New paintings and regular art updates.
We visited a pub in September 2017 called the bleeding wolf which is on the A34 pub just North of Stoke on Trent in Rode Heath.
This is something I’ve missed doing in lockdown, just going out and visiting places outside the city. Enjoying the countryside. The feeling of freedom.
But even now I’m luckier than many people. I do have a home and food and water. I can afford to pay for things I need. I keep reflecting on how things could be so much worse here. I hope you are all safe and well.
It was another drawing challenge with Stoke Urban Sketchers, but I think it means more than that…. I am privileged to live in a country where we have sufficient rain, most of the time, to fill our needs. Last year we decided to have an outside tap fitted. It means that if there is drought we can use watering cans and a hose to water the garden. Ideally we need to fit a waterbutt to become more self sufficient. Drawing a tap is significant, a basic I sometimes take for granted.
The need for fresh water is a desperate problem across a lot of the world. There are charities you can donate to including Wateraid which is trying to bring fresh water to some of the poorest countries in the world.
So I’m just suggesting making a small donation. Each tiny drop of water from many people can turn into a torrent if enough of us give. If you can wash your hands it aids the health of people, the ability to grow crops and reduces famine and disease.
X
I’ve started a course in illustration and I can see that I’m too literal. I did an illuminated letter I. I will share a photo of it later. But I think I was too literal, especially when I compared it with other people’s art. Perhaps I need to do more preparation and think around the subject instead of going straight to the point.
In the drawing I’ve included I’m there, but hidden. Maybe I could have used that idea. Or as someone else did I could nave played with words and created an eye. At least I can understand what they are saying. I have the opportunity to expand my thought.
A spiky plant in our garden, a bit like the shape of a virus.
This virus though? I was just thinking this is like a zombie apocalypse movie- except there are no zombies (and no apocalypse)! I didn’t think the survivalists were right, and I still don’t. This is not the end of ‘Independence day’, or ‘Deep Impact’, or even ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ No president ‘hero’ is going to save the day. No bulldog like prime minister will defeat the army of viruses, its just not like that,
Blame them, if you need to, for that old cliche, of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. All of us, the whole world, is affected by this. But there are no zombie dead walking the streets, but a mass of our loved ones, gone before their time.
I hope I don’t sound flippant. I don’t want to. I DO NOT think this is the end of the world, although some people will be wishing it is. There are too many things that can destroy this world, with bombs and bullets, starvation and lack of clean water. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think mans damage of the Earth is going away, we have had a brief respite, but that does not solve climate change.
So there you are, that is what I think the real problem is, mans inhumanity to man and our planet. Scientists are calling this era the ‘Anthropocene’ where the impact of billions of humans on the Earth is visibly changing things. Remember the hole in the ozone layer? The massive oil spills over the last century, glaciers and Ice floes melting. Oceans full of plastic, the air so polluted in some places that their populations have been in their own lock-downs to survive them.
Mankind fights wars over so many things, religion, resources, rights to water and food. There is no ‘sharing’ with the other people on the other side of the mountain. Mankind ( and womankind) would rather be selfish and keep everything for themselves. Survival of the fittest? or greediest? Maybe we can’t work together?
But we can TRY. When people say we are all in this together, they need to realise we actually are.
When I was a child, there were probably about four billion people on the Earth, I learnt a fact that if you took every person alive they would fit on the Isle of Wight. (Look it up, its a small island off the south coast of Britain, separated from the mainland by the Solent). Even now you could probably fit most of them on the island when the tide is out….
I often think that the Earth is the host and we ( the human race) are the virus or bacteria attacking it, making its glaciers run, clogging up its pores with plastic, making it cough with pollution and greenhouse gases. Its time for us all to be the good, health giving bacteria, the pro and prebiotics that add health to the world, not something that is trying to kill it off.
No doubt that when this is over there will be calls to push ahead with growth, to make up for lost time. But can we in all conscience accept that? Maybe we should choose our leaders wisely, give them the task of sorting it out? But I think it is in our own hands. We have to say something, not accept the status quo.
I will wait for the sun to rise and try and think of tomorrow as a new day, a different day.
I’m thinking about what I need to do, trying not to prevaricate, not to stick my head in the sand. In this time of lockdown it’s almost too easy to turn and face the wall and not let the world invade. So I shall sleep and try not to wake too early.
I hope that everyone out there in the big world is OK. Safe, as happy as they can be. Look after yourselves.
X
This isn’t a good photo of the picture I was uploading but it shows you what I wanted to add. I am starting a college course and the first task was to upload an image and analyse it. I chose this picture of my gran as I feel a bit overwhelmed. I described myself as an old lady, feeling a bit defeated by technology. I know I will be OK with practice. Practice after all does make perfect. Its a learning process. Once you know how to do a thing (like driving), it clicks. The skill goes from one part if your brain to another, and you get to know what buttons to press. It’s just a struggle sometimes to pick up. And I’ve come to the conclusion, I don’t like Windows 10.
Wish me luck, I’ll need it. X
Mature tree in the park, today’s #uskstoke challenge was Nature.
This was the first time I had been out to a park in ten weeks (well longer as I don’t generally go to them). The weather was lovely, and no one came near to me and two friends. We didn’t get close. At one point I started to fill up with tears at the immense feeling of freedom. It suddenly hit me that I was with two people whose company I enjoy and who I haven’t been able to have a proper talk with for months.
I get on with my hubby, but this was a real release. I did go out wearing a mask and gloves like I do when I’m shopping. I was offered a fold up chair, but I declined because I’m still very nervous of touching anything outside the house. When I came home I washed my hands and face. I’m going to find it difficult to accept things when they get back to normal.
X
Photos taken a year ago at Etruria canal festival.
Oh what a change in things in a year. When will we go back to some form of normal? Or has our bubble burst?
We never expect things to happen to us. The world is hit with storms and earthquakes, but it’s always somewhere else. Until now. Life has been so strange, so different to the last few years. I guess it was about time something bad happened……
But anyway…
Happy bubbles.
X
What mask do you hide behind? Are you a wise owl or something more peculiar. I’ve seen photos of Italian masks, all black, with a massive beak shape. I think they wore them during the plague? Apparently people have recreated them and are wearing them during the pandemic. It’s because we are more interconnected than in the past, so people can reference historical times and be recognised as doing something that would not have been understood in the past…..
Life, the world, history, fascinating,
X
What is going on? Four ambulances came up our street in half an hour. Non of them had flashing blue lights. They were all presumably making there way over the hill to the hospital (we are on the main route). We’ve also seen a helicopter going over. I will see what the evening news says.
It’s worrying because our hospital takes covid 19 patients. I worry for them. Being alone and away from their families must be a fearful time. And yet across the road there’s shouting and laughing from a closed down pub. I wonder if its allowed but I won’t report it. There could be consequences….
Road traffic seems on the increase. Apparently there has been a lot of speeding due to reduced traffic. People have been caught going over 150 miles an hour in a 70 zone and 69 in a 50 zone. Madness. There has been a rise in accidents.
Maybe that’s why the ambulances have been busy.
Mallaband-Brown