New paintings and regular art updates.
#bandofsketchers prompt for Sunday was gate or stile.
I did a coloured drawing of this on the computer but when I tried to save it the computer crashed! Anyway this is a black and white drawing of a broken gate to a field. It was imagined because I couldn’t find a thing that was nice on the computer.
I wonder if the digital drawing I did is saved somewhere on my old PC. Anyway this is the best I can do.
Blurry photo in the garden, freezias in a big blue pot. I need to do some weeding, we have too much ivy spreading across the ground and random bits of blackberry bushes that are thorny. Nettles are welcome in the garden for butterflies but they keep encroaching into the flower beds.
Spent the afternoon in the garden weeding and helping drill a hole in our garden gate for a padlock and chain (we are still upset by having the motorbike stolen and want to make it more secure). Also did a bit of college work… Better do more!
A few minutes ago a young man looked over our gate. He had dark hair and had a scarf or mask on covering the lower half of his face. As he looked over my hubby and I saw him and he say us. He turned away and walked up the hill. Hubby went to the front door and shouted, asking what was he doing and then shouted that he should sod off. The youth ignored him and walked away.
Why were we bothered? Because hubby’s motor scooter is locked just inside the gate. It’s attached to a ground anchor with a strong chain. That’s because it was stolen before but we got it back. It was stolen during a snow storm late at night but my hubby was able to follow the tracks to where it had been hidden! Is it any wonder that we are suspicious of people looking into the garden.
Sorry for the bad photo of this, but this was my old cat. She was on the big painting I posted a few days ago. She was very clever and if I tapped the wall on the other side of the gate she would jump the gap. I decided to take a photo on an old 35mm Olympus trip camera (this was before digital). She jumped on cue and I snapped the photo. When I saw it I decided to paint it. I won a small prize in a local art exhibition.
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Image copyright Sue Vincent. From Sue’s #writephoto photo prompt.
This is my first ever ping back so I hope it works……
The stone gateway was imposing, the heavy gates looked too big to push open easily. The first time I walked through the gates I was 10 years old and very nervous. My grandma lived in the big house, but as we had only just moved back after several years abroad I had never met her. Seeing the gates and the stone gateposts made me think that someone very important lived there.
I remembered the long tree lined drive. The dappled sunlight warming the golden gravel. I wanted to know how far it was to the front door so I started counting steps, but lost track around 300. As I turned a bend in the path I saw short, grey haired lady in horn rimmed glasses, she didn’t look as scary as I imagined her. She was waiting at the top of three steps made of grey stone. I wanted to run up to her, but mom had told me to be polite. So I walked up slowly and quietly said hello.
That had been 40 years ago. My gran must have been about 50 but I had thought she was very old. I remembered her putting a record on for me, a Beatles song. ” Help ” I think it was? From then on she would always play music when I arrived, some pop music, other times classical music like Stravinsky or Rachmaninov. Sometimes we danced together and laughed at each other.
Today was a sad day. The last time I would walk through those gates. I remembered all the happy times I had spent there. Afternoons after school always seemed sunny. Gran would give me a snack and Mom would pick me up when she finished work.
Now both of them were gone. Today I had to lock up grans house and hand over the keys to the estate agent. The funeral had been a week ago. I had her favourite music played at the ceremony.
As I left I shut the gates gently, knowing I would never walk there again…..
Mallaband-Brown