New paintings and regular art updates.
A bit of a dismal perch, above an old shop front. A derelict building with space for feral pigeons. I suppose it was just keeping away from the traffic and the car fumes, there has been a lot more road traffic over the last few days.
This was taken during my walk this afternoon. The sky was overcast and just about warm enough not to get chilled. Urban walking isn’t much fun but at least it is exercise.
I just drew this, it started to get dark but it’s our little acer tree under the Walnut tree, also willow branches, Holly and buddlea.. The view is out of our side window at the top of the stairs. The acer turns deep red and orange and the walnut is starting to go yellow. The Holly is deep green but by the time I got to it, it was going really dark so that part was drawn even more quickly than the rest. This was for our #bandofsketchers prompt today ‘autumn’ the buddlea was also quickly sketched.
Nasturtium with varigated leaves and other plants that are in front of the house. The only problem is the litter that blows about outside. Now I wear gloves or pick it up in a plastic bag to dispose of it.
Today I saw several discarded marks just lying on the pavement mixed with the fallen leaves. How horrible that people won’t take care of the place they live in. I hate the way they take no responsibility for their environment.
Our plants out the front are doing well although I’ve seen people through the front window, stopping when walking their dogs, no doubt to pee on the plants! Still I’m glad we grow them…
A month of tonsillitis has knocked me sideways, it’s making my ears whoosh! I am sort of over it but it keeps coming back. I’m trying to ignore it. I think I’m just run down from stress from worry because of covid19. I think it’s just a matter of time before I get over it, but I’m tense and it weighs on me. I’m not the most traveled person in the world, but when you’re not allowed to go to places like visiting relatives. Then it’s hard to feel happy. Oh well. Another day done, another day closer to the end of this damn pandemic I suppose.
It’s mid October and the baskets just keep flowering. This ones on the garden shed, another sheltered spot. I would recommend ordering them from a small nursery or farm, they generally end up filled with more and different flowers that have matured more by the time you get them. I usually ask for lots of colour and the lady that plants them up will put in lobelia, begonias, fushias, trailing petunias, and other flowers I can’t remember the names of. Then we fill our own baskets with pelagoniums, small sunflowers and trailing tomato plants (this year). I hang baskets one below another. Then set up pots on the wall and the ground. Finally we’ve grown a few, like this one, on the shed. Those have had nasturtium seeds put in them and have given a lovely late flowering display. In all the sadness of this year they have given me great joy.
Our cat loves this ball, it’s a ping-pong ball covered in a knitted stripy fabric.
Suddenly there will be a clatter and the cat, who takes the ball upstairs in her mouth, is chasing it downstairs, then into the kitchen or along the living room floor.
She bat’s it backwards and forwards between her front paws, or under the settee then pulls it back out with her claws. The game goes on for half an hour or so. In which time she will run up and down stairs several times. If she was a footballer she would be a premiership star!
Last night I started throwing the ball up stairs and then she chased it back down. Having cats are fun.
On one side my cat in the mirror, on the other side the view of him across the bedroom. Surprisingly the first image was in the mirror. I think I had a bit of camera shake when I took the photo of him across the room. It’s also odd because there seems to be more depth of field (depth perception) in the first one. I might do more pictures of reflections and see how they turn out.
A photo from the British Ceramics Biennial last year. Rain washed spode site glistening in the sunlight.
Missing being able to visit places and see things. Even after a couple of days it looks like they are going to increase local lockdowns and prevent more transmission of the virus.
And yet we see images of people without masks, or wearing them as some sort of decorative chin strap. While the head of one of the greatest countries in the world gets to throw possibly contaminated masks into a baying, maskless crowd.
Crazy, mad, sad.
We’d been out all day on holiday one summer in Devon, we came back to the caravan we were staying in. A crowd of people were on the beach and some people were in wetsuits about thirty yards out in the sea. I saw a dolphin so decided to swim. Didn’t know how long it would be around so I just took my glasses and shoes off and got in fully clothed! I swam between the crowd at the shore and the ones further out. He, the dolphin (oh dear clearly male) kept swimming backwards and forwards and as I was in the middle he kept swimming next to me! After an hour I swam back in shore. Why do I know it was a male? Er, a long appendage! There was a notice on the campsite the next day. You can catch illnesses from dolphin breath out of their blowhole. They say swimming with dolphins is relaxing, but I didn’t expect that! The dolphin it turned out was an adolescent male called Georges x
Spring, sprung
Six months ago
Remember the blossom
The cherries that followed
Apples and pears
All out there
Hope reigns that it will come again.
Springing up from cold earth
Bitter rain
Chilling frosts.
Hope springs eternal….
Mallaband-Brown