New paintings and regular art updates.
Cats seem to be a theme in my sketchbook at the moment.
I love cats
Their eyes
Their whiskers
The shapes they make
The fun they create
Bouncing and pouncing
Bounding and jumping
Faces all furry
Twisting and whirling
They cheer my soul!
Reading a friends blog about the mid term elections in the USA it made me wonder about the whole thing. I posted this response to her post:
Interesting news on the ‘tinternet’ I keep seeing videos of what people are up to in different states but I saw one where republicans who include some ‘oath takers?’ will be guarding ballot boxes, especially between midnight and six am, to make sure no one tries to put lots of votes into the boxes… An extention of ‘stop the steal’? And they said they might carry guns!! Weird, is this democracy? No pun intended.
I seem to be getting more and more commentary about the elections, but in a way I’m quite interested, I know it’s none of my business, but there are so many world issues including war and global warming and climate change isn’t it about time the world’s largest democracies had a grown up and serious discussion about the whole world instead of soap opera style politics.
When the ink bleeds through the back of a sketch you can draw contours around the splodges of ink. I think the negative space it creates is quite interesting. You can vaguely tell its a still life (with Christmas cactus and flowers in a fish shaped glass bottle. The original felt pen drawing (sharpies) is about three years old.
I’m on day 66 and I’m still writing and drawing three small gratitudes a day. From getting a good night’s sleep, to playing with the cat, to reading a good book, nothing is too small to be grateful for. I’m sure over these last few weeks it has helped keep me going. Putting positive thoughts in the front of your mind isn’t always the most normal or natural thing to do, but it helps you to step back from what might be a dreadful time. I like drawing and writing, but I’ve got my hubby just writing a few lines every day. It doesn’t have to be profound, that would be amazing, but wonderful things just don’t happen everyday. So accept the small stuff….
No not missing in the fog, just missing fog. I lived in flat many years ago and we were half way up a tower block. I remember looking out of the kitchen window and the clouds were below me. When I walked outside I was in fog. Cold and grey, but it made the world interesting and indistinct. Sometimes driving home at night we would encounter fog patches or banks of fog. Driving in and out of them made me very cautious. There were stories of people following the rear lights of cars into people’s drives because they hadn’t realised that the car had turned off the road and they had been following to find their way around.
These days we don’t seem to get much. Is the air dryer so mist does not form? Is the humidity of the air too low? I miss the fog
I took the photo in Hanley Park a few years ago. I really like the wonderful blurred areas of part of it, unfocused and softened. I like the way it removed colour, making the image monochrome. I miss fog…
I don’t do horror films, I think they are illogical and silly. I’m sure I could watch a comedy one, but I get irritated by the serious ones. My hubby watches them and I do some art or read a book…why?
The main character seems to run upstairs when she (usually a woman) is chased. Or goes down into a cellar with a torch that isn’t working properly. Then something horrific happens to a friend who has just called round (in the middle of the night) to see how she is settling in. The result is she hides somewhere silly and dangerous, trying to keep one step ahead of the ‘ghoul’ who has either a mask or makeup to hide their identity. After an hour or so of idiotic chasing where ‘spooky’ activity happens and various other cast members die horrifically being hit on the head with copper saucepans and malt vinegar drownings, eventually she finds the front door (three steps from the bottom of the stairs) escapes, and gets run over and killed by a tractor towing glowing turnips…
Once I had a drawing (this took thirty minutes), I played with different filters to create different effects. This was using the negative filter on my phone. I have so many sketches and sketch books that I think I ought to store together. I also have thousands of photos on my phone. It’s a way of keeping memories and meaning. But sometimes the photos you really want are the ones you never remembered to tske…
Today, after a very bad night’s sleep, I got up and decided to go to the Orme Art Group today. We had booked a life model to sit for us and I didn’t want to miss it. I had bought new ink pens and black sharpie pens to use in my sketchbook. This drawing took a couple of hours, I wanted to capture the patterns on her skirt and scarf and the autumn leaves outside the window. I think this went well and I’m pleased with it. Going out and talking to the friends in the group really helped.
When the exact size and shaped leaf falls on your picnic plate. I moved it over to line up with the stem. I had to take a photo
Today was a good one. I sang, I laughed, I cried and I felt supported by friends and by the world. I found a plastic heart that had fallen off a picture and was stuck with bluetack to the bottom of my slipper. But that bit of plastic was whole, not broken. A sign? Perhaps, I took the decision to accept it as that and it made me smile.
We got a letter off our energy company today. Our yearly bills are set to DOUBLE. I then saw a video of a comedy programme from the 1970’s on Facebook in which a man is being encouraged to save energy by using a hot water bottle, to which he responds he can’t afford to boil a kettle. Other suggestions include using a car less (he doesn’t own one), eating healthily (on his income he can’t afford to), and heating meals thoroughly (he can’t afford to have his cooker on). It was funny, but it shows things were not so different fifty years ago! Later on they showed a public information film from about the same time. This was to encourage the population to save energy by only heating one room in their home instead of heating the whole house do that the NHS and hospitals would have enough energy to stay open!
Seriously though it does make you wonder about open plan living, maybe people should rebuild internal walls?
Mallaband-Brown