New paintings and regular art updates.
His catnip toy…
It’s a bit old so I sprinkled some fresh catnip onto a newspaper. The reaction was astonishing, ripping the paper and quickly trying to eat the catnip. After ten frenetic minutes he’s fallen asleep and is snoring! No doubt he will wake up and play again soon… X bless
What skill would you like to learn?
I started learning pre covid, but I couldn’t afford frequent lessons. Then the pandemic happened and I stopped learning. I thought I would pick it up again, but I’d got out of touch with people.
I don’t know whether I will try again, I need to make a decision because if I don’t I will never know if I could have done it.
So I’m going to have to get my trumpet out when I’m well and see if I can make the right noises. It’s not just my mouth, but my arms need to be in better condition to be able to hold the trumpet and manipulate the valves. If I can’t I won’t be able to play it.
If like other skills it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, it means it’s highly unlikely that I will ever be much good. But I can try.
Shapes on the cat tree and next to it. Suddenly becoming more interesting with the silhouettes and pale flowers outside. Almost like a solarized photo. I like the way some of the shapes have a darkened edge ariubd them. Quite abstract.
What has this become? Duplicated, added filters, texture, sharpness. Mixed and muddled. Colourful, like false colour terrain. You can have a lot of fun with digital art. I feel like I’m flying over a mad landscape, rather like in 2001 a space oddessy when Dave Bowman flies through an alien landscape near the end of the film. What fun a bit psychedelic! x
I duplicated the previous picture in Incollage then using most of the Instagram tools to change colours and hues. Then I adjusted the angles of the image to make it twist and turn.
It looks a bit rough but I like the idea of an off center image, it looks more interesting.
Both these images started out the same. One I adjusted to add texture. The other I used a mozaic, fisheye and inverting tool. It’s fun to digitally finger paint. I need to get my PC working so I can do something more complex and finely manipulated. I’m learning all the time.
What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?
I would play the trumpet at a gig! I started learning before the pandemic, but of course that intervened. I am also having problems with my health and I haven’t held or played my trumpet for three years now. It’s probably seized up, I know I have!
I’d learnt enough to play scales and a few short tunes. But the trouble now is fear. Fear of failure, of not being able to do it any more. So the trumpet sits in its case in the living room. It’s not a good thing to let go of the start of something, I regret not pursuing the skill.
I admire jazz trumpeters and also players in brass bands. But holding it and positioning my mouth wasn’t easy and I wanted to be better at playing than I was. Perhaps that is the problem. Too much expectation, not enough skill.
To play for one day. To an audience. That would be a thing. Maybe I should start again, ask for someone to teach me?
Maybe…. It would be thrilling!
I’m still playing…
Stray, spice, slope…
Wordle got me
Fight, gates, grape….
I hear these words in my head
Trawl, choice, fears….
Saying words that fit the frame
Frame, banes, party….
Driving me madly badly silly
Batty, ratty, tatty…
Some American spellings catch me out
About, spout, trout,
Not the above!
But humour or humor?
But now my mind
Ticks… Tocks… Evoke….
Five letter W. O. R. D. S
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.
I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.
I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.
So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…
Just look at me! I’m a daffodil face!
A nose, two eyes, and ears in place?
I could be a skull
Or a monster too
I definitely am yellow
And a little sallow
I wonder what beast
I could be the least
Beautiful flower
Or petals in a bower…
Bad rhymes
Silly times!
Mallaband-Brown