

Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was open. I didn’t know what to draw. I thought an open tap. But instead of drawing the real thing I imagined it. Using felt pens again… I need new ones!
New paintings and regular art updates.


Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was open. I didn’t know what to draw. I thought an open tap. But instead of drawing the real thing I imagined it. Using felt pens again… I need new ones!

I once swam with a wild dolphin, we’d been driving round Devon and came back to the seaside to find a crowd of people on the beach and a group in wetsuits about fifty yards out. They were all excited and we saw a pod of dolphins swimming away. But one stayed in the bay. I decided I would swim out a bit and got in the sea fully clothed minus my shoes and glasses. My hubby stayed on the beach. The dolphin swam backwards and forwards between the two groups of people. Because I was in the middle he ket swimming close to me. It was fascinating. He kept coming past me and I noticed large wounds on his sides. It was after half an hour of being near him that I saw he was male! I can only say that it was quite alarming and not at all spiritual!. The next day there was a sign up about him at the camp site. He was called Georges and he was an adolescent male. His scars were because he would get too close to boat propelers. It also said not to breathe near them as they can transmit airborne diseases from their blowholes.
When I got home I did an imagined portrait of him but unfortunately the painting is at my sisters otherwise I would share a photo of him leaping through the waves. X


Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was fluid. I tried to draw a beach scene from above. I used an image off the Internet to give me an idea. I watched an animated film called ‘love Vincent’ about the life of Vincent Van Gogh last night so I’ve also done this with texture. (see second photo).

Swanning around
The Swan swam
Peaceful and proud
Sheltered from the wind
On a cold lake.

Hanging willow
Dragging your leaves
Down into the water.
A fringe of twigs
Shimmer and shake
Reflected in the waters
Sheltering the birds
Lake land tree
Hiding them from predators…
Giving them a home….

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….

I wanted to use the ‘knitting’ pattern that I had drawn as a background for another image. Flip it over, mirror it and crop it, draw over it and add a boat and its reflection. I think it actually works quite well. The sea looks calm as a mill pond despite the wind catching in the boats sails. I added white lines to dilineate the surf as it flows onto the beach.

Silhouette of a waterbird taken a couple of days ago on a walk round Westport Lake. I liked the way the small rock in the water looks like a birds head with a beak. It made me look twice because the actual birds head was looking forwards, towards me. It does give the illusion that the head is turned in profile in the reflection.
wet water bird
waiting in the drizzle
reflected sorrow
for a little food
your mind stretches
to a new tomorrow
where sun follows rain
and warmth
replaces shivers

I looked out this morning and the wind was whistling down the hill and rain was pouring down. But we had it lightly, about eighty miles and further north of here, rivers have flooded and a couple of footbridges have been swept away. Then later today there was news of someone possibly being swept away by a river.
When I think about the buildings collapsing into flooded rivers in South Asia recently it just underlines how much rain is being dropped on the land in some places. Because the atmosphere is getting hotter it can hold more water which consequently precipitates in greater amounts when it does rain. Flooding events that were once in a decade or a century are becoming more frequent. We have to act. I don’t know about political slogans like ‘levelling up’ but I think the heavy rains are ‘levelling down’ and washing the ground away from humanities feet!

In and out
Out then in
Turn about
Sink or swim
Splash and shout
Try to float
water wings
Take a boat
Walk the sand
Paddle in water
Tide turns round
As the moon grows brighter.