New paintings and regular art updates.
I put a sunset photo through the photodirector app (styles) and liked this result. The effect seems to be like oil on water, fluid but blocky. The colours are subtly concentrated in patches and the line edges are more curved.
There are about seven options for textures so I went through them all to choose the one I liked best. Some of them are more smudged than others.
What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
My wedding ring holds mom’s in place. Her hands must have been bigger than mine, hers would fall off without it. My ring is cheap, soft gold. I bought it myself for £27 from a jewellery store when we were getting married. Mom’s wedding ring is heavier and I’m sure higher quality. It’s slowly wearing mine away as they have rubbed against each other for about ten years. It was her bequest to me when she died, and every time I look at it I am reminded of the strong supportive woman she was. She allowed me to go to college when she could have insisted that I found a job. She helped me with my spelling when I was younger (I was in a low stream at school because I couldn’t see properly). They tested my eyes and I got glasses, mom helped me catch up by helping me with spelling. 100 words at a time! I got put up into the top stream at school. Mom encouraged my artistic endeavours. She would even show people my drawings.
She raised me and my siblings after our father died and went out and did two jobs to support us. She learnt to drive so she could transport us to places. She even took us out to Chinese meals and taught us how to use chopsticks. So many good and odd memories! She raised us to be polite and thoughtful. I am forever in her debt.
You’ve got to play
Create curves
Enjoy colour
Contrast warm
and cool
A mixture of spirals
Doodled tones
1970’s vibes
Fun!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was English. I think I went full “merry England” here! It’s definitely not fine art, more of a doodle, with morris dancers (you could have ‘molly’ dancers)… and a hobby horse, and children in the background dancing round the maypole, it’s set in a village with thatched cottages. I guess the main place I can think of that does something like this is Abbots Bromley near Rugeley in Staffordshire. They have the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. But that’s in September? Sadly I’ve never witnessed it!
It’s growing,
a bit of water
It’s gone mad!
Pots overflow
Burgeoning leaves
With green waterfalls
Bubbling out of the soil
Brown turned green
Ferns in the wall..
Yellow Welsh poppies
And dark mauve geraniums
Fun to see it grow
But no room to walk
A path is required
But raspberries
And blueberries
Have flowers
Now I need bees!
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was reflection… Quick reflection sketch. From a photo at Rode Hall lake a couple of weeks ago. The wind was ruffling the water so the reflections are a bit subtle….felt pens again.
I finally got my email to work, not on my phone, but on my PC. Help! I found around 3800 emails..
I have deleted about 2000 of them. Mainly notifications from WordPress about all the wonderful blogs here! I think there are about 30 to 40 emails I need to action. Mainly to apologise for not getting back in touch.
A few times I caught the wrong bit of the line of the email (missing the delete box) that clears the ones due to be deleted. At one stage I’d got up to 200 pending deletions! I gave up then, my arm was too painful and shaking to be able to concentrate. Will do more tomorrow… First world problems… I will try and continue to be tenacious.
I found this in a pile of old letters a few days ago. We knew exactly who to send it to, a very old friend who comes from the south west. It’s about the Bodmin, Wadebridge and Padstow railway.
The railway line was very curved, the corners were tight, so very few engines could travel along it. It was closed to passengers in the 1930s. It was one of the earliest railways and only very short wheelbased engines could used it. It was mainly used for transportation of China clay across Bodmin moor in Cornwall to Plymouth. The track bed was laid with a camber so the engines could get round the curves. The engines were 240 Beattie Well tanks. They were usde to lower the centre of gravity (Information courtesy of my hubby).
How do you feel about cold weather?
Britain is a temperate but also a maritime country. It sits in a position where winds come from all directions and can get hot but also quite cold. That variation in weather means the British are always talking about the it!
As the world warms up we are getting less cold weather, but we don’t always have warm temperatures. Some years ago the country was covered in snow for a few weeks. Satellite pictures showed a totally white surface of the country, which was brilliant white with snow and ice.
So how do I feel about the cold? I have not really experienced very cold weather. But I have lived in cold houses. Huddling around a coal fire when I was a student, with not enough money to burn coal! I remember one day chopping up an old chair to keep warm. That was the year a crank on my then boyfriends bike snapped because it was so cold.
On another occasion we went cycle camping one Easter. The weather was fine on our travel to the camp site, then it snowed. We set up camp then found places in the town to keep warm. We sat in a warm pub till closing time, then had to go back. You know its cold when you put on two pairs of trousers and four tops to go to sleep in a sleeping bag inside a tent!
So on the whole I can cope with the cold. I don’t like not being able to heat our house as I get older, but I can put on more jumpers and a coat.
What I hate is too much heat….
A peaceful place.
With singing birds
Aloft in the trees.
A shape of calm
Seated meditation
Floral and fluted
Music in mind
Not reality
Four legs stand firm
Support a bent back
Weeping in memory
Of one who has gone.
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
