New paintings and regular art updates.
Finds a seat, on anything, climbs net curtains, is lovable, purrs, attacks toes, eyes are bright, eats what it likes. Ignores consequences, follows its own path, pees in the bath, doesn’t know maths. Can eat its own bodyweight in tuna. Dances with wolves? No with kitties! By the light of the moon. Jellicles is a nickname. Fleas are to blame for its itches. Cats mighty have intellects, especially when it comes to food, sleep, and love.
When I was at school our teacher taught us a rhyme to remember how to pronounce the letter H (or ‘a itches are wrong’ it means you are dropping your H). It went like this:
Old Harry Oakes,
Host of the Hare and Hounds,
Has Hard, and Horribly Horny Hands!
We had to stand up and say this in class! I think it’s because we all had Birmingham accents and he wanted us to sound more middle class!
I can remember a few more rhymes and nursery rhymes that have popped into my mind recently. Is this a sign of getting old?
Walking home, Stoke-on-Trent, about 3.15pm this afternoon. The low sun barred by dark clouds. It didn’t rain but the bright sunshine really shone out behind the clouds. The lamp posts give a sense of scale. You can see the shadow of the cloud on the right cast at an angle so it gives an indication of where the sun is. It never emerged as I walked as the clouds were really slow moving.
The cost of energy in the UK is going up 54% in April this year. That means that the average household bill will be around £2000 per year. There are already people having to choose between heating and eating. All this in an age when we have been told (and rightly so) that we need to cut our carbon footprints. There are ideas and suggestions, being considered, but whether those will work no one knows. I am lucky to live in a first world country, but the poorest in the economy will be hit hardest by this price hike. They spend a higher percentage of their money on energy.
Why as an artist, am I writing about this? Partly because it means that creative people are being squeezed. If people have higher bills they can’t afford to pay for luxuries like art, music, restaurants, just anything that they have to balance their bills. It means that children are going to suffer more poverty. Life continues to get difficult.
So we face hard times, but what about the rest of the world? Life is hard, conflict increases, people have lost their homes, people starve. I have no solutions to offer, but I wish things were better.
Why do I feel hot? I’m melting. Not my age? It’s winter, I’ve got the heating on. But I’m hot. I’m not ill, I was, but I’m getting better. I guess it’s because I have been standing in front of the cooker making tea (evening meal). I was looking for a drawing to show how I feel and this one from a couple of days ago illustrates it well. As you get older life seems to get more complicated. I swear I think bits are going to start falling off me!
Anyway, I’m feeling a bit better. But even so, I think I will have an early night. Life, its wonderful but complex.
Mondays are laugh along with a limerick day from Esther Chiltons blog.
I usually just write something and post it there but the prompt ‘shake’ struck a nerve (pun intended) so I decided to share it here too. I do have a shake and I am waiting for an appointment to find out the cause. And it doesn’t really pause. It keeps shaking, even at night. And I’m really tired and fed up. So here it is.
There’s a new film out about the Moon getting a lot closer to the Earth. Its by the same director as ‘Independence day’ and ‘the day after tomorrow’ I think?
There is also a video on Instagram showing the Moon closer and instead of being tidaly locked with the Earth (one face always towards us), it’s shown wobbling irregularly.
Thinking about it I wondered what would happen. Unless it was hit by something very large it wouldn’t move closer to us. But if it did I think we would have massive tides and earthquakes. The land rises as the moon passes over it. The question is how close does the video or film represent? The closer, the worse the effects. I know the moon is slowly moving away by a few centimeters a year, its been measured with a laser fired at mirrors left on its surface by the Apollo missions. If it was knocked away the Earth’s tilt would become worse and our spin unstable. Either way not good news…
I wish I lived on the other side of the hill.
Red sky at night! Wish I could have got up the hill. But it faded quickly after taking this shot. I’ve seen a couple of photos on Facebook which were taken by other people.
A gale force wind and storms are forecast for later tonight up in the north of the UK. But that’s mainly Scotland. Hopefully this means that the weather here will be OK. Its still a long time till spring. Lots of cold, wet, windy weather still to come.
Snoozes
Sleep,
Tired and shattered
Run round all day
Now I need a kip
Falling asleep
The cat dreams
Chase mice
Hunt birds
Jump on frogs
Lick paws
Kick legs
Pounce
Snooze
Sleep
How do I draw from imagination? I talk and think my way through things, by describing how they should look in my mind or verbally helps to make me think more about details of the image I’m drawing.
For example, this drawing was based on a memory of my walks in a local park as a child. There were trees that seemed to have faced in them. They were probably Ash trees, they seemed to have long spidery branches with tipped up ends like fingers. The path wandered around past stone walls that I used to balance on. Behind me was a play area with a slide, swings and a roundabout and seesaw. This is a memory drawing so it isn’t exactly accurate and things have probably changed a lot. I haven’t been back for years. But the face in the tree gives me a bit of a feeling of nervousness I used to get as a child.
Mallaband-Brown