I painted an elephant portrait.

Seven years ago I had a small exhibition at Etruria Industrial museum. This blurry photo just came up on my Facebook memories.

The blurry image of my painting was taken from a photo of my friend with a white elephant she had made of paper and willow withies. She was sewing a rich red and yellow fringe around it as way of hiding the legs of the person who was to carry it. The back had a hollow ‘houda’ I think its called? Like a basket to sit in. This was so a person could carry the elephant but look like they were riding it. I loved this representation of the elephant and decided to paint this image. My friend had the painting. The elephant? I think it was destroyed in a fire in the shed where it was stored…

My random gallery

Lots of photos, thousands! Because I use my phone to edit and experiment with images, I keep ending up with too many photos. I’ve worked out (finally) how to optimise them on this new phone, but it means that images I have been adding here are taking up too much space on WordPress /Jetpack.

Editing the photos as I go along does take time when I am busy with other things. Duplications get missed, or sneak into other folders, I haven’t created the folders, the phone does it on its own! Then Jetpack gets upset with me, my picture content is always hovering around 100% so I have to delete old photos (I have over 1800 images in my folder here!).

I’ve started using free images here, but often they don’t really represent what I want to depict, so the majority of images I add are my own.

Prime ministers question time

Wednesday at noon. Prime Ministers question time is on again. When the House of Commons is sitting this is the time to question the political situation in Britain.

It is a spectacular event. An argumentative debate. Noise and heckling, shouting, barracking, hundreds of members of Parliament shouting at each other. Conservatives, Labour, Scottish Nationalists, Democratic Unionists and Liberal Democrats put forward their questions about what the government is doing.

Varied questions came up today: private renting costs, the Northern Irish parliament, melanoma, cost of living crisis, accommodating migrants, student debt, steel manufacture amongst other questions.

The Conservatives, who are in power ask mainly soft subject questions, pleased with themselves and smugly denegrating the opposition. The opposition parties try and ask searching questions, but are often sarcastically fobbed off with flippant answers.

This method of questioning is not always enlightening or clarifying. The world might be a better place if the whole procedure was rethought. A lot of it is Members of Parliament trying to get seen by their constituents by asking questions. Some of it does clarify policies. I’ll continue to keep watching this spectacle.

Old tops

Pattern

I’m unearthing old tops and leggings because I’m having a late spring clean. I bought some of those vaccum bags that you fill with clothes and then suck all the air out. It’s surprising how satisfying it is to do. I’ve bagged up all my winter jumpers. All I need to do is unzip the bag when I need them again. It also means they can’t be attacked by clothes moths. I will also bag up a winter bedcover and a few sheets and a crocheted blanket. I’m glad I bought the bags. In the meantime I’m enjoying wearing a top I last wore twenty years ago… My cupboards need sorting out more frequently!

Global warming

What are you most worried about for the future?

The heat is on..

The world is melting

Tides are rising

It’s happened in my lifetime

Sea water is hotter

Glaciers are drying up

No water to drink

Once it’s gone.

Drought hits crops

Why not be concerned?

Just because I might be gone

I still need to worry

For the ones that come after.

Do my best to restore things

To how they were?

Not much effect maybe?

But one fingernail holds me

Stuck on a cliff

Of hope to change things

We cannot turn back time

But we may make a difference

If we all try?

Singing group

We had choir practice tonight. We started to learn a song ‘it’s getting better everyday’ we had learnt it a few years ago when we had sung in a play at the local theatre. I was thinking about the enjoyment of singing and I remembered that Elton John was extolling the virtues of being in a choir at Glastonbury this year.

We are not a big group but we harmonise well. We did a few sea shanties and started learning another one about going on holiday.

It was such a positive evening, I would recommend joining a choir or singing group if you want to get calm and improve your breathing too. We learn a capella and we are mainly unaccompanied, it’s really fun!

At the vets

Facing a long wait. The vets are busy and only have on clinician on duty. The people who were here for 2.30 are still waiting at 3.15.

Our cat must have been in a fight, he’s got a big lump on his face which is below his eye. Cats are prone to abscesses and they can burst on their own, but it’s important to get it checked out especially since its so close to his eye.

Anyway I hope he will be alright soon. Wish him luck. X

Overlays

I added different textures, scratches, and overlays to my dotty drawing from earlier oni don’t know why but I have to push the boundaries to my work until it feels finished. I guess that’s why I call myself an experimental fine artist. I like the way it’s digital but it could be painted and then weathered and flaking. I keep editing until I cannot get an improvement in the image.

Up and down

This is how I feel. Trying to balance the world on my nose. It wobbles, but keeps spinning. It precesses and stays just about stable, but demands on me pull it off kilter. Can I do this, will I do that? Can I help with.. I don’t like letting people down so I do my best. Perhaps I should be more selfish? But that’s not what I’m like.

I feel like dropping the spinning wheel sometimes, just let it slide away, tip up then roll off into the distance. Trying to manage the behaviour of someone who self harms isn’t good (I won’t say who). That and personal pain from my medical conditions makes me grumpy. I just want peace. A couple of days to myself. It didn’t help that our neighbours behind us are selling their house and are threatening to cut branches off our trees? We said we would sort things out so hubby, who is in his seventies, was climbing up and down ladders cutting foliage back. All I could do was hold the ladder. That and some other new neighbours have decided to park their car in the alleyway so it’s hard to access the back of our garden. No consideration for us. I might contact the council. So many things to deal with, and now it looks like one of our cats had got an abscess on his face, he’s just come in and his face is swollen. Oh dear!