Fronds, split into feathery leaves.
Under the shade of trees
Unfurl in spring
Like curled question marks
Springing out
Bright green
A lovely scene
Covering the ground
In friendly frothy growth
Ferns
Tag: Life
Street
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was street. I painted a street scene when I came to Stoke 40 years ago. I did a copy of it recently and I have a photo of the work in progress on my phone. As this is a digital sketch it’s not accurate and rather messy, but I thought I’d give it a go. Artrage app drawn with a stylus.
Size matters
I was just wondering how big the UK is relative to the USA. Turns out according to Google it’s 40 times smaller than the USA! (also 32 times smaller than Australia).
We can drive across the country in a day. I could drive for maybe two or three days North to South John O’groats to Lands end, although it has been done much faster. The direct distance is 603 miles, but the road distance is 837 miles. So driving over the limit at 83.7 mph you could drive it in ten hours. But if you drove at just 40mph you could do it in less than 24 hours!
Goodness knows how long it would take to drive across America and I guess it also depends where on the coasts you drive from. America is wider in the north than in the south?
Alien?
What are you on the roof?
Looking quite aloof!
Are you an alien
Searching for the proof
That human life exists
Among our clouds and mists
What else can you be?
You look odd, you see
Wonder what YOU are?
An an-a-mom-meter!
Gardening
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?
Gardening makes me feel fulfilled, it’s not always easy for me to do work on the garden at the moment. But when I’m a little better I shall try and get out and do some pruning. The buddlea need cutting back once the flowers have finished. The other shrubs that are shutting out all the light need to be trimmed. If necessary to cut some of the lower branches of trees so that we can let lots more light in.
It’s heavy work, especially the lopping of branches, they are tangled and twisted in and out of the garden, overgrowing the fences. Our neighbours are a bit annoyed with us, but we can’t afford a full renovation and anyway the garden is natural, with frogs and squirrels and possibly hedgehogs.
I’m pleased we have such growth, it’s fun to think we have grown such a lot over the years.
Ugh!
Yesterday I walked into town, which isn’t far, got some shopping and walked home on my own. Then I contacted a firm to sort something out, then we went to the doctors to get out flu vaccine and finally I joined a choir practice for a Christmas concert. Two hours of Loud singing!
That was more in one day than I’d done in six weeks. But I was feeling stubborn and I’m fed up of being off my feet.
But all I’ve done today is fetch the milk in. I’m shattered. My poorly leg and feet are aching, my arm is shaking and sore, and I just want to sleep.
Could it be the result of the flu jab? I don’t think so, I usually don’t have a reaction. No, I think its because I tried to overdo things yesterday. I shall continue to rest today, then attempt more tomorrow.
Pelargoniums and Surfinia
Oh I do like a good hanging basket. This is one from a couple of years ago, I think it was one I planted myself. The red flowers are pelargoniums although generally they are called geraniums. The purple ones are Petunias which are also called Surfinias. It’s interesting how names can be changed for fashion or trademark reasons.
Storm Agnes?
Heavy clouds, dark grey
Scudding past,
light and dark
Dark and light.
The ivy waves
in rippling winds
A force is behind it.
Pushing the clouds.
Autumn rattles branches
September ends in gales
But no rain, no lightning
Just the windy gloom
Of a September afternoon.
Art meme
I wouldn’t normally post a meme here but I love this one. I think art is so important and yet life gets in the way of people becoming artists. There needs to be the freedom to create, I don’t think people can be a square peg squeezed into a round hole. They should be allowed to do art if they want to. X
Clematis and Canal roses
Every so often I paint one of the iconic bottle ovens from Stoke-on-Trent. These were where pottery was originally fired with coal fires. The city would be covered by a pall of thick smoke, morning noon and night.
They sometimes had metal bands wrapped round them to strengthen them, and the old bricks can shine like gold when there is a lovely sunrise or set. Arthur Berry, famous artist of Stoke-on-Trent used to speak about the beauty of the potteries towns. He painted and drew abstracted views of the six towns. He’s known as the potteries Lowry.
This painting is of a derelict oven, I’ve painted clematis growing up it, rewinding the ancient landscape. The blue area represents the local canals, it’s shape mirrors the bottle oven. The flowers in it represent the abstract canal roses that are found adorning canal barges throughout Britain.
