Quiet day

I can’t share my college art work, but I’m busy trying to put a project together to create an artefact that can be used either as a promotion of my work and/or a product to sell.

So what do I have to do? Convert a two dimensional image to a three dimensional object. Something that can be used by people, that is not expensive, non polluting, useful, environmentally friendly.

I have to investigate its context. Whether there is a historical precursor to my idea and research it’s audience, it’s possible outcomes. I’ve got to do a lot of writing now. I hope I can make sense of it all. Fingers crossed.

Ball lightening?

I was just reading an article in the New Scientist on line about the phenomenon of ball lightening. Then I remembered that I visited an old lady as part of my job, twenty years ago. We were having a chat over a cup of tea. She told me about when she was a lot younger. She was in her living room, maybe in the 1950’s? There was a lightening storm outside and she had got her window open as it was a hot day. Suddenly a ball of light floated in through the open window, bounced off the floor and then disappeared again. She had never seen anything like it but thought it might be ball lightening? I didn’t ask her much because I didn’t know what to ask. She went on to say that from then on she always unplugged everything electrical in the house and kept her windows shut in a thunderstorm in case it happened again.

I would love to see something like that. But would it be dangerous and knock out electrical equipment if they came into contact with each other? Strange how memories you’ve never had before can suddenly come back to you.

Orchids

This is a duplicated photo of the orchids in my window. I thought they were hard to grow, but they seem to thrive on the neglect they get from me. I generally just give them a bit of water once a week. I think you are supposed to mist them with water and give them orchid food but that doesn’t happen. I did try repotting them but I killed one because I didn’t know they like clear pots so the roots get light. Some of the roots are ariel ones that need to be allowed freedom from the pot. One of my plants has sent out two flower spikes since I got it. I’m hoping it will do it again.

Asleep, dreaming

After reading the cycling magazine the cat fell into a deep sleep. As I watched him his back legs started to kick and wheel, like he was pushing pedals, hard. In his dreams he was riding a small bike, resting his forepaws on softly covered handle bars. Cycling up and down the rooves, down into guttering, splashing along, kicking leaves down to the ground. Now he’s going for a wheelie, front wheel pulled up. Leaping the gap between two houses, tail flying like a flag. Eventually, after half an hour of chasing his tail on the bike, round and round in rattling circles, he falls gently into a quiet sleep but remembering his ‘mad cat’ adventures.

Rain and shine

It was hailing earlier, then a great shower of rain and then the sun came out. That sort of weather when it doesn’t know what it’s doing… Leaves are still on the plants and flowers too. Mainly because it’s been cloudy at night, keeping the heat in a bit. The lowest temperature I’ve seen was about 5.2°C in the middle of the night.

My hanging baskets are looking a bit bedraggled but we will see what happens over the next few days. Life cycles round, winter arrives later every year…

Indoor and outdoor meet

Cats heat bathing. But this isn’t our indoor cats, it’s one indoor and one outdoor one. The outdoor cat has been in half an hour. He usually stays that long, then I think he gets too hot and goes and yowls by the back door, ready to go back outside. In fact that’s exactly what he’s just done. Walked to the back door and mroowl, that’s it. So I let him back out. His introduction has to be on his terms. My boy indoor cat is sniffing where he was sitting. Luckily he’s on a flea treatment so everything should be fine and as mine are inoculated means they should be safe.

Cherries

Digital ddrawing of cherries I did at the sketchfu website years ago. As you probably know I used to draw there a lot before it closed down. This was one of the challenges we did. Different artists would draw from a photo someone would have posted for us to work from. It helped get me used to drawing digitally. I wish it was still going although as a moderator there it was sometimes hard to cope with some of the things people wrote and drew!

Feed the kids!

We are in a pandemic and many people in my country (England) are struggling to survive on lower incomes and less hours at work, despite being one of the richest countries in the world.

The situation is only made worse by our government refusing to help pay for free school meals during this coming week. They say they have given 63 million pounds to local councils to help pay for food. Conveniently, they don’t mention that they have been cutting benefits to people over the last ten years, and councils have shrunk by about 75%.

A footballer, Marcus Rashford, has raised the issue and many local businesses and food outlets are trying to help. This led one of the MPs to say it was good to see businesses had bounced back so much that they could now afford to help out!

I’m not saying which party are doing this. I just think that there needs to be more compassion in the world. Not just here but everywhere. We are in a bad situation. Don’t deliberately make it worse!

Time

Time flies so fast, and yet it takes forever. When I think of time, I think of Miss Haversham in Great Expectations, still waiting for love years after she was meant to be married, covered in cobwebs, locked into one moment of time. Time is seasons, the change from warm to cold to warm again, some years hotter or colder than others. But the world does not just move on its own. The Sun moves too. Circulating over billions of years around the Galaxy. And then the Galaxy is moving away from other Galaxies. The Universe is expanding. But time is a constant. Einsteins well known equation is E=MC2. E is energy, M is Mass, C2 is the Speed of light squared. Or 186,000 x186,000 miles per second. Time and Space are tangled up with each other somehow. I don’t know why or how. But its mysterious, it trickles through your fingers like sand. Disappearing and appearing. It makes me think….