New paintings and regular art updates.
No glitterball today,
no sparkling champagne.
Just leftovers and dregs,
an ordinary Saturday.
We’ve enjoyed the holiday,
and more is to follow
but now it is time,
for life to settle.
Time passes on,
the world keeps turning.
The decade almost done,
a new one beginning.
So let us all pause
and rest for a day,
Take stock of our past
call it good old Saturday.
I can’t remember how I did this. 
It’s a few years old and I’ve used various drawing apps, so I can’t remember exactly what I used to get these effects. Does it matter? I guess if I want to replicate it. I feel my brain fizzing as I look at it, what was I thinking when I drew it? Some thoughts about illustration, about science, come to mind. I like it!
That time of year again, close to the last posting day for cards, and I’ve lost my address book!
Cue frantic call to my sister, texted her too. I might think I know the addresses but I can’t remember them fully. The postcodes have foxed me. I also can’t remember the name of the husband of one of my sisters, or my aunts surname. That’s scary!
I shall go and delve in a cupboard. Wish me luck.
X
Four faces, four seasons, four points of the compass. Why four. Why is a four leaf clover lucky? Four wheels on a car, for stability? Four suits in cards…. Four quarters, but that’s just quarters. The four winds.
But then I can’t think of many other fours. And why four anyway? We have ten fingers and ten toes, and for that matter the British culture used to have twelve as its main number, twelve inches in a foot, twelve pennies in a shilling. But then there are all sorts of other numbers, 1 for winning, coming first, two’s company. Threes a crowd, bronze medal, third place. Who wants to come fourth? Seven and eight are supposed to be lucky numbers. Thirteen may be unlucky?
However you look at numbers all of them will be imbued with some story or other. That’s what humans do. Tell stories….
Found a digital drawing I did in 2016 on my Facebook memories. This was drawn on ArtRage free app. Black cats are not that popular, robably because of the myth that they are witches familiars. I just like how they look, like mini panthers or jaguars.
Black cats are proud creatures, mainly short-haired although I have seen long-haired ones. They can cause some allergies because their dandruff seems to trigger things. But I don’t think that’s a problem.
Black cats crossing your path are considered good luck in Britain, but unlucky in the USA. It’s funny how things can be so opposite in these countries. As they say America and Britain are two countries seperated by the same language. Anyway I still like black cats.
A train with pneumatic wheels that ran on the Paris underground? I didn’t know this existed, but it’s in the book my hubby is reading. It’s strange what you can find without looking at Google.
In the past you went to a library to find things out or research things, you took out the book and had your library card stamped, and a stamp put on the little form in the front of the book…..
Borrow for a week or two, then return so someone else could take it out. But beware, if you took it back late you could get fined! Books were sometimes sold off if they became out of date. Our bookshelves have some of these. The smell off a musty book, with slightly browning pages brings back memories of my school library, which for a comprehensive had a good big library, and our local, council library, with stern librarian keeping us all in order. Yellow or pale green walls and parquet flooring. Memories too of book covers with illustrations of dinosaurs or old fashioned atom symbols. I loved books on rocks and minerals and mystery stories. Craft books and origami. The library was the lace for ideas. Now many public libraries are gone, closed by politics not the Internet. Poorer people who can’t afford the Internet are kept away from knowledge. Sorry, getting political…..
Good memories…
Warm wine with herbs and sugar. I don’t know what the herbs are as I usually buy a bottle of one that already has things in it. Heat it up in a pan and drink, possibly with mince pies or Christmas cake…
It’s the time of year for indulgence if you can afford it. But many can’t. I’ve visited people in my job who had potatoes and beans for Christmas lunch.
I think about sharing at Christmas, about a bit more kindness, about a lot less austerity. The human race does not like sharing, when greed is good poverty follows. People need to think more about others. I am odd I know…..
I painted this several years ago. She was my favorite cat. Always sitting behind the weeping fig at the top of the stairs. I painted her a couple of years before she passed away. I know it’s a long time ago because the fig grew to be about six foot high when we finally got rid of it. It’s one of very few paintings I had framed, because it was for myself. I generally don’t put them on as people can then choose what they want.
She was a lovely friendly cat, and very clever. Much loved.
X
My cats play and chase each other every few hours. It starts with the female cat lying down in front of the male cat, he starts to groom her and they start squabbling, she fends him off as he tries to nip her. They then start chasing each other, sneaking up and Pouncing at each other, racing round the room and up the stairs.
Lately it been a game of “I’m the king of the castle, get down you dirty rascal…” a game that children used to play where you would stand on top of a pile of dirt or maybe rocks and your friends would try and push you off and capture the high ground.
I’ve got a pile of clothes and laundry waiting to go upstairs, but the male cat has taken to sleeping on it. His sister objects and jumps up. A few times she has chased him away, only for him to come back and recapture it! I was going to take a photo of him, but he jumped down so I’ve drawn a cat on it. It does remind me of the game we used to play.
X
Does time splinter into different universes? While I sit here waiting for my hubby, who insisted he wanted to walk home in the rain after I dropped him off a couple of hours ago for an appointment, I wonder, where has he got to? Is he OK. Which way is he walking home. Might he get lost? He has problems following directions. But if he knows the way (and he walked back last week) then he should be OK.
But he mooches, he likes looking at things, he doesn’t stride out anymore. He’s not young. I want to go and look for him but the traffic outside is at a standstill. So I’m sitting waiting, worrying, fretting, he’s a grown man. I know he will be OK.. I guess. But time fractures, things happen….
Ten minutes later.. He’s back!
Mallaband-Brown