My friends book…

Posted on May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Book, Emotion, Feelings, Inspiration, Learning, N. F. Mirza, Poet, Poetry review, Reality, Review, Time, WordPress, writer5 Comments

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Image by N. F. Mirza from her book.

I don’t do reviews…

But (you know one was coming). I just sat down to read ” Swinging Sanity” a book of poetry by my friend N. F. Mirza, who I know as ‘stoneronarollercoaster’ at WordPress.

I’ve known her for a while and found out she was a writer and now a published poet. Her book is a small volume. But it’s full to bursting with poetry full of emotion. As she moves through life, using it to discover her mental health and wellbeing.

The poems are forceful, I’m no poetry critic, but I found them easy to read. Some of them touched raw nerves, and you can see her heart torn open in many of them. I particularly liked Ocean and I become one.

ISBN 9798618202992.

using my PC

Posted on May 22, 2020May 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged course, Fun, Internet, Learning, pc, spaghetti wires, Technology4 Comments

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Its been three years since Iv’e used my PC. I am very rusty at this, even trying to type on a keyboard again feels very anachronistic, and its a big lumpy keyboard. My mouse? An old wacom tablet I used to draw on and as a mouse. So I’m struggling. I’m surprised a little paperclip hasn’t popped up to tell me I’m doing things wrong, and I had got used to my keypad auto-correcting, so there’s lots of underscored red warnings about my lack of ‘s in words like wasn’t for was not…..grr.

So why the haste to go back to the PC?

I’m trying to set up to do an online course which will need communication via a website that is more complicated than my phone. after spending the day trying to sort out spaghetti cables , leads that run to nowhere, and a monitor that doesn’t want to play I’m going to give it a rest for a while .

Using a new app.

Posted on May 10, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Digital art, Digital editing, Drawing, Eyes, Fun, Glitter, Learning, Photo director app, SketchLeave a comment

The original sketch, with a bit of colour added, I did cat like eyes, added some gold glitter.

Then I used an app a friend recommended called photo director.

I was able to clone a section of the drawing and add a layer of old paint. I think I’m going to like using the app. It’s a bit hit and miss at the moment, but I’m learning all the time…

Playing with photos

Posted on May 7, 2020May 7, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Filters, Fun, Learning, Photo, Photo editing app, Playing6 Comments

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Thanks to a friend I’ve just found another app to play with. It seems relatively easy to use. But as this is my first ever use of it I think I will try and get a bit more used to it before I review it or tell you what it’s called. I have a feeling I might seriously mess something up. Seems much more interactive than previous apps I have used, but that might not be a good thing.

Picsart review

Posted on May 4, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Apps, art rage, changing images, Design, Digital drawing, digital sketching, Drawing, Fun, Imagination, Learning, Mosaic, pics art, Sketching6 Comments

Picsart was an app I really liked. I’d used it for a while and you could alter pictures and draw over the top of them if I remember . Now however there are more patterns that you can superimpose over your original art, but it doesn’t seem as interesting.

As you can see from these images I like to mess about with the effects available. On these I used effects to change the colour and hue, distortions, outlining edges and embossing.

This is the original that I drew at ArtRage.

I was trying to get a mosaic effect.

Anyway more later on. Its after 3am!

Pen tops..

Posted on May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colours, Design, Hues, Learning, Negative, Phone apps, Photo editing, PhotosLeave a comment

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Here are the permanent pens I’m using for my sketches.

I just thought I’d post a picture because I liked the bright colours. I’ve actually got another challenge I’ve been given to post black and white photos for seven days, so I could alter this…

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Of course you can use your photo editor to change the hue… _20200504_004437

Or create a negative image…. _20200504_004321

So what am I saying? If you have a smart phone, it’s fun to play with your phones photo software. You might be surprised what you can create.

Hello duck!

Posted on May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cost kick a boe, Duck, England, Learning, Midlands dialects, Potteries dialect, Pronunciation, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, UK, Words3 Comments

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This was a sign in a local museum that someone shared on Facebook.

It was strange coming to live here. In my home town people would say hello chick, or love. But Stoke people say ‘duck’. I had no idea of the origins, and the first few times I heard it I literally did duck! I thought someone was warning me! Eventually, though, I got used to the greeting. Together with the phrase ‘cost kick a bow agin a woe an it it wi yer hed til ya bost it?’ I may have misspelt this but it means ‘Can you kick a ball against a wall and hit it with your head until you burst it?’

As you can see, the old dialect and pronunciation is interesting. But as someone with a west Midlands accent. Oim not reealy botheered abowt iyt.

Drawing flowers for a border.

Posted on May 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Border, Drawing, Flower border, Flowers, Learning, Plant, Poem, Poetry, Sketch, TextLeave a comment

sketch-1588435527385 I just drew these flowers, then tried to position them as borders for the edge of a page. The thing wasn’t working so I added blank pages to make it more of a border. I’d taken a photo of the drawing so there was shadow on the paper. I made a bit of a mess trying to use an airbrush tool on it, so there are some areas which are a bit to shady round the flowers. Then I decided to see how I could use it for a poem, so I wrote it line by line. Positioning each line in turn.

It’s not brilliant, but it’s not something I’ve done before.

Disco ball

Posted on April 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Design, Experiment, Fun, Learning, Photo, Playing, Poem, Poetry, ThoughtLeave a comment

I shone a bright torch on our disco ball (yes I’ve got one) took a photo, then another one with the torch on a lower power. Duplicated the photos, and ended up with a couple of interesting pictures that are quite abstract…..

Playing with shapes and light is fun.

Experimental things teach you

How to make new things.

If you don’t try,

You never learn….

Trying to make banana cake without all the ingredients.

Posted on April 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bad baking, Banana, Banana cake, Cooking, Food, Ice cream, Kitchen, Learning, Making it up, Sticky, Tasty, Toffee, TryingLeave a comment

I give you (please take some).
Home made banana cake with toffees melted on the top.
Ingredients.
Half self raising flour, half plain flour, about 8oz with a bit of yeast. (what I had in the cupboard).
Some granulated sweetener, about a tablespoon full.
4 oz approx of butter
Two eggs
A small mug of milk.
A bit of orange juice.
Two sliced bananas.
Toffees melted on top for the last twenty minutes.

Method
I added the flours together with the yeast, added the sweetener, then added the butter and broke it up until it was crumbly. Then I added the eggs, mixed in milk. It was still a bit dry so I added a bit of orange juice, till it was quite soft. A bit like wet mashed potatoes.
I then chopped the bananas up and mixed them in. I left it for a while to see if it rose (it didn’t!)
Cooked gas mark four for an hour and ten minutes. About forty minutes in I noticed it was rising but split in the top. So I got some toffees we had at Christmas and placed them on top. The mess is where they melted.
Not pretty but tastes OK. Served the first bit with some ice cream while it was hot. Not bad!

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Learning