
Oh you rascal!
I can’t move..
Pinned down
By my cat!
On my legs
Just out of reach
Inscrutable stare
Always there
When I wake up!
Now I’m stuck
But you’re so cute
I forgive you
You’re neat
And sweet!
New paintings and regular art updates.

Oh you rascal!
I can’t move..
Pinned down
By my cat!
On my legs
Just out of reach
Inscrutable stare
Always there
When I wake up!
Now I’m stuck
But you’re so cute
I forgive you
You’re neat
And sweet!

One of the art groups I’m part of put a prompt of #motion on their Facebook page today. I thought of this painting. Acrylic on canvas called Georges from a few years ago. A painting from memory of when I jumped in the sea fully clothed and swam out to a wild dolphin at Challaborough? In Devon. There were people on the beach and people in wetsuits further out. Georges kept swimming past me because I was somewhere in the middle. He’d got lots of scars along his body. I found out from a poster the next day telling people not to swim with him as he was too friendly and had been cut by boat propellers. You can also catch illnesses like pneumonia from breathing the air from their blowhole.

Drawing from 2021. I was watching Sky Landscape Artist of the year and I decided to do a drawing of Snowdonia in North Wales. This took half an hour. I have relatives that live near to Snowdon so it’s a place I love. The landscape near where I live is more rolling hills, certainly no mountains nearby.
One of the things about the UK is that there are so many variations in the landscape. Flat, hilly, mountainous, green, forested, heathland, waterlogged, dry, arable, coastal. You can see why people fall in love with it.

Yet again Putins army has attacked Ukraine. This morning eighty missiles rained down on about ten districts of Ukraine. Hey were mainly in the east of the country but smoke was seen in Kyiv and Oddessa. The attack killed civilians and damaged places like a nuclear power plant at Zaphoriza (not sure of the spelling). The fact Putin thinks this is OK is terrible. It was not that long ago the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, also in the Ukraine? was destroyed in an accident. Radiation spread across the whole of Europe. But Putin doesn’t seem to care. However many civilians, including women and children that he kills and maims he does not want to stop, till he destroys Ukraine.

When you sit all day feeling ill with a sore throat and a cough what do you do? I draw wobbly sketches! Play with filters, add colours, use metallic pens. Play with words. I think since I’ve been doing Esther Chilton’s blog challenges (limericks and five word challenges) it’s made me think more about words and how they work. It’s also taking part in #bandofsketchers prompts which gives me the chance to illustrate different ideas. Yes it is just a minor, wobbly, not very clear sketch, and I have put it through digital filters. But it keeps my mind busy and takes it off other thoughts, like feeling too sorry for myself. I think I experience flow, that feeling of time passing without you noticing, and being in the ‘now’? X

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was distant. I used to like to play with perspective drawings, using either one or two vanishing points. Both show how buildings or streets dwindle into the distance, becoming distant. It’s also fun to make up your own architecture.

Well I don’t like this swinging line
To other users it might be fine
But irritating I think it is
To see stats displayed like this
It gives me vertigo like I’ve drunk wine!
…….
Oops! They are there! You have to slide the screen sideways!

Come on rain, its been the driest February for years. The trees and bushes need a good sprinkling of rain. I can see tiny buds on our willow tree but they aren’t opening. The branches and twigs are bare. We may get some snow this week. But I didn’t know that ten centimetres of snow is equivalent to one centimetre of rain? That’s because fallen snow is mainly made up of air (think of how snow flakes are crystals that branch and leave gaps and air pockets). Let it rain, for a while, water the trees, please!

Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was Invisible. I imagine the invisible man would have to be naked if he wants to wander about. Or would have to wear bandages or makeup. There was a series on TV with David McCallum. If he drank you might see the coffee going into his stomach-Etc! Until it was actually absorbed. I got the stomach too high up in this sketch.

I’ve just been to the gallery where II have some of my paintings today. I thought they would be asking me to take some of my paintings away because they have been up too long, but they only wanted me to take one of a poppy field. But I do need to do some new paintings, to swap out with the ones I currently have there. I’m trying to think of spring images, maybe flowers? This is a Vinca. I was also thinking of doing a painting of a Blue himalayan poppy (mecanopsis) or other similar ones like Helibores. Also maybe snowdrops or daffodils. We will see.