Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was on air… What to do for ‘On air’ …. I had to look up an old microphone for this, except I think its actually modern? It was on a sales site. Anyway it actually says ‘on air’ at the top so I chose it….
On Air
Tag: Life
Bricks
Bricks or sets? A good surface to walk on, but not for the environment. As the song by Joni Mitchell goes ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’.
Everywhere everyone is having driveways installed, block paviours or tarmac. Repelling water so it runs away quickly instead of being absorbed into the soil. Then the drains flood and storm drains are overwhelmed. Raw sewerage gets released into rivers, which keeps happening. People have been wild swimming in rivers and around the coast for years, but the amount of waste effluent getting into our natural waterways is causing extreme concern for health.
There are new rules to make paving permiable to rain water. But who checks on it. So instead of putting in a driveway think about a more environmental and possibly cheaper option?
Statue scribble
A few days ago there was a news story about a museum that gave children crayons and paper when they visited. Unfortunately one of the children used a blue crayon to scribble all over an old sculpture. I was drawing a female head and shoulders and it suddenly struck me that it looked a bit like the statue. I added lines, and it seemed even more like the scribbled statue. Strange what your mind takes you.
Parsimonius
I must be parsimonius
The door stays locked
Money is a great big fuss
Payments will be stopped.
My purse is not bottomless
The moths are growing big
The dust in there is limitless
While fuel bills they still rig
The cost of living crisis
Has got us by the throat
Money goes by osmosis
Out of a sinking boat!
So now I will spend less
Cutting my money cloth
Mcawber rules I will address
No cash now for froth!
Taking in cats
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
Almost all of our cats have been strays or rescue cats. Starting with an old ginger cat whose owner no longer wanted him. I was at the vets with my friend and her kittens. We saw this straggly, ginger long haired cat, he was thin as a rake and it’s owner who was an elderly lady, could no longer care for him. We asked if we could take him in and she signed him over to us. He was quite old but he lived another couple of years with us. He used to walk along the wall between us and the house next door. He knew when I was coming home and came and greeted me. One thing I always do is teach my cats to come when I whistle them. I have never regretted the risk of taking our first cat in, and now after many years of cat ownership I still feel the same way.
Sea face
Eight years ago I painted this. I based it on a broken terracotta wall plaque that I’d had on the wall outside but I think the frost split it. It sort of reminds me of the green man theme and I think I actually bought it in a green man shop in Pickering in Yorkshire….. It was an acrylic on canvas and I guess I must have sold it as I haven’t seen it for years? You can get inspiration from all sorts of places if you look.
Art competition
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
So many times I have missed deadlines for art competitions. I somehow freeze and lose confidence.
I think it stems from a college tutor who told me I would do badly and not get a good degree. I believed him and when I was successful I still questioned my validity. I come from a working class home and I didn’t have the self confidence to dismiss his opinion. I took three years to get over it and forever after I have felt some degree of imposter syndrome. I was once asked as l local artist to judge an art competition. It was so hard, I didn’t know what to do, whether I would disappoint people. The result was announced and I think people were pleased with my choice, but I felt great guilt!
It’s hard to think that those few words my tutor spoke forty years ago, sank deep into my heart. What would I be doing if I hadn’t listened to his poisoned words. I wish I knew then what I do now.
No hedgehogs..
Keeping an eye out
Looking for hedgehogs
Trying to see
The glint in its eye
Leaving out cat food
Lots of berries
Bits of apple.
But it’s been cold
Frosts in the morning
Ice in the bowl
Hope they return.
Hybernating
Dying hedge
Up until two years ago the hedge my garden hedge was fine and healthy but then unknown to us we got a leaking pipe in the garden. While the trees in the hedge prospered the hedge didn’t. The plants got straggly and untidy, a friend cut part of it back but it didn’t regenerate. Then last year a builder dumped a load of rubble and rubbish in the alley running alongside the garden. Eventually after about six months the council bought a digger in to remove it, but the cut the hedge in half all the way along the path. Effectively removing all the green growth that overhung the pathway. We are trying to add roses and hedgerow plants like hawthorn, but it still looks like a gap toothed smile! You can see into the garden from outside. We also have hundreds of tree seedlings germinating probably because of light getting into the garden.
I went out for the first time in months today. I feel very unsteady and the garden paths are uneven, but I need to try and make an effort despite shaking like a jelly!
Onomatopoeia ?
Glung! The springs in my bed make that noise. Shhhhh the wind in the trees.
It’s the word that is written that sounds like the sound that is being made. Cats Miaow (or miroaw), sheep go Bahh. So lambs are called Baa Lambs. There is a Baa lamb hill near here.
Just thinking, maybe that’s how language started? Imitating sounds, and then other describing words. How can we know.
Translation of language was helped by the Rosetta stone which had three languages carved into it. Because each was a translation of the previous one it took linguists back in time to understand ancient voices.
Mallaband-Brown 