New paintings and regular art updates.
A drawing from 1981 of Hanley Park lake, surrounded by trees. I used to do a lot of pencil drawings and my sister has this in a frame at home.
The park was refurbished a few years ago and some of the neat lawns have been rewilded to allow the wildlife to thrive. There are also sculptures in the park and the boathouse has been restored. It’s been a while since we went there but it’s good to know its still thriving.
I’ve just watched a TV programme about climate change called the Trick. I don’t know if you can get the BBC but it was very informative and interesting. It was about the way anti climate change supporters hacked into scientific information and twisted it to try and discredit the scientists. These were scientists who had produced the hockey stick graph which shows that global temperatures were relatively steady on Earth until the industrial revolution and then started a steep increase.
The Trick is based in 2015. A scientist and his colleagues are accused of exaggeration of global warming, based on emails that were hacked and deliberately misinterpreted to throw doubt on the reality of climate change.
The programme showed how the scientist had to defend his reputation and the serious harm it did to his mental health and to his family while investigations were ongoing.
In the end his insight was accepted. He was exonerated and he was reinstated in his job. But it did mean that public opinion was skewed and that it cost at least ten years in fighting global warming because of the actions of vested interests.
An intelligent BBC film that is very worth watching. Don’t expect car chases, do expect strong acting and thought provoking ideas.
I’m having a discussion about various political issues and I suddenly realised when I share my opinions I could be said to be virtue signalling. Then I thought who comes up with these phrases and why?
I really do think we have entered an age of Orwellian ‘newspeak’. I think it’s always happened, but the phrase collateral damage, instead of saying innocent casualties was the start of it.
People weave words to obfuscate (hide their meaning). It might be to save people’s feelings, or to confuse people by misleading them. Perhaps the tricks and cons that advertisers have used have spread into politics and ordinary life.
I may be being harsh. But with climate change and the damage to the Earth from pollution, its about time we cut out the confusion and started being honest again!
How do you make it? Raisins and currents between slices of bread with a mixture of egg and milk and nutmeg and sugar somehow added to it? The outcome is a sticky, stiff, yummy lump of slightly crispy pudding.
Problem 1, I have no currents or raisins or even sultanas..
2, I have no sliced bread
3, I don’t eat sugar because of diabetes.
4. I have no recipe to work from and don’t know what temperature to cook it on.
Solution…just make it up as I go. So I sliced some slightly stale brown bread. Buttered it and placed it butter side down into a pyrex glass shallow oblong tray. Added a layer of sliced banana and some sliced pear. Then a few more bits of bread and dots of butter. Finally more banana and pear and a bit of a crust of bread on top. I then whisked up six eggs?! With milk, sugar substitute and a bit of cinnamon (I don’t have nutmeg).
Poured the liquid over the bread slowly so it soaked in.
What heat? I chose gas mark 5 (medium heat) and set the oven for forty minutes. It might be horrible. It might be OK. For future reference does anyone know a recipe?
A lunch meeting with a group of friends today. We have been meeting on line for 19 months but have not met many in person.
We were at the Potters club, a lovely set of rooms at the top of an office building in Stoke on Trent. There were amazing pieces of pottery on display, and the view out showed Penkhull hill and the Trent Valley.
I could have taken many photos if I had taken my phone with me, but I had left it on my table as I was having to walk with a stick. So the only photo I got was one of three chandeliers in the Potters Club room.
Playing with colours and planning a painting or series of paintings on the theme green men and women. I want to push the idea a bit further. Maybe abstract the images a bit more. Work on it in digital and analogue ways. It may be different hues. A bit like Andy Warhol variations, but different. I will try and post more if I come up with different ideas.
Experimenting again with dragon ideas. This one is made up of a drawing coloured in with different nail varnishes and then duplicated and mirrored after adding texture digitally. The blurred section had the words ‘dragon scales’ written on it but I decided to blur that out.
Each of these experiments will be added to a portfolio of images that will go towards my final major project for college.
After almost a month I managed to get upstairs and go to bed last night. I knew it would be difficult sleeping after a month on my own. I didn’t realise how pointy elbows are, or how legs have sharp knees! So I wrote this little poem… !
Sleep, I need it
But elbows get in the way
Digging in my ribs
And back
Turning night into day.
What I mean is
I just have to say
That when you’ve
Spent a month alone
Sharing a bed again
Is full of elbows
And knees….
Sharp and pointy
Keeping me awake
Till dawn.
I
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was relaxation. Meditation on Relaxation, a Buddha in a garden. I looked at our Buddha outside but I made the plants and the pool up because our garden isn’t very exotic. Fine black ink liner pen.
The drawing of Captain Kirk I did years ago. Now William Shatner, who played him in the Star Trek sci-fi series in the 1960’s, has flown up in a rocket and reached the edge of space.
60 miles up, a ten minute flight. But he’s 90 years old and he has done it! The oldest person/ actor/ sci-fi star to hitch a ride above the Earth. Well done x
Mallaband-Brown