Woof

I painted a dog today. _20200629_173337

The colours are a bit out in this picture. It’s nose isn’t that red. I might change it to tone it down a bit. It looks like it’s owned by a clown! I wanted to paint a dog because I’m always drawing and paintings cats, so it makes a change. I’m not sure if I should look at a picture of a red setter. This is from an old black and white photo that I found in a book. So the colours are made up… I haven’t used it here because it might be copyright.

Another acrylic on canvas, for the craft stall on Saturday.

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Hedgehog dining.

A shady, spikey creature

Banging bowls together.

Clattering crockery,

Hog food left out for him.

Gobbling and scoffing quickly.

I opened the back door.

A glint in his eye and..

He scuttled off into the dark…

I imagined him saying

“I’ll be back……..”

On the easel today

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My artistic block seems to have ended with a sea theme now emerging.

These are works in progress. The latest is an homage to the famous japanese artist Hokusai. Based on one of his most famous works The Wave. Mount Fuji is sitting calmly, surrounded by a stormy sea. I’ve left the boats out as this is a small canvas and I’m struggling with the breaking wave. It is not going to be an accurate copy as I say. More a homage.

So why can I suddenly paint again? I think all the art work and drawing in doing might have helped. But I think it’s the thought of having a craft stall this Saturday that I’ve been invited to display my work at. I’m hoping things will be safe enough to do it. If not I will have some new art to display somewhere else.

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Shock!

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My hubby just opened the back door and started shouting ‘come here quick’, I rushed over, expecting to see the stray cat we feed by the back door. Instead there was a huge 🦔 Hedgehog. It was scoffing the cat food we had put out for the stray! It’s as big as a small cat. It rushed off into the night when it was disturbed. I know we haven’t had many slugs and snails lately despite the wet weather. Now I think I know why! Still a bit of a shock to see it in the middle of a city. As long as it keeps away from roads it should be OK.

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Crab

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Small red crab

Swimming in a rock pool

Waiting for the tide

To wash you into the sea.

Little legs paddling,

Scuttling sideways.

Sneaking past the gulls

To find your true love.

Barnacles surround you,

Seaweed lashes you.

Waves crash over you,

Still you scuttle

Creeping along the strand,

Till round a rock face,

You meet her…

And you both swim

Into the sunset.

 

Started painting a lobster

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I’m not quite sure what sort of lobster it is? Maybe a blue kneed one? Acrylic on canvas. Will try and finish it tomorrow.

I was talking to someone months ago and discussed painting a lobster. But this is just a small canvas, a bit of fun. Seeing if I can capture a crustacean in acrylics. It belongs to the same family as crabs and scorpions I think?

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Unexpected

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When Sam woke he didn’t know where he was. He was lying on a couch with a cushion shaped like a cat, and a knitted owl staring at him. His head felt groggy and he was thirsty.

He stood up and stretched. He quietly looked round the room. There were two plush armchairs and lots of clutter stacked about the place. Mainly books on shelves built into the alcoves on either side of the chimney. There were pictures all over the walls and an easle in one corner.

There was a smell of cooking wafting from the kitchen. It smelt like chicken. Suddenly his taste buds were jumping. He strolled towards the cooker. ‘Well hello boy’ said the woman standing by it stirring the food. ‘you hungry?’ ‘would you like a drink?’ He looked up at her, she was very tall.

‘Miarow’ a strange sound came out of his mouth, boy she was Very Tall. He tried again ‘miaow, murrp’. WHAT THE HELL?

He suddenly realised, his tail swishing from side to side. He was now a cat!

Jump on a train?

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Someone asked a question. If a person jumps up and down in a train carriage they land back in the same place. But if you do it on the roof you will not land in the same place. He wanted to know the reason? A lot of people replied including me. We pointed out that if the train is moving the air on the outside will be pushed aside by the train and anything on it.

I wrote ‘If you jumped on top of a train you would land on the same spot even if it was moving slowly. The reason why you might move is the air rushing around you exerts a force or pressure on you (the air inside the carriage is still). But unless you were travelling fast you wouldn’t move far… ‘.

I think it’s odd that people don’t know it. In the same way a dog who sticks its head out of a car gets its face and ears ruffled by the wind….

Plotting an idea

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we have had to create our own lexicon of shapes to create an alphabet. But when we did it we didn’t know what letters we would be given for each challenge. in this case i just have 90 degree and obtuse angles, little squares and moon shapes. How do you fit them together to make a face? And as the subject was a self portrait I didn’t know whether to do something current or a piece based on previous work. In the end I based the final drawing in black and white ink pen, on my 1981 self portrait from when I was a fine art student. The resulting picture doesn’t really resemble the original (not publishing them here) but it was an interesting experiment.

One annoyance is that as I’m using sketchbooks the shadow where the paper does not make proper contact with the glass is really bugging me, I will have to either cut pages out or work out a way of supporting the sketchpad.

I am going to be busy in future so I may visit WordPress a bit less, but I like using this as a diary and sketchbook so I wont be far away.

Catch up with urban sketchers

Two for the price of one! The first was tonight’s sketch… Environment. It was going dark so I drew the fence with some hanging baskets, with our weather station above them. It measures wind rain, temperature and pressure. The dusky sky is visible above the silhouette of the buildings opposite.

The second drawing is spots and stripes. It was due on Tuesday 23.6.20, but I forgot. The first time through all these challenges that I missed doing one. The stripey thing is a cover on our settee. There are spotty and stripey cushions on it and a spotty lampshade. Neither drawing is articulately exciting. They are just about how and where I live..

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