is a real memory, not imagined…

Sunset 19 June 2024

Looking out over a supermarket car park.

The sky had clouded over, but there was a glow from the setting sun behind the grey clouds. It just shows that a minimal landscape can be enhanced by light and colour. There is blue and grey, orange and yellow, purples and blacks all intermingling and changing by the minute.

For once it wasn’t raining, it wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t windy. You could stand and watch the atmosphere evolve as the sun set. It’s not a very exciting sunset, but I enjoyed it.

Air

Blurry photo of my painting Air, part of four images including Earth, Water and Fire. I imagined the spirit of Air, rather like the faces of cherubs with puffed out cheeks blowing storms across ancient mariners maps the yellow and orange at the top is the sun being hidden behind clouds. I like the cheeky and mischievous face that stares out of the painting. It’s probably a little anachronistic, almost Victorian in style, but it’s a semi abstract acrylic on canvas. I just wish I’d taken a better photo. It is for sale.

Peeling paint

The window panes are solid, but the wood is old and the paint peeling. One of my paintings of Spode, I just had to paint it with the blue and white reflected sky. I put a photo of it onto the peeling paint group online, but they were a bit sniffy because it wasn’t actual peeling paint, but a painting of peeling paint. I was let off with a gentle warning to photograph the real thing, which is strange, because a photo is just another representation, and as we have seen on the news recently photos can be manipulated with filters (I’ll say no more!).

If you look closely you might see my fingers clutching my phone as I took the picture (bottom right hand window pane).

Feeling a bit down in the dumps so decided to post this, it’s a favourite X