Fairy drawing

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I drew this last night.  I interpreted my wire fairy as a real one (with embellishments). I wanted to get the picture to look like one of those adult colouring books. I drew the outlines first with a thin black pen, then I shaded it in with spectrum noir coloured metallic pencil crayons. I finally outlined the fairy with a slightly thicker and darker black ink pen. Drawn in a Windsor and Newton heavy weight case bound sketchbook. A5 size.

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News

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I just had a gentle argument with a friend on Facebook. I’ve been watching the BBC news in the UK, and a lot of it is about the covid19 virus. There is a small amount of criticism about how our government is dealing with it.

Then there are clips of President Trump, seemingly saying that people should have the right of freedom of speech and they should not have to be in lockdown? He’s going to be speaking to the governor of New York about it? The scary thing is people need to keep away from each other so the virus can’t spread easily. Someone said they would rather be six feet apart than six feet under.

The news also said deaths in America are spiking, and that many thousands have died already.

But my friend, who I really like, supports Trump who is blaming the World Health organisation.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter who is to blame. It matters what Trump or any other politician is going to do about it.

In the end its not where you start, it’s where you end up that is the important thing. Life is difficult, but ignoring experts, and making things up as you go along is not sensible.

Lunch in odd times

DSC_2553Baked beans and sweetcorn with added hot curry powder and breaded chicken fingers.

It’s not what I would normally cook for a meal, but it was definitely filling.

Not much else to say about it, except the sweetcorn was frozen. I served it on pretty Portmeirion pottery plates.

Well, I don’t think I’ll say anything more except it was orange coloured! I guess I could do a series of pictures of different coloured food combinations, green cabbage and brocolli maybe, with  green cheese sauce?

Perhaps not!

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Day thirty

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The urban sketchers challenge (Stoke-on-Trent) has just finished. We had to do quick three minute sketches each hour to show how our day had gone. I didn’t see the days challenge until just after two, because I got up late. Its amazing how fast an hour goes when you have to document it. And my day was more varied than I thought it would be considering I didn’t do any gardening today. I finished at midnight. Tomorrow we are doing a sketch through Zoom, the meeting app, of Liverpool cathedral. I might try and do a drawing of it. If I get up in time!

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So much blossom

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As I sit quietly at home I’ve realised how good the weather has been, and how much blossom is on the cherry and pear trees. And then, my friends have all been posting photos of blossom near them. Clouds of pink and white.

I will try and get a photo against a blue sky, but I just wanted to share this. The bees have been buzzing so they are happy.

I was thinking how the blossom comes out before the leaves. Is that to make it easier for insects to pollinate the flowers?

Now we need rain, it’s been dry for most of the month. Without it the farmers, who are struggling with lack of workers, will struggle even more. Time will tell…. Cherry’s and pears will ripen, hopefully.

In the meantime the Russian vine we planted a few years ago has started taking over a couple of parts of the garden. It ‘rushes’ along, growing fast, and wrapping itself around everything. My arms hurt after spending a couple of hours trying to cut it back.

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Keeping up

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A forty year old photo of a river I took when I was young.

It reminded me to calm down, try and relax, maybe ignore the news for a couple of days and get some rest.

I’ve also had to leave some of the emails I get. I can’t keep up with all the notifications of news. I want to read everyone’s posts, but I have responsibilities that I need to take care of. Even in this mad situation you still have to cope.

So anyway. I hope everyone is doing OK. It’s hard to think of people stuck in their homes. Not allowed out. In lockdown. I imagined that the world was linked and that people would feel each others pain or loneliness. But of course that isn’t true. Otherwise when people in different countries went through famine or disease we would know and help them… But sadly it doesn’t work like that.

 

The garden

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This is what I was trying to draw. As you can see it’s very complicated. Lots of trees and branches.

Behind me when I took this photo are two greenhouses with green plastic covers, ones got tomatoes in it, the other is waiting for tomato plants that my friend says she will drop off over our gate when they are ready to plant out.

The weather is set to turn, it has been warm and sunny, but the wind whipped up this evening and you could feel the temperature starting to fall.

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I took these photos of cherry and pear blossom. As you can see the sky was starting to darken. There have been reports on the weather forecast of thunderstorms nearby. It certainly was getting windy, I hope some of the blossom gets pollenated before it blows away. And then there was a warning of Frost!