Tired

Watching a film about Shakespeare after he had finished writing plays and returned home to Stratford on Avon. I drew my husband last night, and I’m struck by the similarity of their profiles. Now I’m tired, I want to watch the film (starring Kenneth Branagh) but I didn’t sleep at all last night. Its almost midnight and I need a rest. Goodnight world.

Seashore mosaic

Photoshop landscape using mosaic photos to break up the image. It’s an interesting effect but is it a bit jarring? The secrion of the sky seems to have too many black bits I’m it. This is years old and I can’t remember when I did it. I have numerous pictures that I created over several years. I am very interested in artistic experiments. X

Report finished.

Feeling a bit less stressed. I’ve got my report in with a day to spare! Gives me time to try and solve another problem tomorrow! If only life was easy. I think I’m going to have another sleepless night while I worry about that. Then next I’ve got to finish putting my Illustration portfolio together. I have almost a month so time to do some more experiments and trials. I want to write some limericks for it too!

Draco

Draco, the dragon constellation and Ursa minor. Draco writhes up the northern night sky from the constellation Hercules up to Lyra. It sits near the north pole of the ecliptic. It was first identified by Ptolomey in the 2nd century. It remains one of 88 modern constellations.

I’ve found out a lot as I’ve written my college report. Eastern dragons are wise and benign, western ones evil and dangerous. They have lots of different appearances that vary depending on where they are were from or the time they were imagined. No legs, two legs, four legs, winged. Dragons seem to have evolved through time and now a more standardised anatomy seems to have emerged. I wonder how dragons will change in the future?

Clocks go forward

Tonight the clocks go forward. It means that sunrise is an hour later and sunset also an hour later than in the winter. This is BST or British Summer Time. We revert back to GMT or Greenwich Mean Time in autumn. The idea was adopted in the second World War to give farmers extra time to get crops in? The zero meridian runs through Greenwich, England, and is where the world’s time is set. As you go round the globe there are time zones set covering sections of the globe going forward or back in hourly segments.

At one stage in the UK they kept British Summer time in the winter. This was for two or three years in the 60’s or 70’s. It was darker in the mornings but lighter in the evenings. They found less traffic accidents involving children because although they were tired at the end of the school day they were able to see cars better. There were less deaths. But the government decided against keeping it because people in the far north weren’t having sunrise until 10 or 11am if I remember correctly.

There have been more recent suggestions of creating double summer time, where the clocks would permanently go forward an hour all year round, but then in the summer the clocks would go forward another hour. The idea is that this would save energy. However it has not been approved by Parliament.

Whoopee! Five pence off a litre!

Our wonderful Chancellor has today reduced the cost of fuel at the pumps by five pence. That works out at around .33% off the price or one third of one percent! Given that petrol and diesel prices have recently gone up by 50%. This does not seem like an overly generous cut! Given other taxes are going up I wonder what they would like us to think about this? The cost of living and inflation is increasing. Living standards are falling.

Patterns again

My brain likes pattern and complexity. I cannot abide plain white walls with no embellishments. Even my writing can be flowery? Is it because I’m interested in all sorts of things? I’m very visual, and yet I can walk past a friend without noticing them! I don’t have that face blindness thing that some people have. I think my glasses frames sometimes blocks the view.

Life is so difficult in the world at the moment. I am feeling a bit low with everything happening. But I pick up a felt pen and draw and time FLIES so fast.

Treeish

Mirrored photo from a couple of years ago. I think it looks quite alien. Like a three fingered monolith supporting a world floating above. Maybe a green environment in a space ship. Life held in stasis while the ship ploughs through space, ready to colonise a new planet.

I do like thinking odd thoughts. I clearly am interested in sci-fi. Breath of fresh air, green and powerful.

1.7 Million flee Ukraine

How can this continue? Millions fleeing a European country, desperate but defiant. Ukraine is still being bombarded by a bully. Women and children and the elderly are trying to escape. They have suffered dehydration and lack of food and power to get out if the country. In Ukraine the temperatures with windchill are due to be between minus 13 and minus 20 degrees Celcius. How can anyone survive in a basement with shells falling around them with nothing to give heat, no way of heating food, no fresh water. The corridors that Russia are setting up lead citizens into Russia or Belarus. Why would you want to move to your aggressors country? This is so difficult, we sit and wait for the next move and the next. This needs to calm down, not be further inflamed. Stop the Madness Russia, Stop the WAR! πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ί πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦