Art

What are you good at?

Paintings on display yesterday.

If I had to say what I was good at number one would be painting and art. Fourth years ago I went to college to do Fine Art, then I recently completed a course in illustration.

Art makes me happy. I love to paint acrylics on canvas and also watercolours. To me art is manipulating liquids or solids on a flat or shaped surfaces. I am good at using paint, pastels, ink, wax, pencils, felt pens. I also enjoy creating images digitally. I’m lucky to have good hand eye coordination. So I can copy most things, I’m also fairly good at creating abstract images. I am very lucky to have art training. There are lots of skills that I have been privileged to learn.

Whatever I do I will always create art. It is part of my DNA I think!

Evening Moon

10x view of the moon with my phone. I wish I could have got a clearer view. I did think about changing the exposure, but I’m not exactly sure how as my phone is new and I don’t know how to change it to manual yet. Plus there was camera shake. It would be great to see some of the ‘seas’, or mare like the Sea of tranquility or the bay of rainbows. Also famous craters like Tycho, named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe. I could see darker areas visually but the exposure was on automatic. I will learn!

Owly

Wh-ooo-oo you looking at?

My old handbag I just found in a box. I still like it and might uses it occasionally. I have a similar one with different eyes. Perhaps I should give them to charity shops. I like black and white photos and I chose a filter called impact which gives stronger contrast and less greys shades.

I think the decorations on the bag give it a sinister frown!

Saltaire fair

I want to go

My friend sent me this via WhatsApp and I wish I could go, but Saltaire is too far, it’s near Leeds, and I can’t drive that far. I also already have something on on 3rd June. However in the interest of sharing news I thought I’d post this here.

Saltaire is having all sorts of activities this summer. There is a food festival, and it has Salts Mill, a famous Mill that was built by a Victorian industrialist and benefactor. Salts Mill has a bookshop and Gallery and restaurant. It also has a collection of the artist David Hockneys art.

Someone knocking at a door?

Someone, a young woman, has been knocking on a neighbours front door for half an hour. Hubby went out and asked her what she was doing (actually called out, the flat is fifty yards away) but got no answer, the woman was actually kicking and booting the door. The flat is above a shop and the woman seemed intent on getting in. Finally we gave up and rang the police. If she had been in distress we would have called an ambulance for her. But it seemed strange behaviour. Clearly after that length of time no one is going to open up. I hope it gets resolved. It’s worrying that she thought it was OK to do it… No shouts or screams, just kicking…it’s stopped now….

Orme Art at the Whitfield centre.

There is free entry to the Orme Art Group Exhibition. It’s on tomorrow at the Whitfield centre on Whitfield Avenue in Newcastle under Lyme. 11am till 4pm. The bottom photo is my table of small paintings. And the photo above it shows two boards with some of my larger paintings exhibited at the same time. I have finished five little paintings today, adding extra colour to one, a cat to another, and generally tidying them up. Then I put the paintings up on the boards, people seemed to like them. X

The Green Man?

Who would you like to talk to soon?

I would like to speak to a mythological person. The Green man. I would ask him how he manages with leaves growing all over him including out of his mouth? Is he rooted to the ground or can he move around like Treebeard the Ent from the Lord of the Rings Story by Tolkien? I would also what literature he appears in so I can find new things to read….

It’s a weird question though, I could say a relative or friend, but no one here would know them, so I could say anything. I could make things up. The same goes for famous people, how would I know what to say to a rock star or a TV personality and of what relevance would my opinions have for them, or theirs to me?

I would like some answers about insurance or council issues, instead of having to deal with a bot or an answer machine. At least when you speak to a human they can understand nuanced ideas and arguments. Having to talk to a chat bot can limit communication, particularly if it can’t understand your accent. Sometimes I talk to a AI voice on the phone and it will think I said No when I said Yes. When I rang up the cinema for local showings of films it thought I asked for Edinburgh! So yes, the Green Man, why not?

Another deer

Just down the hill from the metal stag in the Dorothy Clive garden was another stag we found. It was made of willow withies I think.

There were plants growing up through it which looked like clematis. I guess it will look amazing when the flowers are in full bloom.

I have gone a bit botanical in these last few posts. I have enjoyed getting out. I don’t go to many places anymore, and with my new camera on my phone I have taken an excessive lot of photos.

You may notice there is a brown area towards the top right of the photo? That’s because I’m waiting for a phone case and the one I’m using is too big, so the edge of the cover is overlapping the camera lens.