It’s coming up for Christmas and once again the Clay Chorus choir has transmogrified into the Mystery Singers.
We met last night for our second rehearsal and it was straight into various carols and wassails that we perform in a trip round Penkhulls’ pubs in a few weeks time.
We sang ‘while shepherd’s watched their flocks by night’ Cranbrook arrangement, ‘Good king Wenceslas’, ‘Sweet Chiming Bells’, and several other favourites.
Old friends come and add to the choir numbers. We sounded good last night. I hope we learn some new songs too x
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
I met the lovely Dawn French once, for about five seconds, she was giving out chocolate coins with her face embellished on them to graduates at the University she is the Chancellor of, and I was one of the hundreds of students that met her that day.
She is a comedian, actor, writer, appears on TV as a the Vicar of Dibley and is one half of French and Saunders the comedy double act.
My fleeting meeting was just a smile and a handshake and me trying to say thank you very much and I love you without garbling it up too much.
I’d travelled a few hundred miles to be at the graduation ceremony, but after being given a very hot nylon gown and mortar board to wear on a blistering hot summers day it was all I could do to stay upright. I’d got family and friends with me in the audience, and it was a very proud moment, but my main thought as I got off the stage was “ice-cream” or “cold drink”!
My friend just sent these photos, they are his model VW van next to a couple of my paintings. They made me laugh! I haven’t seen them for a few years so it came as a nice surprise to receive his message. I’m chuffed aswell that the scale works. I want to go somewhere for a trip now.
I love piled up clouds, dark and threatening, but with bright white patches, and blue sky (enough to make a sailors britches). You know a heavy shower is on the way, but it won’t last long, and the sun will be shining again.
When I used to walk to school I would chase the shadows of clouds. They would drift along the pavement like lapping waves. I don’t seem to see them any more? Maybe their edges are too fluffy. Or they don’t scud past anymore? Has the, weather changed in the last fifty years…?
I added the sprinkles onto this photo of a tree, as if all the leaves were falling off at once. I can’t remember how I did it, but I think I used photodirector. The image is from about four years ago, and the app has changed since then, so some of the different tools have changed and I’m not sure I could do this again. X
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
Leaving home was a big shock. I was miles from home and very nervous. But now all these years later I would go back in an instant.
I met fantastic people, some of whom I have stayed friends with for years. I met my partner, I learned to manage my life and become a grown up. I realised my wish to be an artist, and that has never left me. I started to understand other people’s perspectives on life and how they did, and didn’t, manage.
To be honest, my whole understanding of life and politics changed completely when I left home. I had been protected and had a good life, with enough to eat, a safe place to live, and a caring family. Leaving the nest was hard, but as I moved into a shared flat, the resulting change wasn’t too drastic.
Meeting new people, with different ideas to mine was an eye opener. I don’t think I really appreciated how strange and mad the world was till then. I feel like I didn’t really exist till I moved out of home.
Travelling home was not easy, being away from family was hard. But I made a success of it. I wish I could go back though, just for the enjoyment and knowledge I absorbed. I would not want to be me now, all those years ago. I would want to experience it all fresh and new. But then yes, I’d come back to my current life, renewed.
View of trees and local playing fields up our hill. It was four years ago. I took a photo during the winter and the trees looked skeletal. I put this through photodirector a couple of times to get the textured look. It almost looks like looking through a wet windscreen, where the lines are blurred and smeared. I think I might paint it.
Silver birch trees are much whiter than they used to be when I was a child. They still have dark marks on their trunks, like upward facing arrows. But the dirty grey bark of polluted air in the past decades has seemingly reduced. But particulates still float in the air, and carbon dioxide is increasing, so maybe the trees will get bigger as they absorb the gas?
This beautiful example is starting to lose it’s leaves. Shown against the white and blue of showery sky.
The second, and most difficult, painting collaboration by Orme Art Group from this summers challenge.
It’s, amazing to have so many techniques and styles pulled together in this final image. Some parts line up better than others but it really shows the tenacity of the group with all the complicated figures and colourful background we tried to copy. I hope Renoir would not have been too disappointed!
