New paintings and regular art updates.
Go to bed
Lie down
Stay awake
Close your eyes
Calm your thoughts
Calm them again
Think of something else
Reinvent the wheel
Remember another problem
Count sheep….
Count goats
Daylight
Dawn…
Sleep….
Wake up after three hours
Repeat…..
One of my old digital drawings on a now defunct website called Sketchfu. I drew it when the Lord of the Rings came out. I have forgotten the actor who played him although I know Orlando Bloom played Legolas. I know the actor also played a long distance horse rider in a film about a horse that races over the Sahara. The horse wasn’t pure blood but one of Americas wild mustang horses. I can’t remember the film name! My memory is getting full of holes….
While we were at the Waiting Room gallery in Longport we decided to go for a walk round the lake. The local council has bought in parking charges at the lake (I’m not sure if they have started taking money yet), but rather than driving there we left our car on the street and walked a few hundred yards along the canal to the lake.
As you walk along you see the sad dereliction of the industrial heritage of Stoke-on-Trent. Buildings that used to use the canals for transport are falling to rack and ruin. Firms buy them up then instead of restoring them and perhaps nurturing the buildings and creating museums or even apartments like they have in Manchester or Birmingham, let them fall down or burn down!
Leaving the sad buildings behind, we walked along the canal towpath to the lake. We bought a bag of bird food and fed the wild fowl around the lake. Worryingly we did see a Canada goose with what looked like mucus hanging from its beak. There is bird flu in the country which is very harmful to the birds. Once round the lake and then back along the canal. A good walk.
I placed this skull inside a roll of sellotape to give an idea of scale. It’s sitting on an A6 sketchbook. I think we found it on a walk about ten years ago. I think it’s a rodents skull but the jaw is missing. I have it in my office room and use it when I want to do a still life (death)… A memento mori?
What is death, what happens when we die. To be left as just the bones. Oh sorry, getting a bit maudlin.
My mind is a bit muddled at the moment. I am dealing with lots of ‘stuff’ and I feel overwhelming worry that I won’t get back on track. My life physically has been bothering me and I’m waiting for an appointment to try and find answers. I’m dealing with things for myself, my family and friends, and because I can put a good case for things I don’t mind helping. But when you persue various options and each one closes down it gets more and more frustrating. I wish I could herd cats, work out the best thing for us. I had to ask for help recently, and that was difficult. I’m a proud person and I don’t like to think I can’t cope. But you know those straws that broke the camels back? I think they are building up. Maybe I need to hibernate and look after myself, but turning away from others is not in my nature.
More snow due.
My nose? Blue!
If heating on
Money will be gone.
Winds a beast
From the north east
Cats have coats
So they’re warm as toast!
So wearing layers
To be lower payers.
One way to reduce
Carbon footprint use.
Looking back at my sketchbook I found this from February this year. I think I was going put more then. Going for walks and not exactly seeing people but socialising more.
Then I pulled a calf muscle and it really knocked me back. I am seeing a lot less people and turning into a recluse. My walking consists of going to the shops a couple of times a day. This weekend I actually went to my art group meeting. I was trying to finish a dog painting and I used it as an excuse to get out the house and do some art. I think that has helped me break out a bit. My mojo needs to be released again!
Today, for the first time in about three months I walked around the top of our hill (I drove up as I’m still nervous of putting pressure on my calf muscles).
It still had a little uphill section at the end (we walked downhill at the start). But I managed OK. I’d decided to go out early, before the sun set, and the sky still had some colour in it when we got down to the area of school playing fields that spread down into the Trent Valley.
On the walk we saw two dog walkers, one with a French bulldog and a Staffordshire bull terrier, the other with two beautiful golden retrievers. Both pairs of dogs wanted a fuss so that delayed us getting to see the sunset. It was only a couple of thousand steps but as I had already walked into town and back I at least got my 5000 steps in. On a cold breezy day it was good to blow the cobwebs away at last.
Helium is the second element in the periodic table, atomic number two. It was first discovered when they measured the spectrum of the Sun. It was found as a line in the spectrum that did not appear to be on Earth.
Balloons like this are filled with this dwindling resource, if I remember correctly it’s from a place in America. I think there is a world shortage.
Helium is the second lightest element, but unlike Hydrogen which is the lightest, it doesn’t react with anything. So Helium stays on its own, it escapes out of our atmosphere. Hydrogen on the other hand reacts with many elements and this results in H2O, water, as two hydrogen atoms link with one oxygen.
Coventry University had a whole series of videos on YouTube that was about the elements if I remember. It was very interesting and they discussed all the elements in the periodic table. It was presented by a professor with mad grey curly hair….
Finally the temperature is plummeting. Warm days this November are fading as the Jet Stream of wind changes position and cold air tumbles down from the Arctic. Some parts of Britain might see wintery showers soon. Then my garden plants will be hit by the chill. In the meantime I can only think of the glorious plants that bloomed in the spring and summer and the seasons ahead of us. Looking forward to the future again.
Mallaband-Brown