Gate house

Posted on May 15, 2021May 18, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #100daywalkingchallenge, cemetery, Clematis, Death, Life, Photo, Rain, Sad, somber, TimeLeave a comment

View of the gatehouse of the cemetery with masses of Clematis Montana? growing up and around trees in the grounds. Splendid gates and brick pillars add to the impression of a proud building. I enjoyed walking through the cemetery tonight, in a gentle rain. The somber clouds echoing the place.

I like the subtle colours in this photo, mostly muted except for the lime greens of some of the newly grown leaves, sulphurous and alive, balancing out the pinks, greys and browns. It had just stopped raining (we had been sheltering under a tree when I took this photo). I dont know what I think of buildings in cemeteries, could anyone acyually live there or is it offices? and who locks up the gates at night- is there an official gate keeper?

Graveyard tree

Posted on May 15, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #100daywalkingchallenge, Death, Evergreen, History, Life, limbs, Penkhull cemetery, Photo, TreeLeave a comment

Trees are wonderful things, they live for much longer than humans and they show their lives in their limbs. This evergreen must have been damaged t some stage with one limb shooting off at a right angle then growing straight up parallel to the main trunk. The greenery starts part way up the trunk, perhaps the lower branches have fallen or been cut back. What history it must have seen over the years?

Wheel

Posted on May 3, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bike, Camera, olympus trip, Photo, Spokes, Terraced house, tube, Tyre, View, Wheel2 Comments

Photo from 1981.

View through a terraced house window with one of my husbands bike wheels hanging in the window. He used to repair bikes for a while. He was probably replacing some spokes or had the tyre and tube off to repair a puncture.

It might not be the prettiest photo but it documents a time and a place. Forty years ago! A real film camera. Photos with rounded corners. I think taken with an olympus trip, on iso 100 speed film. I have albums with real photos…

Memories.

Curved edges

Posted on May 3, 2021May 3, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged curved edge, Green, Hartshill Park, Learning, nature reserve, Photo, Pond, WordPressLeave a comment

I’m not sure I’m keen on curved edges to my photos. It does look interesting but with the new WordPress block editor I’m not sure if you can move the shape around and change where the image is centered. I’ll keep on playing with it to learn how it works…

Blossom and bricks!

Posted on May 2, 2021May 3, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blossom, Bricks, Camera, Dark, Light, Photo, Pottery, Rocks, shards, Today2 Comments

Walking up our hill there is a section of unadopted road that has a massive pothole. Someone has filled it in with old bricks and stones and bits of pottery shards. As I looked at it today I thought it had filled up with snow. But no, it was pink blossom nestled in the dips and dents. I reminded me of things floating in a river. I’ve taken this photo because it was an interesting juxtaposition of material, soft and hard, dark and light, natural and man made…

Upright

Posted on April 27, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #100daywalkingchallenge, #bandofsketchers, Art, Black ink, Bottle oven, Charcoal, Drawing, From a photo, Metallic pen, Metallic pencils, Photo, seen on a walk, Sketch3 Comments

Upright bottle oven somewhere near the canal in Burslem, from a photo I took on a walk with the closer to home group on Saturday. I didn’t have time to stop and read the sign about it as I was at the back of the group. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt. Metallic silver pen, metallic colours, dried up black felt pens, black felt pen, charcoal stick.

Smiling faces

Posted on April 22, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 2019, Clouds, Life, Mountains, Pareidolia, Photo, Seeing faces, Snowdonia, Summer, Wales10 Comments

Smiling cloud faces, view of Snowdonia, Wales, UK , June I think, 2019. Wishing I was there now. We haven’t been able to visit for over a year because of Covid…I saw this again today and remembered how enjoyable it was just travelling, exploring, driving down roads I’d never been down before. I don’t mind not driving much, but I’d like to go to a few nice places again….

Potholes

Posted on April 22, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bike, Car, Damage, hole, Photo, Potholes, road repairs, suspension, waiting to be fixed4 Comments

Walked around our local streets on today’s walk and saw these massive potholes! It looks like they are due to be filled in but how on earth did they get this big in the first place?

I’ve been watching video of the latest Mars exploration and these look bigger than some of the craters there!

If you hit one of these at normal speed I think that you would damage your suspension in a car, and it could make a bike wheel collapse. Talk about an accident waiting to happen.

I know these are nothing in the scheme of things, just a bit surprising.

Positive and negative

Posted on April 19, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Black and white drawing, edge of page, Ideas, Photo, positive and negative, Sketching2 Comments

Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt.
Finally did a positive/negative self portrait after trying to think what I could do. I used the edge of a page cut off and added to the centre of this to make an interesting division.
Sometimes the challenges are really hard to do. I was going to draw a battery! Not exactly interesting. The negative side of the photo really lacked detail even when I tried changing the exposure.

Dragon

Posted on April 16, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Dragon, George and the dragon, Glaze, lava, Life, Llandudno, magma, Photo, Wales4 Comments

Seen in a shop in Llandudno in 2019.

I would have bought it if I had space in my house. The flame like decoration makes it appear as if it were molten. Like magma or lava erupting from a crack in the earth. Like an Icelandic fumerol. So we’ll modelled, gnashing teeth, mouth open, ready to spit flame.

Welsh dragons are amazing symbols, whilst the English Saint, St George, is famed for killing one. Anyway, I still wish I had bought him. X

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Photo