Grey clouds,
what can I make from you?
A curled up husky..
Neanderthal men?
A man’s head in profile
with long hair and beard?
A horses head…
A llamas face.
My random mind
makes things appear
from nothing more
Than water vapour,
and clouds.
Tag: Life
Unexpected
When Sam woke he didn’t know where he was. He was lying on a couch with a cushion shaped like a cat, and a knitted owl staring at him. His head felt groggy and he was thirsty.
He stood up and stretched. He quietly looked round the room. There were two plush armchairs and lots of clutter stacked about the place. Mainly books on shelves built into the alcoves on either side of the chimney. There were pictures all over the walls and an easle in one corner.
There was a smell of cooking wafting from the kitchen. It smelt like chicken. Suddenly his taste buds were jumping. He strolled towards the cooker. ‘Well hello boy’ said the woman standing by it stirring the food. ‘you hungry?’ ‘would you like a drink?’ He looked up at her, she was very tall.
‘Miarow’ a strange sound came out of his mouth, boy she was Very Tall. He tried again ‘miaow, murrp’. WHAT THE HELL?
He suddenly realised, his tail swishing from side to side. He was now a cat!
Profile
Profile
You looked out in May
So proud and keen
Your profile reflected in glass
In the window.
Sure you would keep safe.
The sky would not fall…
Now you have dissolved,
Lost your identity.
Impaled on shards of humanity.
Sifted and sprinkled
With covid 19.
Stay safe they said
As you disappeared.
Catch up with urban sketchers
Two for the price of one! The first was tonight’s sketch… Environment. It was going dark so I drew the fence with some hanging baskets, with our weather station above them. It measures wind rain, temperature and pressure. The dusky sky is visible above the silhouette of the buildings opposite.
The second drawing is spots and stripes. It was due on Tuesday 23.6.20, but I forgot. The first time through all these challenges that I missed doing one. The stripey thing is a cover on our settee. There are spotty and stripey cushions on it and a spotty lampshade. Neither drawing is articulately exciting. They are just about how and where I live..
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My favourite Star Trek character.
Always was, always will be. Spock. Played by Leonard Nimoy in the original series.
I quite like Zachary Quinto who plays him in the recent Star Trek movies. I haven’t seen the new outing of a new Star Trek series with Spock played by a different actor, and Captain Pike before Captain Kirk took over the part.
Anyway this was drawn at an old website called sketchfu which is sadly missed by a lot of people.
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Pattern
I drew this a few weeks ago. Now I’m thinking it would make a good design for some cotton material, maybe a panel on a tee shirt or a pair of trousers. I actually have a pair in black and white that is similar to this. It’s amazing what you can do with a black ink pen and a bit of technology. I just need to find someone to work with.
If you know any innovative art sites that do printing let me know. I did think about joining somewhere called spoonflower but I wasn’t certain about it.
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What to do on the Solstice
I can remember seeing the sun set and then come out again from behind the Cloud hill, near Congleton, Cheshire.
I could not remember where we were but according to ITV.com there is a place to stand to see it….
‘The solar event which happens just once each year will be visible in the Midlands tonight.
The double sunset takes places during the the summer solstice and can be seen from various locations around North Staffordshire.
According to the Oxford Journals the double sunset can be seen from the churchyard of St Edward the Confessor in Leek. The alignment of a local hill means that the Sun is occulted close to sunset around the time of the summer solstice. This phenomenon was described in 1686 by Dr Robert Plot. Calculations show the phenomenon will be visible for another 500 years.
- How does it happen?
The apparent double sunset is due to the rotation of the Earth. As the sun sinks behind The Cloud the planet continues to rotate, allowing the sun to become briefly visible again.’
Apologies for the length of the quote, but it explains what I mean clearly.
Please note I’ve now been advised: due to earth movement and buildings it can no longer be seen in St Edwards churchyard but can be viewed from Lowe hill near Leek. My Dad is Doug Pickford who has written books about local legends (info from a friend)
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Poppies near Argenteuil.
Monets’ painting of a poppy field is such a ubiquitous image, but beautiful nonetheless. The figures at the top of the hill are the same couple at the bottom of the hill, though I doubt that he painted so quickly that he managed to paint the rest of the picture by the time they had walked down the hill.
The trees in the background and the house set at the back of the field frame a beautiful summers day. It always seems so calm and peaceful when I look at it. I feel joyful and relaxed, thinking of glimpsing a view like that in Devon or Yorkshire. I know many wildflower meadows have gone, but maybe we will restore more of them in the future so people can enjoy walking through them again.
Strawberries and cream
First of the season, fresh strawberries and extra thick cream (saves having to whip it). Added a tiny bit of sweetener on to the strawberries. I have one that doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste.
When I was young we used to go and pick our own strawberries. You would spend ages in a field searching under leaves to find the berries. Often they were padded underneath the plants with straw to keep the berries from trailing on the ground. I think that’s where they got their name? Summer days when most of the strawberries missed the punnet and fell into our mouths instead. When music by the beatles played out of little transistor radios.
And when we got home? Strawberries with either single cream and white sugar. Or if we hadn’t got cream in, evapourated milk… Heaven…
My mona
I drew this at sketchfu about eight years ago. It is simply drawn with vasious circular brushes. Different sizes, a palette of colours, different opacity and transparency and an eraser.
I was looking at a post on Facebook by portrait artists. They thought digital art was just taking a picture in Photoshop and using filters to make it look like a drawing. I don’t think they understood the hours it takes to do something like this. It’s not brilliant, but it was difficult.
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