How to draw a hurricane… I’m doing a project about a dragon and it has to fly through a hurricane to get home I hope it will be a fun adventure story for children. The final image is black and white and much simpler than this but I wanted to try and create a dynamic swirl of colour. Digital drawing.
What do you call a mixture of Snow and Hail? Sn-ail! I think it was ‘sn-ailing’ this afternoon. We went out to Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent and bought a few plants, maybe it’s a bit cold to plant them though.
Trees leaning over a lake. Perhaps they will fall if the ground becomes too wet or the wind blows too strongly. With global warming making the weather worse you can see how damage can increase.
Some efforts are being made to reduce the damage. In a few places there has been a reintroduction of beavers to lakes and rivers. It seems strange that an animal that actually fells trees could reduce flooding. But by building lodges (dams woven from tree branches that they live in) beavers slow the flow of water in rivers. The water pools behind them and so less water is released downstream. This can reduce the speed of water rising and so stop flooding.
So in some ways it’s good that the trees have been felled. But I guess the reintroduction has to be in a controlled way.
The storm hit today. We were on the northern edge and although its been windy with heavy rain I don’t think it was as bad as storm Desmond earlier in the week.
I’m staying at home as I have a sore throat and aches. I guess it might be the weather. It seems like you get different bugs depending on the temperature?
While I sit and watch the trees blowing about I believe that Britain generally gets a few named storms a year. Eunice is a bad one. It mainly hit down in the South of the country. A wind speed of 122 miles an hour was measured at the Needles, a series of cliffs on the Isle of Wight. Part of the canvas covering of the Millennium Dome was ripped off. Trains were cancelled throughout Wales. Major bridges were closed. Rooves were torn off and a church steeple blew down. I know Cornwall, Devon and Somerset have been affected and London Fire Brigade was inundated with calls.
There may be snow blizzards tonight in the North of England and in Scotland and Northern Ireland. They were saying 10 to 30 centimeters of snow may fall.
Meanwhile here… Its been a bit breezy. My city is about as far away from the coast as you can get, in the centre of the country. Our river is quite small here. It doesn’t create massive flooding, hopefully things will be OK. We may lose a few tiles, a chimney pot or two.
Digital manipulation of paving blocks. The colours are from water and green algae on the blocks. The perspective of them means that because I have mirrored them both side to side and up and down there appears to be a bulge in the centre of the picture. I again used the Layout app that comes with Instagram to do the mirroring.
Half past five in the evening and the clouds scud by. There’s still light in the sky but the rain showers keep pounding the windows. I love the newly washed look of the air. Almost sparkling. When I came here forty years ago there was far more heavy industry in the area. Smoke and dust polluted the air. A smog sometimes settled over the city and you could smell the fumes from the tyre factory or enamel being fired onto pottery if the wind was in the right direction. Now the wind is more a carrier of sound. The local A road and the motorway. The occasional sound of pile drivers when new buildings are erected, which is not very often. Sometimes smoke travels on the forlorn breeze as an old building accidentally burns down. So sad. So much bustle gone. We are a warehouse city of poorly paid jobs. No real chances. No ambition if the naysayers are believed. I think we can do better. Think creative, be creative. Let a bit of light shine on us. X
It’s very windy outside. I took two photos within a couple of minutes of each other. One had a bit of blue sky in it, the other was much cloudier and more turbulent. The pink developed then faded quickly. I mirrored the two photos so you can compare the colours next to each other. Darkness is gathering. I want to snuggle up and hibernate!
Red sky at night! Wish I could have got up the hill. But it faded quickly after taking this shot. I’ve seen a couple of photos on Facebook which were taken by other people.
A gale force wind and storms are forecast for later tonight up in the north of the UK. But that’s mainly Scotland. Hopefully this means that the weather here will be OK. Its still a long time till spring. Lots of cold, wet, windy weather still to come.