Sold, Heron

Got a nice surprise this morning, I’ve sold another small painting (long and thin). It had been for sale at the Arts and Minds Gallery at Harper Street in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent. As usual it’s lovely to feel that someone has taken it into their heart.

This was a playful piece. I started by painting some weeds and rushes, and only decided to add a bird, this Heron, because it fitted in with the shape of the canvas.

Next? I might paint some gentle landscapes or flowers, but play with the style again, not forgetting the industrial heritage of the area.

Singing for mental health

I went to another choir practice last night and we sang some old songs from our repetoir including ‘La Para Deiu’ (I think that’s how it’s spelt). We haven’t sung it for at least five or six years, and if you had asked me what the tune was I would not have been able to sing it. But as we started to sing it flooded back. Soon we were singing in three part harmony and I was getting goosebumps down my spine. We sounded very good, better than we used to I think, and this was with new choir members joining in. I can’t explain how it lifted my mood. People were grinning and laughing. We sang a couple of other older songs, one we hadn’t done for maybe twelve or more years, from when we moved from our old venue. I hope the choir keeps going, it truly is good for mental health, raising our spirits and exercising our memories.

Bones named

Someone on twitter asked ‘what do you know for certain?’ so I had a think about it and came up with something I remember from my human biology class.

The names of the bones of the hand, scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezius, capitate, hamate. The mnemonic to remember it is : Spanish ladies take pills that they can hop. I guess it worked because I still remember them!

Watching videos

I’ve fallen into a bad habit, I’ve started to watch a lot of Facebook videos, one after the other. My phone keeps showing me hairdressing videos, five minute crafts, films about Agate, car crashes, American politics, police stopping cars. The trouble is its easier to watch one after the other rather than whole TV shows. Part of it is because hubby likes watching train and war films. I get bored by whether the train is running on narrow or standard gauge or even broad gauge. I don’t want to know the difference between tanks and armoured cars. I don’t want to know which general won what battle. So the phone videos have increased, which I think might be impacting on my arm problems. I don’t think I’m addicted, but it’s keeping my mind off things….

Old Nokia

I just found this under a cupboard! It’s my old phone. Goodness knows how old it is, I don’t know if the battery will have corroded it inside. I’m thinking of finding out if it can be refurbished as my hubby doesn’t like smart phones and just wants something basic to ring home if he needs to. I will try and find out if it can somehow be upgraded to work on the right sort of signal. It must be several years old? Are they worth anything? So it’s not smart, but is it fixable?

Galaxy

Light pollution is destroying our view of the night sky. In cities and towns only a few stars are visible at night, but if you get out away from them the sky can be full of thousands of faint stars including our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Our Galaxy is one of Billions or Trillions in the known Universe. It might look a bit like this if we were outside it, but as we are about a third of the way into a spiral arm of the Milky Way, it’s impossible to see that. Plus we are surrounded by dust lanes that obscure the view. Our galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its centre, and is made up not only of normal matter but dark matter and dark energy as well according to Astronomers and Astrophysical scientists.

The image is a digital drawing I did several years ago. You can only see something like this through a telescope though.

Sold a painting

I sold this today, only for a few pounds, but it was my first for 2023. I’m not making a great deal of money out of my art, but I know that this will be going to a good home. I didn’t get a photo of it fully completed because my phone camera is playing up but it’s a pretty good representation of the final piece. I didn’t really think about it but it also made me feel calm when I looked at it.

Stepping out

Only a few steps today, but more than I have been doing. I will try and keep this up now. If I can do around five thousand a day, or at least regularly, then it’s got to be better for me. Only problem is that my foot is hurting today, my shoe is rubbing on the outer side of my foot and I don’t know if it’s a temporary thing or if I’ve hurt myself. We will see tomorrow.