New paintings and regular art updates.
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
The excitement of porridge
The joy of tablets
A cool shower
If I can afford it
Trying to get dressed
Without getting tangled
Feed the cats
Work out what I can do today
It all takes time.
Wobbly arms and leg
Don’t help my balance
Feel like I’m moaning again
Let’s just go back
To bed…..
Facebook Memory
Sometimes things just pop up on my status and I don’t remember when I drew them. In this case the memory was from five years ago, but the comment said I drew it in 2004. I think that’s right because I wasn’t doing many pencil drawings a few years ago. I think this was from a monthly drawing group. Friends met up at a pub and we would draw each other or customers. I have the Sketchbook somewhere in the house. One of a miriad of them.
One day things work in a way I understand, then the next day it’s slightly different. Icons and buttons change. It happens here at WordPress, but I think its worse at places like Facebook. It seems like there are more restrictions, changes to what you can see, and more ads.
For instance Facebook reverts to ‘most relevant’ posts even though you want to see all of them. Then if you press like or live to every comment you can get suspended! It happened to me. My hubby had passed away and many people commented about it and because I wanted to thank everyone I got a warning for spam!
Instagram can be a bit confusing too and X. I know the sites want us to have a better experience but sometimes it would be nice to be told.
Today is a hiding day. Lots of thoughts and fears roaming around the inside of my head. I need to get things done but I don’t feel like doing them. I’m going to give myself some slack, just a few hours to feel safe.
Yesterday I was more optimistic, I got some things done I’d been putting off. I’ve even started my gratitude book again. And later I will go out as the cats won’t have anything to eat if I don’t. But yesterday afternoon something happened that put everything into another perspective. And I just froze. I’m only hinting, I’m not going to say, and I think I will be OK, it was something mental not physical. I’m OK. I will be OK.
What’s something most people don’t understand?
Science is hard, it is very difficult to understand or often to explain. I think the world is split into people who get science and those that do not.
I don’t know if you have to have a particular brain? I found science hard, and being a girl didn’t push myself forward in classes. The boys always had their hands up shouting me sir, me! Answering the teachers questions.
And yet I eventually found I loved science. I used to watch a BBC programme called Horizon which had a great many subjects from Chemistry to Astrobiology, to the Big Bang as subjects of hourly shows. Suddenly my interest was piqued. I started to understand things and got more aware of science and it’s ramifications.
I also loved the Sky at Night, a monthly astronomy programme, it’s only short, 20 minutes, but really interesting. And then children’s programmes used to be informative, including the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. I remember seeing one about magnetic levitation of trains, it was a lecture by Professor Eric Laithwaite. Wonderful.
So my take from this is that you might not like science, but give it a chance, it helps you understand the world..
Wow, it’s just rained heavily. A real squall with gusting winds. The gutters were overwhelmed and water poured down the window. Now the sun’s back out and the dark grey clouds have blown away. I love the sound of raindrops clattering against the glass and the gusts of wind whistling through the gaps in the window frame. It’s never been properly airtight, but I don’t mind and in the dawn light I can hear the blackbird singing on the top of next doors chimney. Music of nature playing around my garden.
It reminds me of the myth or saying about the month of March and March winds… If it is a gentle start to the month it comes in like a lamb and out like a lion, while if it’s windy at the start of the month the opposite, in like a lion out like a lamb tends to be the case.
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
Look at the sky, it’s blue,
I love that wonderful hue
I could ignore it
Pass it by
Be driven hard
Ambition charged
But then I’d miss the best of life
While dealing with the anxious strife
No time to stop and stare they say
Is not, for life a good way.
Try not to stress
Though I confess
I walk on sometimes
And miss sunshines.
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
I have a strange ability to do with time. If I’m cooking something in the oven and set the timer for whatever length of time the dish needs cooking I will have an urge to get up and check the time at exactly one minute to go! It happens virtually every time. It’s weird.
Other timely abilities included knowing when my hubby was coming home from work no matter what time his shift ended. I could not relax until a few minutes before he got home. This was despite the time not being a regular thing and no phone calls (he wouldn’t use a mobile phone). (One of my cats was always waiting for me when I came home, the same thing?).
Finally, I can be sitting at traffic lights and if I count to ten, the lights will usually change before I finish counting. I’m not sure why but it seems to work say about 70% of the time.
My thoughts are that I’m living time backwards! I can’t understand how it works. I know we humans have ‘timing’ cells in our brains that regulate our ability to measure time. Perhaps my cells are very accurate? It’s a mystery.
What is your favorite type of weather?
Kite flying on a breezy day, enough breeze to lift the silk or nylon covered structure up into the air.
We went to a kite flying festival in Wales years ago. I had made a kite out of bamboo tied together with melamine silver plastic taped to it. I’d painted a Japanese symbol on it, I can’t remember what it was (this is about thirty years ago).
It wasn’t just breezy, it was very windy, and most kite flyers had decided not to bother. But I tied a tail onto my kite and tried to fly it. It wasn’t very happy so we added a plastic carrier bag! Then it flew, horizontally, just above the beach, but it flew. I was so proud!
The next day there was a gentle breeze, I took off the bag and the kite rose high into the air. I have always loved kite flying weather since then.
Ten minute watercolour sketch I did today at our art group. I am not going to show the front view sketches that I did as some people may find them offensive. Most of them were pen and watercolour sketches, I did try using a sharpie pen but the ink bled onto the paper and was too smudged. These were all 10 or 20 minute pictures. The final life study is an acrylic on canvas. We had an hour to complete it. I painted the models braids with ribbons woven into them and I mirrored the idea of them by painting a chequered floor (the floor is wood block parquet). I might post a close up later.
Mallaband-Brown