New paintings and regular art updates.
She’s small, she’s bright,
She’s funny, she’s nice
Black and white,
Cool as ice.
Plays with toys
And catnip mice.
Grace’s has to run
And chases her brother,
Till she’s won.
Gives lots of purrs
And miaows for fun,
She’s my cat,
A cheeky one!
Not a very profound poem, just what I was thinking while looking at these photos of her.
X
Just back from our local barn dance to raise funds for the Penkhull Mystery plays. What a blast! I danced and laughed more today than I have done in ages.
It’s great when you get the dances right, but hilarious when you get them wrong! I started with one partner and ended up with someone else. No one knew how to heel toe then do split the willow or something. Talk about confused, the other groups got it fine but could we? The more we tried the worse it got.
Now I’m shattered but happy. During the evening I also won the raffle 4 times so I didn’t take two of them. Madness, then my partner won a bottle of whisky.
The band were great and the caller was patient with us. But we were awful.
Great fun.
Here I am again
Doodling little squares,
Trying to catch life in a box.
Here I sit with pen in hand,
Drawing the world
Squeezing reality into 2 dimensions.
Time pauses while I sketch,
Only to leap forward an hour
When… I. … look.. .. Up..
Here is life compressed,
Its size shrunk like a postage stamp
With the world drawn on it…..
Here is here at Etruria, here I sketch.
I’ve been going to Archery now for about 6 months off and on. I thought I would be getting better but struggle with the whole thing somehow.
While my partner shoots bare bow (without sights) and has gradually improved, I feel I’m actually becoming less accurate. He got eight golds last week where I just got 2, and this week I kept missing the boss (the support the paper target is pinned to).
It looks easy, lift up your bow, pull back on the bowstring, look through the sight and let your arrow fly. Watch it wobble in its flight towards, then over, under, to the side of the target…missed again! I try and place myself in the same position each time, holding the bow not too tightly, trying not to pinch my fingers around the knock end of the arrow so it releases from the string smoothly. Place my hand holding the string under my chin with my nose and mouth touching the string. Sight along the arrow using a sight that has a hole with a little dot in it so that it is sighted over the gold. But a tiny deviation where you are is large when you have a target 20 yards away and worse as you get futher away from it.
I’m going to keep trying, I hope I can do it, I will persevere.
A poem,
Spellchecker “grr”
Everyday I writ something or sharp a pic,
I write a comment , leave a thought, add a lick,
Common words flow out my head and onto the screen,
But off
Ten they are garbled by this spellchecker Mac him.
Machine, regime, bolemic screen….
Or “write” “share” “link” “often” “machine”
Oh Chameleon,
How do I draw you?
You are Camouflaged in camouflage !
You hide in plain site
Like an octopus hides itself
Or a wobbigong shark,
Or a squid…..
Oh Chameleon
Your tongue is so long,
Like a limpet catching prey,
As long as a woodpeckers tongue
wrapped round its brain?
Or an anteaters snout?
I don’t know,
Because I can’t see you,
Hide in plain sight
Out of sight.
That’s your trick
Sneaky……
We went to Archery today and I had a go with a longbow for the first time.
I didn’t take any photos (I wasn’t that good ) but it felt completely different to the bows we have been using .
Let me explain. We have been using recurve bows. They have a central riser with a cut out in one side so that the arrow flies straight. Then you have two limbs that attach top and bottom which curve back away from the riser. You have to use a stringer to pull the limbs back so you can attach the string. The bows are made of metal and carbon fiber, the arrows are metal or carbon fibre.
I have been using junior bows with either 14 or 16 pounds of pressure on them, that means it only takes a light pressure to pull the sting back sufficiently to shoot the arrows. I’ve hit a few golds but its hard to work out your aim and I have been using sites to try and aim.
So today one if the other archery members had brought along his longbow “a couple I sticks and a string” and that’s basically what it is. No sights, a rubber band round the shaft of the bow if you want to help you aim. The bow is one long peice of wood, usually English Yew which is naturally laminated and springy. No “window” or bend in the wood, so your arrows have to go round the bow, you have to aim off to get them on target. You also have to make sure that the arrow is the right way round, with the cock feather towards you so the other two don’t catch on the bow. The arrows are wooden with metal tips, and feathers cut down to shape for flights. You have to wear a glove so the arrow which rests on the top of your hand does not leave splinters in you as the arrow is shot. The other change was that the bow was 35 pounds of pressure, more than twice what I have been pulling! It was hard work, my shots were all around the target and I didn’t hit a gold no matter how I tried. I couldn’t hit the middle of the boss (target). But I really took to it and want to have another try.
Someone (a friend) saw my rather serious selfies and asked me to take some photos of me laughing. I’ve never done that before and so I was a bit surprised but I said yes….
These are the results including me with a straight face.
I’m imagining having to do a passport photo and choosing to do it with me laughing, how much fun would that be? And instead of “filter faces” where everyone has to have perfect skin and features and hair why not have do this instead? fun…. life is too serious sometimes.
I’ve got one photo of me somewhere that had me wearing a stick on moustache, and others in hats, also in face paints. Life is too short, life is often hard and boring, sometimes we need to break away from its difficulties….
When I was a child I won a funny face competition at school. I used to pull faces all the time, when we grow up we forget all those things!
So go ahead, even if you don’t post it, pull a face now, or roar with laughter, or just giggle. ….relax and be free of social pressures for a second! Laughter is good medicine .
I might just do a painting of these. There are some sculptures I saw on tv of a man pulling faces……not sure who did them or why, but he showed his humanity.
X
S p i r a g l n l i
o u t o f c . . o . . n . t l r o
I love spirals,
Twirling round and far,
Spiral buns and spiral suns
And spiral galaxies.
I love
Spirals…..
Twisting round
My tongue… making
Tornadoes . .
And hurricanes . .
Fly around .
The land.
My cat tipped his box up today and seemed to enjoy sitting in it like that. Each end of the box has a hole in it and he could see his sister through the hole. He pounced on her a few times, with that bottom waggle that cats do.
I know it makes a mess of the house, but the cats love boxes and how could you say no to this?
Cat jumps into box …
Cat jumps onto chair …
Cat jumps up to windowsill….
Box tips up
Chair is now occupied by cat.
Plant falls off window ledge.
Cause and effect?
Cat thinks it’s just normal.
Human tidies up box,
Human picks cat off chair, cat sits on humans lap.
Human replaces plant, cat knocks it off again, and again, and again.
Humans never learn!
Mallaband-Brown