New paintings and regular art updates.
Look closely and you should be able to see a tiny brown speckled butterfly on the ivy. I don’t know what species it is but it’s good to see it fluttering around.
It means that spring is really here and that our garden is working. It might look like shrub land but it’s all organic, it’s meant to be a wildlife garden. We even had a hedgehog in autumn. Anyway must get on.
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Tearing down the walls,
pulling at the gutter
Growing through the roof.
The ivy strangles our house
Squeezing the mortar
Heaving up tiles
Tangling the phone wires
Pulling at my heart strings,
Random photos of trains and train parts (not the propeller), from 2017.
Foxfield Railway is out in the countryside off the A50 between Caverswall and Blythe Bridge. Its an old coal/mineral line which used to haul coal up a steep slope from a mine then down a less steep incline into the outskirts of Blythe Bridge. The main railway line runs nearby.
Foxfield is worth a visit over the summer months when it is open to visitors mainly at weekends. You can take a trip on a train, visit the engine shed where most of these photos were taken. Visit the cafe for a simple menus of hot and cold food, or visit ” the one legged shunter , the bar selling real ales. The bar is named after the dangerous job of shunting. Men would sometimes get trapped between train waggons, losing legs or sometimes worse!
I’m thinking of painting something like this. It’s a window in one of the buildings at spode. Goodness knows what the paint is made of. It is just so old. The wood looks dry and decaying. The putty holding the glass in is probably made with lead. Surprisingly the window looks quite clean and the building opposite is reflected in it. Capturing the detail will be a challenge.
I’ve done some more to this acrylic on canvas. I have added more definition around the leaves but tried to leave some of the subtlety of colour in other places. It has some sparkle in the paints to give it a slightly frosted appearance as if leaves have piled up, but the face of the druid is emerging from it.
About 16″ by 12″ this is one of my more abstract pieces based on the green man theme.
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Today I started a painting for the first time in months. I saw an image by photographer David Tipling of a Barn Owl from a Staffordshire Wildlife Trust bookmark and just had to paint it.
Why the owl? The photographer has captured it in flight beautifully The sinuous curve of its wings seems to scythe through the air. Its face is both impassive and intent.
I hope the photographer does not mind me painting his image.
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Flowers and old wood
Blocked up windows and peeling paint.
Dasies and dianthus.
A history in brick and slate.
Clay and pottery.
Caged in but released,
Renewed and Revivified.
Pansies and wallflowers shining,
their sunlit faces turned to a bright, chilled sky.
Crumbling with asbestos innards,
But able to be proud again.
Inspired by a post by little fears.
Ugh, jelly flavoured fish….. So strange Fran thought. She’d seen a sign jellyfish for sale, and was mentally trying to work out what it meant. What flavour would they be? Lemon, ginger, cherry?
She walked across the road from the tropical fish shop. There was another store there. Jelly babies were on display by the counter. Why all this jelly? What was happening…..who turned babies into jelly anyway?
Two doors down from the sweet shop was a grocery store. She walked round it only to find sugar free jelly, jelly rolls and jellied eels.
It’s a wobbly wobbly world she thought.
The dawn chorus has started. There is a blackbird singing outside. It’s melody riding and falling. The wind is moaning through gaps in the window. But I don’t mind it, at least I don’t live in a totally sealed box.
I’ve been up for an hour. Stomach pains, nothing serious, just annoying and I couldn’t sleep. The cat rubbed round my ankles then decided to go and sleep on the back of the sofa. She must be a mind reader, she just came back to see me! Little purring cat always cheers me. Oh now the other one is awake. Now we will have catch chase. Like children playing they run up and down. Pouncing on each other, play fighting. Must be to do with terratorial issues. Sometimes I have to tell them off when they get too boisterous.
Well I’d better try and get some sleep. It’s cold in here and I want to snuggle under the duvet. It’s been a cold dry spring so far.
See ya!
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For Sue Vincent’s Thursday#writephoto challenge
She hated getting lost. But she wouldn’t use satnav and or Google maps. She preferred old paper maps, the folding type or the atlas style ones for driving. She would memorise a good part of the route. Try and remember road numbers, like the A53 or A34.
She had been distracted by satnav so gave up on it, and although she would look at Google maps before she went somewhere she would not switch her mobile on in her car, too dangerous.
When she was young she was navigating for her mother as they drove through the countryside. She took them down the wrong road, and had to admit that she had got them lost. She also got completely bemused in a group of terraced houses near her home when she was really young, so she decided to look for landmarks like shops or trees, train stations, pubs. She also remembered trying to work out where the sun was in the sky.
Coming up to a sign post like this, with a choice of two routes, she would try and check her map. She looked out for telephone poles because they tend to be on roads. She wanted an idea where the closest village or hamlet was.
The signpost was no use. It was so weathered and old that the words had completely disappeared. No use at all. She could see on the map that it was feilds for miles around. She could retrace her steps. Give up. Or plunge on, decisions.
Left, towards the sun which was starting to go down. Or right into increasing darkness. That was her dilemma.
Mallaband-Brown