New paintings and regular art updates.
On our walk we saw a glorious copper beech tree. I think it’s only quite young but it is set on its own above the valley of the Trent. I’d love to live in the house on the other side of the road and have this magnificent tree to look at and must be lovely to look at as the sun rises behind it. I will have to get up early to get a shot of that.
Looking up at Seven beech trees entwined at the top. Inner branches trimmed and from the outside looking like a huge tree. Branches with leaves going down to the ground. There is a huge wooden bench inside in the middle.
Look at me? Can you see my face? Am I man or cat? Or cyclops? So many options and shapes.
Photo rotated and mirrored. Blue grey clouds and salmon pink sky. Totem or monster alien. Unknown sea creature. Ent? Your choice. Playing and experimenting to create alien images.
This trees flowers make Chesnuts when they are fertilised and mature.
Chestnuts are big brown nuts or seeds. They have hard shells and children gather them up in the autumn to play the game Conkers.
The local children throw sticks up into the tree to knock the chestnuts down. Then they make holes through them and thread them onto string tying a knot at the bottom so the Chestnut (or Conker) doesn’t fall off.
They take turns to swing one conker against the other until one of them cracks and breaks up. There are various tricks to try and make the chestnuts harder, like for instance soaking them in vinegar.
The more conkers a child hits and breaks, the more important the child’s conker is. If it’s only broken one it’s a ‘oner’ a six would be a ‘sixer’ the winner is the person whose conker does not disintegrate and beats all the other ones.
Probably not a game played much these days. But I remember playing it until my friend conker accidentally hit the knuckles of my hand. Ow!
I doodled a tree in felt pens (four of them held together for the greens, and three for brown and grey), then I added a black patterned monoprint for the fence and clouds. #bandofsketchers prompt…. Catching up..
You spread your arms
And reach out
Touching other trees.
Bark and moss
Cracks and splits
But you stand strong
Encompassing the land
Shading the ground
Leaf and branch.
Happy nature.
Trees are wonderful things, they live for much longer than humans and they show their lives in their limbs. This evergreen must have been damaged t some stage with one limb shooting off at a right angle then growing straight up parallel to the main trunk. The greenery starts part way up the trunk, perhaps the lower branches have fallen or been cut back. What history it must have seen over the years?
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was over… Today’s walk led us under this hawthorn tree that was growing over the road. Its in Hartshill on the way up to Queens Road. Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Oh I used to run past this tree. I was convinced as a child that it was inhabited by a ghost. As part of this terms college work we had to remember some landscape from our childhood and this was what I thought of.
I’ve probably missed out trees and I can’t remember if there were houses in the background. But it will remain with me forever!
View from the kitchen window. This is the little plum tree ar the bottom of the garden. There is a cherry tree trunk in front of it and branches from that obscure the view. I decided to leave that out. I painted with watercolours. Palest first, then the pale greens and blues. It’s hard to fit the dark colours in without leaving white edges but I have never used masking fluid to hide the paler areas and I don’t want to start now.
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