Quick fox

Work in progress

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog…..

A statement that contains all the letters of the alphabet and also was used to improve typing skills I think?

This is a tiny miniature, it needs more detail, less splodges. I will try and get more of a furry look to it. I might add a bit of blue to the snowy background so that it looks more realistic. Only 6 more to paint!

Fushias in November

We might get a cold snap in the next few days. At the moment though they are clinging on. Inside our house, I’ve just had to torn the heating off. We had a radiator mended in the week and now it’s pumping out warmth. I’m sitting here in a tee shirt and thinking I might turn it back off at the valve…

Let’s see what happens when the weather cools. If it gets frosty, if it snows. Then I won’t just be wearing a fushia pink tee shirt, and the flowers outside might be gone.

Old Orchids

Old orchids on the windowsill

Growing fitfully, they need repotting. I’m going to have to do it soon as the orchid medium is spent, but they have reflowered a few times. They need clear plastic pots to let light to the roots apparently. My worst habit is not keeping them misted so they are a little dry. I’ve got two more on the kitchen windowsill but I think it will be too cold in there in the winter so I will be moving them into the living room where it’s warmer..

A bank holiday in October

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

The UK has bank holidays in winter, spring and summer, but nothing in Autumn. We have Rememberence day and Guy Fawkes night in November. But some people don’t get many days off in the year, so why not?

The government would no doubt object to this day off, because it would reduce productivity. But if they had their way we would be on fifty or sixty hour weeks. Elon Musk said this week that all jobs would be taken over by AI or robots, so why not start working towards it now? We could have Autumn cards, buy jigsaw puzzles of gorgeous trees, or squirrels and their nut collections. Hazelnut or Cob nut cakes? Conker fights, displays of autumn flowering crocuses. I would also keep British Summer time so that the evenings stayed lighter and it would cost less in power usage!

4 years ago

View of trees and local playing fields up our hill. It was four years ago. I took a photo during the winter and the trees looked skeletal. I put this through photodirector a couple of times to get the textured look. It almost looks like looking through a wet windscreen, where the lines are blurred and smeared. I think I might paint it.

Today is….

So, we have equal amounts of day and night today according to this.

Days will get shorter than nights until the Winter Solstice around the 21st of December 2023, then lengthen again. In the Southern Hemisphere the days will get longer until their Summer Solstice.

I don’t like the lack of sunlight and the change from British Summer time to Greenwich Mean time also gets to me. We lose an hour of evening daylight in October, although we get lighter mornings. But studies in the 1960’s or 1970’s showed that overall there were less accidents when they kept British Summertime for three years. Sadly the change was abandoned.

Maybe we could revisit the idea? Saving an hours electricity in the winter evenings might even help the environment?

Found

Acrylic on canvas painting, work in progress. Of trees and rocks or stones. But I don’t remember what I was doing with it. I found it in the summerhouse while I was helping clear it up. I must have started it sometime last year. Perhaps in the winter. I’ll have to make a story up? Maybe it was too cold in there and the water froze, or the weather changed and continuous rain put me off. I’m going to get my brushes out and try and finish it off….

Reflected snow

A symmetrical photo created by flipping a photo upside down. The main mass of leaves is a holly bush we have grown in the garden. It’s a bit like a parasol as we have cut off a lot of the lower branches. I like how the resulting photo looks like an insect on its side. I have a brain that likes pareidolia (when you see creatures or faces in shapes). If I was to turn the photo through 90° it might look like a moth?