Just some cheerful colours from my early flowering Christmas cactuses.
I hope they brighten your day.
Today I’m having a bit of a rest.
Christmas cactus
Tag: Photo
Leaving leaves
Leaves you have fallen,
Clawed the sky then slumped to the ground.
Wet, damp, cold, you shiver on pavements,
You crush together on grass,
Just a carpet of colour flavouring the world.
Only here in temperate lands, leaves fall each year.
North the evergreens take over, south the rainforest.
Here we abide in heat and cold. Sun and rain,
Leaves leave, love fades, life continues.
Busy time…..
Suddenly I’ve got a million and one things to do, a commission here, a sketch there, painting for an open day, painting for an annual exhibition. Also a craft fair… What do I do.. I decided to rest today. I felt stressed and worried so I thought let it be for a day. Instead I repotted old houseplants and went to choir practice. I’m still tired after that, but I don’t feel rushed off my feet. You can only do what you can do. I’ve also told the people who want flat pieces of foam board painted with landscapes that they will have to wait.
The result of resting was some photos of the plants I have potted up. As usual I played with the images. Being creative is so important to me.
Now it’s 2.30am, a cold wind is blowing round the house. Sometimes you can hear the wind whistling through gaps round the windows. But at least I’ve had a break. Tomorrow I’ll try and get more painting done.
When the sun sets
The sun was setting and the sky turned pink at spode today. I looked up and saw the moon. A tiny bit bigger than half moon and I realised that you could work out where the sun was setting. Basically imagine you were shining a torch on a ball. If the torch was directly to the side if the ball the ball would be exactly half light and 🌗 half dark Now if the torch was lower but shining directly on the ball it would be half light and half dark but tipped at an angle depending how low below the horizon the torch (or ☀ sun) was. Now imagine if the torch was level but was shining slightly to the side of the moon nearest us? Then the line between light and dark would shift and curve. The line shifts every night till full moon, then as it passes full moon the shadow starts to get cast on the other side. This leads to the understanding that when we get an eclipse the Earth gets directly between the Moon and the Sun… . Oh I know all of this is simple, but I’d never actually thought it out for myself……
P.S. now 5 hours later the angle of the moon is tipped up so that the curve is on a slant … so the sun is clearly lower down and the moon has moved. .but it also shows the world is rotating too…
The leaf travels
One tiny leaf caught up by the wind and deposited on my windscreen. One leaf so thin you can see the tiny holes (stomata) that allows gas to pass into the leaf so that photosynthesis can take place and water vapour can transpire away from the leaf. Each leaf attached to a twig, branch and limb of a tree perhaps? Once I saw a programme where they cut a tree in half, lifted the top of it up and slid a large bucket of water into the gap then lowered the tree into it. Rather like cut flowers in a vase. Then they watched as breezes sucked fluid out of the bucket, up through the network of phloem or xylem (I can never remember which) and out through the crown of the tree through the leaves. There were gallons of liquid moving through the tree. Then at the end of the summer the tree or plant starts to shut down. Nutrients and leaf colour are sucked back into the tree to be stored till spring. This is why some trees such as Walnuts should not be pruned until winter. They suck up so much fluid they seem to bleed sap if you cut them. Only in winter does the flow reduce enough to make it safe to cut the tree back.
But what about this tiny leaf on my screen? There then gone, washed away by a sharp shower of rain, into some gutter or drain. But it got me thinking before it disappeared, how a small thing can make a large thing work, how being part of a team can make things work.
Meal out.
You know the story, turn on Instagram and you get photos in a restaurant of beautifully prepared food. Tasty, colourful, edible, delicious.
The trouble is that my photos are usually empty plates… I don’t remember to take a photo until the food is half eaten. Sometimes I take a photo of an ornament or a reflection in a mirror. You don’t have to keep to the rules if you don’t want to. I’d rather show an empty plate which means that I enjoyed the food rather than a pretty picture…..
Moon
Two photos first with flash, second without….
Moon,
Hazy Moon.
Crescent Moon.
Waining moon?
How can you tell.
Dark side of the moon.
Selene, splendid moon.
I love you moon,
By your light I see my way.
Point me in the right direction,
Follow moon till day.
Odd things
They are only some shells and a glove, but they don’t half look odd if you manipulate the photos. More organic? Strange, like octopuses or sculpture?
Never avoid the odd, I you can find all sorts of things in it, on it, through it.
Just fling an image at the screen, catch and twist it. Photo hop it or use another generic app! Don’t be scared be adventurous. You can have a good time playing with photos.
Jupiter progress.
Note the first photo is the latest version.
For some reason they came out opposite to how I posted them. Here are two parts of my Jupiter tryptich based on a photo Jupiter in the rear view mirror by Nasa. Taken as the Juno probe flew by Jupiter.
The challenge is to finish one panel by Friday. The other two will be painted on our Open days, 16th and 17th of November 2018 when we join with the Stoking Curiosity event. Run in conjunction with Keele University and Staffordshire University. There are a series of talks and lectures over the two days based on the integration of art and science.
Given I love astronomy I decided on this subject. Forgetting that I don’t have a working printer and that my computer is on the blink. I have to thank Mike and Nick at Spode for printing me off black and white photos and then colour images. I would not have got this far without them….. So I’m struggling with the complexity of Jupiter. I’m working on an image from above one of the poles where the oranges and reds of the main bulk of the planet turn to sombre blues browns and dark greys.
My shoulders and arms ache. Although I’m just trying to get one panel finished I have to work across two of them so they fit together and I can orientate where the blotches and patterns are. Please don’t expect perfection..I will try to see how it comes out. If you are around Stoke for Stoking Curiosity come along. I will be in studio 21 at Spode.
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Dancing trees
I thought they were holding hands but my friend said dancing. Imagine the branch in the middle is two arms entwined, clasped hand to elbow Then the branches on the other side of the trunks are like outstretched arms, and the other branches higher up are like hair flying outwards as they spin each other in a dizzy whirl of autumn leaves..
An idea for a painting. I also like the way the hedge cuts between them and splits the composition.
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Mallaband-Brown 