New paintings and regular art updates.
Painting done from two photos of our wedding. I chose each portrait from one or other photo and fitted them together. I’ve got photoshop on my computer but I just did this by eye. And yes my sister is a lot taller than me. My hubby is looking like some sort of ambassador! Family and friends arranged up the stairs at the registry office. I love this painting, I had it framed and it has pride of place in our house. There are twenty nine portraits on the painting.
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Sketchfu was another site I drew at. More sophisticated than Youdraw. It closed when the owners decided to send more time on another website. Lots of artists drew there. I made many friends and we did various challenges like copying photos of objects, but I also liked the freedom. You could also add to other people’s drawings. So it was almost like a joint animation. Like everything else in the world, things change, they never stay the same.
Fork in hand, pulling up weeds, tweed overcoat on, wearing a deerstalker hat, and enjoying a showery morning at Shelton allotments. No sketching challenge today, but we later met with some friends at a social distance so I got my sketch pad out again while enjoying a pleasant coffee in a Portuguese cafe. My nerves were a bit jangly after two seperate meetings with people so I wore a mask on both occasions and gloves when I was weeding. It’s hard to think the world might be going back to normal even though covid 19 is still here.
Last night we had fun trying to sing together as a group on Zoom. It was a laugh, we all tried to sing together but the delays on the line meant that most of the time we were badly out of sync with each other….
Then my cat jumped up and kept getting in the way. She was walking backwards and firwards in front on my camera, so I grabbed her for a couple of minutes, I must have looked like a Bond villan! My friend who was hosting the meeting, tried to play music for us to sing to, but we couldn’t here it. At one stage he had three screens and two mice and keyboards on the go trying to get it to work. I admired the effort as it was the first time he had tried to do it!
Next week we will have another go, but it might be best to mute everyone and just sing along with someone leading the choir. As it was we were too busy falling about laughing instead of trying to sing the tune. I’ve never heard Molly Malone sung like that except as a raucous chorus in a pub on a boozy night out. It was a fun night though with friends.
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We were friends, twenty years ago, me and her, inseparable. I painted us together, and remember her with fondness. She was so bright. She understood me. She pounced when I threw a ball for her. Jumped when I tapped the wall outside. Purred so happily. She was my soul mate.
This weekend two friends lost their cats to illness. It reminded me of how felines can be so loving. They may sometimes be aloof, but a glance of joy from there eyes is enough to entrance you. Cats are bright, sneaky and sharp.
Never underestimate a cat.
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Tonight was the first time our choir sang (sort of) together…
But of course its not that easy. When you sing with someone else there is a time delay. It’s not possible to sing in time. It’s fine when you are talking but even a slight delay in sound makes everything very strange. Tonight our hosts were a couple who teach us up at the village hall on a Monday.
So we were muted whilst singing, listening along to the hosts and singing our parts. Then unmuted to chat afterwards. And yes we used the now ubiquitous Zoom, but that’s OK.
Then of us got to see each other fit the first time in months, even though it was only cyberspace. Now for a brew.
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Turn yourself into the moon! With a toilet roll. My friends in Australia are doing this. Third one I added some dots for stars and sprayed black around the third on in a sketcher app.
Funny how you can create things so simply. I found the most difficult thing was to line it up, I took a few photos and on a lot of them I could see the blue paintwork in our bathroom. Plus it’s exposing my face to the world! Don’t laugh too much!
Forty years ago, here are two of my friends who I shared a student house with. Unlike the accommodation today things were different then. It’s like something out of ‘the young ones’ TV series. There was no hot water, just a broken water heater. I hate to say this but there was no bathroom and we used the showers at the college. The washing machine was an old twin tub. Our cooker was gas, but there was no gas fire. Instead we just had a coal fire to warm the whole house. And the toilet was down the yard in an outhouse.
We moved on into a slightly less tumble down house, finished college, and ended up in our own house. But I actually enjoyed life in that house. X
I’ve recently heard the phrase ‘ghosting’ when people no longer communicate with you on the Internet. It is a deliberate act of cutting themselves off from you.
I understand that sometimes people need a break and if there have been problems with a friendship or relationship then ghosting is a non aggressive or non argumentative way of splitting up.
But then there is the situation where people go missing on the Internet. I miss a few people who have done that. Perhaps they have announced they will no longer be using a site, which is bad enough when you have enjoyed their presence over months or years. Or they simply vanish. After years of talk, maybe someone you met on line and became friends with. Suddenly there is a hollow, a hole where they used to be. And because they are on the Internet you have no real idea in the world where they are. A couple of friends decided to leave WordPress. I used to look forward to their posts. Is it selfish to miss them?
A long term friend passed away recently. Luckily a relative posted that this had happened. Her Facebook page is still there and someone sent a message purporting to be from her. That was worrying. I don’t know why anyone would do that.
To some extent I would prefer to be ghosted than to have someone taking over my friends identity.
Today’s art lunch was spicy vegetable soup served with chats about funding streams for artists and how to apply for them. Discussing organising workshops. Chatting about doodling. Working out about clearing a work space at the Etruria Artists warehouse.
We were serenaded by lovely jazz music on my friends record player, so stylish. The light was streaming into the living room so I took photos of the sunlight shining on the wall and painting patterns on to it. It was a fun afternoon but I came home shattered and fell fast asleep. I’m struggling to stay awake while writing this!
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