New paintings and regular art updates.
Digital map, playing with textures. I think it looks a bit woven. I won’t explain how I did it, I spent ages colouring it in. It could look like an old TV screen, but it wouldn’t be in colour! I tried to add continental shelves which is why the colours are shaded in contours. Anyway hope you like it.
I saw some catnip for sale today, I usually get the cats catnip toys, but this was a bag of shredded plant material.
Basically the cats loved it. They all rolled about and snuffed it. One of them started chewing my slipper…while I was wearing them. He even chewed at my trouser leg. He also started playing and chewing my straps on my sandals. He ended up rolling round on his back where he’d scattered the catnip on the carpet, he had got underneath the towel I’d put it on and spilt it on the floor.
Now? He’s sleeping like a baby like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!
🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶
After a couple of weeks off I went back to choir practice tonight. I still have a tickly cough and every time I tried to sing with any volume it set it off. It’s annoying because it’s hard to harmonise with a growly voice! It was throwing it down with rain, but there was a good attendance there. The first thing that happened though was I shook my hands because they were wet from the rain running down them from my coat, and the three rings on my right little finger shot off my hand and into a dark corner. I wouldn’t have realised that it had happened but they twinkled as they fell. Luckily the choir leader had a torch so I found them with a couple of other choir members help. I’ve lost weight and my fingers have got a bit thinner. Anyway, despite the problem with losing my rings, and the croaky voice, I’m glad I went out. It’s such a nice atmosphere there.
I’m currently watching ‘My Fair Lady’ a musical based on the story Pigmalion by George Bernard Shaw.
The story is about a flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who is trying to improve her cockney accented voice by taking lessons from Professor Higgins. She is taken in by the Professor who says he will turn her into someone who sounds like a duchess in six months. However his methods are unfeeling and really push Eliza. The film seems to sympathise with the professor rather than Eliza.
Songs like ‘all I want is a room somewhere’, ‘the rain in spain’ and ‘I could have danced all night’.
Audrey Hepburn stars as Eliza. She was able to sing the songs but they were dubbed by a singer called Marni Nixon, whose voice is in about fifty films!
If you’ve never watched it, you may feel the ideas in it are old fashioned, but it is set in Victorian/Edwardian times. The music is amazing and energetic. Worth watching.
Have I posted this before? By twisting an image by 90° and mirroring it you can get some strange effects. The lines on here are Street lamps going off into the distance. The light behind the clouds give it an alien appearance, what sort of atmosphere could it be. I can also see strange figures in the sky. Possibly faces? A bit of pareidolia? Symmetry does odd things….
As I was finishing my charcoal drawing I saw a creature in the sky. A flying beagle type dog with a white muzzle floppy mouth and long floppy ears (alternatively it could be a loping hare). I don’t know how I managed it, but I didn’t alter it, I just chuckled! I’ll post a photo of the finished drawing later…
The Penkhull panto was on tonight (and Friday and Saturday) and I really enjoyed it. It was strange being in the audience, but I got a chance to see the whole thing. It was written by the director who is also one of the cast. Jennifer Whittaker-Vyse.
They didn’t use my Scottish panel in the travelling scene (where Robin heads to Scotland to rescue Maid Marian, when she had been sent there by the evil Sheriff). But they did use the ones I painted a few years ago, including the houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, Sidney Opera House, and The Statue of Liberty. So basically the cast pretend to walk as the boards are carried being them. I think it didn’t quite fit the theme? Oh well. I got a thank you in the programme.
Overall it was a good show, silly and fun, with modern and ancient action. The pixies seemed to be rapping? As in all productions there were a few tiny fluffed lines that turned out to be hilarious! The lock Ness monster showed up too and people enjoyed singing along with the songs.
The best thing is there is no sponsor, so no advertisements shoe-horned into the production. There were cheers of ‘it’s behind you’ and ‘oh yes it is, oh no its not!’. If you don’t know pantomime check it out on Google or Wikipedia. Loved it!
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was bird. This is based on the mad drawings of birds I drew as a child. I later found out about the potters the Martin Brothers? Who did salt glazed ugly birds!
Sequins, shiny and bright
Sparkle and twinkle
In the light
Plastic circles
Dragon scales?
Are they magic
No, just pale
Imitations of fish skin
Gleaming and glittering in
The bright
Light
Tonight.
Trees and roots and cars reflected in a photo, then filtered digitally in various ways. I have buzzing ears today so I don’t want to spend a long time describing what I’ve done to the photo. I could say my whistling ears have been partly responsible for this, undulating noise, like a tide whispering in and out, and the picture seems to be covered in dirty ice that lumps up over the surface? Anyway, it’s just an experiment for today. A bit of synesthesia perhaps?
Mallaband-Brown