New paintings and regular art updates.
Yesterday’s dawn was very orange red on the horizon. This photo has bad camera shake but I tried to capture the colours by putting my camera on night mode and stopping when it got between 20 and 30 seconds. It would have just been very overexposed if I’d continued.
My guttering around the house has been dripping on me. When I finally looked up I could see grass protruding from the gutter above the front door. Every time I went out in the rain I got wet.
Luckily the neighbours recommend a workman who would clean it out. He came today to do the work, it literally took 10 minutes, including putting the ladder up to the roof, but it’s worth having it done. He bought down a bucket full of moss, leaves and grass. Hopefully it is now sorted out. He asked me how long it’s been since I’ve had the guttering cleared and I had to admit it must be over twenty years. That means the cost was a few pence for every year I have lived here!
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
I was going along, minding my own business, when things started to go wrong. You know that you want to carry on the same way as you have done for decades, but it’s impossible.
Life is a process of getting older, bits don’t exactly drop off, but they stop working properly. Illness and health can have a massive impact. Sometimes you can feel better, other times you feel worse and that causes problems and pressure to deal with.
Youth is a wonderful thing but it’s over so soon and we don’t appreciate it until its gone. The trouble is, if you enjoy your youth you might not last to see old age!
A painting I did in the 1980s when we still had our beautiful mainly white cat. She would sit and watch the goldfish in the tank, sometimes raising a paw as if to try and catch them, but the tank had a lid and a pump so they were perfectly safe.
I painted this on a board that used to have a mirror attached to it but that was long gone. I used oil paint I think, it gets absorbed into the wood rather than sitting on the surface like acrylics. It’s about 2 ft long and is hung in the living room above the archway that divides the room in half. I often look up at it and smile at the memories it brings.
Four leaf clover,
just green and neat.
Splattered with dew or rain
Contrasted against black
How to describe it more?
Thin stem from its centre
Leaves splayed out lobes.
Striped with thin veins
Each curved gently
Upper surface dips downward
Four fan shaped
Instead of the usual three
Lucky?
Memory of the one I found….
Can’t wait for Spring
Tomorrow is February
The sun might heat the air
The sun will set later
Rise earlier,
I might go out and breathe
See a daffodil burst
Like a white and yellow firework
Bud bursting in slow motion
I look forward to seeing it.
To Wales, and the lake district, and Scarborough, and Devon and Dorset. All the places I’ve been on holiday in my life. I want to ESCAPE! Get to beautiful places, see the coast, the mountains, get out of the city.
I can’t get away to the sea and sky. My mind won’t let me, my arms won’t let me, my legs won’t let me. I get worried, I think of things that might happen. I need to have company. Isn’t that strange? When I had my hubby we went everywhere together. Now he’s gone there is no one to reassure me. To make it safe. I’m fed up. Anxious, frustrated, lost, fearful.
Sorry to go on.
Section of a painting I did about 1993. It’s interesting to look at how I painted the pattern on the carpet. It was actually a large rug on a terracotta and black tiled floor. This was in our old rented house which was quite delapidated. The cellar underneath this room was very wet and the mortar was rotting. It was held up by an acroprop and you could see the floor was bowing downward so we didn’t use the room much and I used it as a studio. When you changed a light bulb you needed to take insulation tape with you. The wire was cloth covered and would fall off when you changed the bulb. There’s a lot I could say about that old house, but that’s it for now. It is funny how a painting can evoke so many memories.
One of my photos that I got in a local calendar for this year. There was a photographic competition in the summer. People were asked to submit pictures of our local village of Penkhull for it to raise funds for the village hall.
In the end three of my pictures were chosen, that’s a quarter of the twelve monthly images! There was also a thirteenth one that was chosen for the front of the calendar. I’m so proud to have had my work included for 2025.
My sister and I went to have a cup of hot chocolate and some cake at the Capabilitea Cafe at Trentham Gardens, in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, this afternoon. It was lovely to get out after spending at least two weeks in the house with this dreadful virus. We were going to have a savory meal but I was tempted by this “the works” hot chocolate.
The sun was low on the horizon when I finally got out. It’s bad this time of year and it was hard to drive the couple of miles there. I’m glad I had my sister with me, she helped me blow up my car tyres and had to point out where the disabled parking spaces were on the Trentham village car park. We had a little wander so I could try and stretch my legs. I managed 1657 steps today, which is more than I’ve done in weeks (that’s in fits and starts, I have to stop and browse (take a rest), every so often). But I escaped from the house at last !
Mallaband-Brown