New paintings and regular art updates.
How do I reduce the size of my saved photos? I’m getting close to my limit again, so I’m still deleting pictures off blogs. But ideally I want to keep the photos. I could go into a post and edit each individual image, reducing the file size to medium or small? I’d only have to go through thousands of posts? I can’t afford to increase my WordPress /Jetpack package. So I’ll keep fudging things and deleting my most fuzzy or boring photos… Maybe I’ll win the lottery?
Don’t dip your brush in your tea!
It might make it taste foul..
You’ll see!
Oil and water doesn’t mix
And you’ll be in a fix!
Cos your tea isn’t water
Remember you ought’a
Put your mug somewhere else
Linseed oil, or turps taste
Vile, what a mistake…
Take it from me!
When it’s quiet here I can still hear the birds singing in the garden. Blackbirds and Robins seem to sing the loudest, but I can also hear Pigeons cooing and Magpies cackling in the morning as they dive and swoop around the trees.
The blackbirds were singing on top of our neighbours chimney pot, long and varied songs to call for a mate and to display where its territory is. Now they have become a bit quieter, they may have raused their young by now. The Robins still flit about but with the heat I think they are quieter too.
The world keeps spinning and the birds keep singing. I hope the birds keep coming back. X
Three years ago our cherry crop was already picked. The tree came from the old Woolworths shop in Stoke about twenty five years ago. It must have been happy because now it’s about thirty feet high.
The cherries are starting to ripen, but they are not ready yet. Maybe next week we can reach the lower ones. The rest we donate to the birds. One thing I need to do is buy a big umbrella, it really helps to stop the cherries we pick from rolling off into the undergrowth!
I just drew this… I saw a red admiral butterfly outside and wanted to take a photo of it, but it flew off. I decided to draw something against a dark background to make it stand out more. This was drawn in the Artrage app I use, it gives nice metallic effects, hence the abstract look of this butterfly.
Mother and baby macaque Monkey sculpted from an old tree stump. This is at the entrance to the Trentham Monkey Forest. We went a couple of weeks ago and saw a few babies, a bit older than this one. They were swinging off branches and twigs and learning to climb. I think the guide said there have been eight babies born so far this year.
They are happy in our climate because they originate high up in the mountains in North Africa so they are used to wide temperature variations. The monkey forest is part of a group of parks, the rest are in France, and they are working to conserve the Macaque population. Worth a visit.
How do you practice self-care?
I had to look it up.
“Self-care has been defined as the process of establishing behaviors to ensure holistic well-being of oneself, to promote health, and actively manage illness when it occurs. Individuals engage in some form of self-care daily with food choices, exercise, sleep, reading and dental care. Wikipedia“
It’s all very well having a definition, but do you keep to it? I for instance, try and do certain activities that help me, but not every day. Sometimes I remember, other times? I’m too engrossed in whatever crisis I’m dealing with to even remember to take care of myself.
I have responsibility for caring for others, I also have people who need my help. If I don’t help I feel guilty, and that’s not easy to put to one side.
So what things do I do? A little bit of chair yoga because I cannot get up and down off the floor. Choir twice a week for my mental health. And a gratitudes diary that I try and write three short things in that have happened in the day. They are usually minor, but it helps train your mind towards a more positive track… (gratitudes can include traffic lights on green for instance, or a favourite film coming on the TV).
Now I’ve read the definition I might just try a bit harder…
On the pavement outside our garden this little beauty I’d flowering. I think its out of a packet of wild flower seeds that my husband scattered a few months ago. It’s a surprise as the majority of poppy’s we have in the garden are yellow “Welsh” poppies. I love the crinkly way the petals expand. I’m hoping we get a few more soon.
How do you waste the most time every day?
I curse myself sometimes, because I can spend far too much time blogging and posting to social media.
I do have a purpose, as a part time artist and illustrator I like to keep people informed of what I’ve been doing during the day. So I posted pictures of the life drawing session I went to earlier on today.
I also post little poems, I don’t pretend to be a poet though, if it rhymes that’s a bonus.
Truly though, I ought to give it a break, but is it dopamine hits you get from picking up your phone and seeing you’ve got a like? If social media removed the buttons perhaps they would get less traffic. And that’s what it’s about isn’t it? Keeping people occupied and interested in the next new thing, be it politics or advertising. So then you get the “I’ll just watch one more video” feeling, and by the time you realise its 3.30am in the morning….
So yes, blogging is probably time wasting, it’s also shouting into an echo chamber, you hear yourself, but does anyone else care. As the saying goes “why don’t you just go and do something less boring instead?”….
Hang on, just got a notification, must check my phone…
If you see the face you might be experiencing Pareidolia. It’s one of my favourite things, I love finding faces or animals in or on other objects.
That’s what people did with the stars in the skies… They could see people or creatures and called them constellations. Some constellations are the basis of the signs of the Zodiac. Different civilisations had different myths and legends, so the combinations of stars creating them will be different depending on what part of the world you live in. Even the moon is seen as a boat when it is viewed from the equator and is waxing or waning, because it looks horizontal, not vertical. And what about the man in the moon? A face seen in the moons surface made up of the different craters and seas on it.
I think Pareidolia is really interesting. I read that it helped early people notice animals that might have been camouflaged without that skill. It’s more redundant now. But still there. So if you see faces in wallpaper or bunches of flowers Pareidolia is happening!
Mallaband-Brown