New paintings and regular art updates.
Butterflies, summer creatures
Hide in crevices
Overwintering
Blood like antifreeze
Or lay their eggs
Somewhere safe
To form a chrysalis
That will emerge next spring
Or flutter south
To warmer places
Migrating to survive
And moths?
Do they do the same
Flitting to darkened spaces
To wait out the cold?
Mild winters fetch them out early
Cold and hungry
Where can they feed
If plants are dormant
Not in flower
No leaves to eat?
A delicate natural balance
Disrupted
Oh I get fed up, too many emails, I keep deleting them, but sometimes they reappear in my inbox. I have to admit I don’t know how many I actually have. I keep some from friends that I have had for years. I just don’t know if I can delete them, they are my contact with the past… What do you do? How much memory do they take up? Should I delete the lot?
I’ve realised how out of touch I have got with some people. It’s not deliberate, but I’m one of these out of sight, out of mind people. I tend to be aware of things in the ‘now’, and the past is gone. It’s helpful because I don’t dwell on bad things from the past, but on the other hand it makes me forget to keep in touch with old friends. Can you know too many people? I don’t think so. But I can’t hold them all in my head! So my intention is to try and at least say hi once a month…. I need to remind myself to do it…..
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was ‘date’ I was going to draw an old mechanical calendar (one that you turn round to change the date) but I can’t find it. So then I decided to sketch a log, cut in half, to represent tree rings (dendrochronology) you can count the rings to find out the age of the tree and as the widths of the rings change with the weather you can also work out the years it was growing.
Industrial,
Smoke belched high in the sky
Soot fell on childrens faces.
Clogged lungs
Cotton fell like dirty snow
From grey clouds
Skudding on a raw east wind.
Blast furnaces glowed
Brightening sullen grey clouds
Into false, rosy sunsets
Men walked, doubled over
In the black and dusty mines
Water dripped hot and dirty
Down bent necks
whilst picks and shovels
Hewed at the coal.
Then suddenly
Worlds changed
Smoke and smog was banned
Cholera and typhoid alleviated.
Government and Unions United for once.
Health for all, insuring life.
Workers deserving clean air and water.
Post industrial, jobs went
To other places, other lands
Workers not so lucky
Breathing a centurys old air
Forced to work for a pittance
One people taking the place of another
Supporting our modern, post industrial life
And money travels upwards
Into more billionaires pockets
On post industrial beaches….
Earth is clean for those that can pay.
We went out this afternoon because I really need to get some tiny canvases to paint some new minature paintings for the exhibition and craft sale on Saturday. We didn’t rush out. I thought if we got to the shop before five we would be OK. We actually got through the traffic and arrived at 3.50pm. The place was already closed! They close at 4pm! I must get there in the morning otherwise I won’t have much time (no pun intended) to get things done. Oh well, Tempus Fugit!
Now it’s 12%, why does the battery power drop so fast when it gets to 15%? It’s annoying, I want to write more but the charge is now 11%. Maybe it’s time for a new battery. I sometimes stand in the kitchen with my phone on charge, it’s quite cold in there so I don’t think I will tonight. I will just write this and stop for the night. Anyway it’s a strange and insignificant thing to write about. But I have had this phone for about four years. I don’t change them every five minutes like some people. I can’t afford to and also it’s a waste of resources. Whoops! 10%, goodnight!
Iridescence caused by a single layer of oil spread out over water. I used to see this when I was a child on the school playground, I don’t know what had been spilt. I also remember seeing this sheen on the tarmac on roads when I was young. But now cars are less polluting the phenomenon has reduced. But obviously some cars still leak oil. Will this happen when all cars are electric? Doubtful, but who knows when that will be.
A painting from five years ago. I do like painting birds, particularly owls. I made a few in pottery class at school, I just like the circles of feathers round their faces that help direct sound to their ears (I might be wrong?) and do they have one ear higher than the other for the same reason. I need to find out.
Last night I went out to choir practice for the first time in several weeks. I wrote this gratitude about it when I got home. When I got there I couldn’t help crying, but a friend came over and calmed me down. We are now the mystery singers for the Christmas season so we were singing songs like Gaudete and Sweet Chiming Bells. Finally we sang While Shepherds watched their flocks by night to the tune of on Ilkley Moor Bah’tat, (although the Carol song might have come first?). By the end of the night I felt OK. So I am very glad I went.
Mallaband-Brown