New paintings and regular art updates.
View out of a side window, heavy with pears the branches are bending down on our pear tree. The trunk is propped up because its gone over to about a forty five degree angle partly caused by strong winds and partly just from the weight of pears on the branches. This from a tree bought from Woolworths twenty five years ago as a small sapling. Every year I marvel at the productivity of the plant. And looking out the window at them? Makes me proud of what you can do if you let nature take over.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ‘straight’. The cat went straight up the tree! It was going to be a straight road but when I started drawing I changed my mind. Felt pens white pencil crayon and black ink fine line pen.
What is Above? Is it only sky? I have a prompt to draw for and I’m trying to think what to do. I can start with tree branches or tall buildings towering over me. They reach up above me. Basically as I’m short anything above 5ft 6 inches is above me, so that includes kitchen cupboards! Upstairs? That too….
Then the blue sky and clouds are above us. The clouds could be white and fluffy or dark and threatening rain…but mountains can also tower above us. Even hills. The Blackpool tower?
Follow that with planes, satellites, space stations….
Asteroids, meteors, comets, planets, the moon, the sun, stars, the Oort cloud, cosmic rays, the milky way, galaxies, the universe.
I’m starting to feel rather small….
Our apple trees have got a lot of fruit for a change. I think they are finally maturing and as they have had their branches trained along the fence they are bearing more fruit than if they were growing straight up, some of them are already ripening and turning red. I don’t know their variety but they are tasty.
I noticed how light shines through the leaves of this plant. The leaves are spread out so the light gets to most of them. Looking at trees, I can see the leaves do the same thing. They spread out and don’t overlap much. If you look closely at trees and other plants you can see the leaf pattern fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes when you see a bush the leaves are all on the outside, close fitting, and the centre is just branches and twigs. The internal area has been shaded out by the ball of leaves around it. Maximum photosynthesis and maximum food for the plants. Nature is wonderful, and evolution is amazing.
I could play with this for ages. This time the earth had become a blazing sunset or a moon being clouds. The tree is from stencils I have on my phone. The rays could be eminating from the moon or Sun. Maybe I should stop now….
A rim of moss a foot up the trunk of the tree from its roots. Must be where the rain splashes up. But to me it looked like feet or hands reaching down into the soil. If the roots grasped the soil would squidge up like mud. Spurting up because of the force and strength of the tree. What would happen if trees had muscles. If a simple ivy can twist and squeeze a stem perhaps a tree could tighten round a car or a building. Seeds get into cracks and grow and break stone. Time allows them to do this. The growth is slow. But it can change the landscape.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was memory. I don’t have a photo of this but it’s stuck in my mind. There was a rock wall and maybe a tree growing up from it, or growing nearby. That is what I see in my minds eye. The tree trunk was very gnarled and each time I walked past I saw a gnarly face.
This is from when I was a child. There was also an avenue of similar trees behind it. But I can’t remember how they were placed. Then there were park railings and houses beyond. Its funny what sticks in the memory. X
I sat and drew one of the magnolias while we were there at Bishton Hall. It was just a black and white sketch so I coloured it in when I got home. The curved edges are because I can’t get my sketchbook page to lie flat. I don’t think I’ve got the colours right, but I have only got a limited range of colours in the set of felt pens I’m using.
A large tree has fallen on the far bank of the Trent and Mersey canal opposite Westport Lake. Luckily it seems to have fallen sideways instead of across the canal. It doesn’t appear to have damaged any canal barges or cars on the access road behind it, although some of its branches are trailing in the canal. Seen on a walk today.
Mallaband-Brown