Draco

My mind is racing, I cannot sleep. My hand has held a paintbrush and suddenly the impetus is there to paint again despite the shaking and wobbling. I started three more small paintings tonight, a kingfisher, then this dragon, and finally a face I’ve called medusa. All works in progress. I think the illustration side of me is leaking into my paintings!

And then there’s faces

Digital drawing I did six years ago. I think in the sketcher free app and then I used the layout app on my phone. I’ve tried several art apps but I can’t keep all of them on my phone because I still haven’t increased the memory on it. I don’t want to lose my images if they get deleted by accident. I could imagine this being a tapestry or embroidery.

Seashore mosaic

Photoshop landscape using mosaic photos to break up the image. It’s an interesting effect but is it a bit jarring? The secrion of the sky seems to have too many black bits I’m it. This is years old and I can’t remember when I did it. I have numerous pictures that I created over several years. I am very interested in artistic experiments. X

No lateral flow tests

If you live in England you can no longer get free lateral flow tests, this despite covid 19 infections being very high (about one in thirteen). I think it’s stupid, we are supposed to ‘live with it’ (die with it?) and yet Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not ending it yet. Why do our government think this is OK. I think it’s to save money. You now have to pay. All the people on low incomes with higher bills to pay won’t be able to afford them. People are going into work with covid. It is spreading. This is stupid.

Rooves

Yesterday I drew an horizon. But this was a photo I took that I almost worked from. I liked the serried rows of house rooves and chimneys , but they are capped with tower blocks and modern concrete buildings up in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. I decided that it wasn’t what I wanted to draw. Slate rooves, old and grey, covered in lichens, no longer wrapped in the smoke of potteries and bottle ovens. Cleaner air, further views.

Tulips

Not this years ones, they haven’t opened up yet. But they are starting to grow up. I just can’t wait. I’m used to waiting for spring but sometimes it seems to take an awful long time to get here. A couple of weeks ago the temperatures were in the high teens Celsius, last week they dropped to freezing or below, and there was a snow in a few places across the UK. We didn’t get more than a bit of hail and snow here. Meanwhile the daffodils and snowdrops are up. We haven’t had much rain though, so the buds on the trees are not fully open yet…

Lost

We drove past the Leopard Hotel in Burslem today. Its just hidden behind wooden hoardings and scaffolding. I haven’t been up past it since the fire that destroyed it back in February. We only glanced at it. I couldn’t stop. It’s a hole in the history of Burslem, and a hole in my memory. I managed to find a photo of the Leopard sign. It was also known as the famous Leopard. I’m still trying to find copies of the photos I took of the murals I painted in there. A remote hope.