New paintings and regular art updates.
The tall chimney tapers
High up in the air
Birds soar around its slender height.
Blustery and white
Clouds scud across the blue
A memorial to ancient potters
Who wheezed in its smoky shadow.
Coughed clay into spittoons
Made and created beauty
Paid little
Working hard
In their race to death.
Three of four paintings I need to finish by tomorrow! Eek. Two paintings with poppies, plus a bottle kiln and sky. I’m also half way through the painting of a steam engine. I could have done this yesterday but I got involved in something else. Pressure? What pressure! ❤️
Ignore the grey colour. I’m trying to increase my text size in my story for college. Each section is in a box, but as I enlarge them they overlap the drawings a bit more, so I’m increasing the text but reducing the size of the boxes slightly. Done twelve so far, six to go! Argh!
Had the pleasure of hanging the flower baskets and planting up some pots today. I’m expecting as they settle down there will be a mass of more flowers. Last year the baskets were still partly in flower in December!
The gap where the Russian vine used to be a few hours hard work helping the builder. Talk about building upper arm strength. We are having some fence replaced tomorrow. Then various other jobs done. I ache all over but I’ve agreed to go for another walk in a few hours. I’m hoping it’s doing me good.
First World countries are mostly too sedentary. Say in front of our screens, forgetting that we are essentially all still cavemen and not really built to be sitting down all the time. I’m almost too old to learn that. But I have. I hope I can keep it up.
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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I don’t have a photo, but this afternoon we removed what feels like miles of Russian vine from our hedge. I think it’s also called mile a minute. It’s also growing at the back of our garden, and bits of it have grown up the telephone wires and even into our shed!
It was hot outside, so we worked in the late afternoon as it started to cool down. The Russian vine is wraping itself round a couple of leylandii, up an old willow tree, into our walnut tree, and around the Holly tree. It’s tough stuff. We should dig out the roots, but it’s too entangled. So we are cutting through the largest vines, then you pull at it, and strands of vine twenty foot long come out of the hedge. Each vine splits into branching thinner pieces. The leaves are green and heart shaped. It looks like a nice plant when you get it. With small white bunches of flowers in the summer. The bees like it, but our privet hedge flowers and that is more pleasant than the vine.
Unless you have a massive garden don’t grow it!
A fellow blogger asked if I used permaculture in the garden, I actually don’t know what that is? We’ve been here about twenty five years and when we moved in the garden was a patch of land fenced off by the woman who used to own the house. It had three lilac bushes a patch of what turned out to be Japanese knotweed and lawn. We rented it off the old owner of our house for twenty years then bought it. I only used weedkiller at the start because of the knotweed. Since then we put in a pond, planted all sorts of trees. Some of its too shady. The walnut tree must be forty foot high. Just put a bit of fertiliser on occasionally. There is rubble and broken pottery under the soil. You get archaeology when you dig it.
I did not believe that we could get mature trees in a little over twenty five years. Some of them seem to grow like weeds. The back of the garden has had a shed and a summerhouse put on it. I’m hoping to do some art in there. We are trying to get perennial plants to grow. I have lots of geraniums but most of all we have a lot of ivy growing everywhere.
It is good to sit in the garden, but I feel sorry for people who don’t have anywhere green to sit.
Stay safe,
Keep well.
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Progress… Just a quick update.
Using various greens, it’s going to be monochromatic, no other colours but white, greens and some paynes grey.
May be finished by the weekend.
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I’ve started work on this painting after a gap of a few months. I think it just over faced me, it was too big, to difficult (I’m working on it by looking at my phone).
And this last few days I haven’t felt well enough, but I started work on it this morning and did a good few hours on it.
So, where am I painting? In the house, not my studio. That’s the other thing, physically I feel awful. Mentally, I’m OK but don’t feel like I want to go out. We went for lunch with a friend today, but came straight home afterwards because I was exhausted, literally shaking. I don’t think I’m getting worse, but it’s taking time to recover and I know I’m pushing myself. But I have an exhibition next week and I haven’t got everything done. It’s very last minute……
This morning I realised it will be forty years in September since I started my degree in fine art painting…and I have never stopped….
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Mallaband-Brown