I’m going through a blue period at the moment…the interesting thing about these images that I made another drawing which was trying to be too formal and it didn’t work. These two were drawn freehand and where much more successful…maybe there is a moral there?
At the moment we have several known bird’s nests within in the garden at the moment and it a wonder of nature to watch the scramble for life of these creatures. However, with this gift comes heartache as we find from time to time the bodies of small birds, usually chicks or fledglings, around the garden. Of course it is very easy to get all teary about such things but this would be wrong response. Instead it should be accepted as just another part of the life cycle of the small birds who as a means to compensate for this have several large broods each summer.
I was contemplating these and many other things this afternoon as I sat in the sunlight this afternoon making this drawing. As I did this the small birds flittered around trying to feed their ever hungry offspring. Is there a moral? No but then again I don’t think that there should be.
One of the real joys I find from creating art (what an awful phrase that is!) is just sitting down and drawing freehand. In the past I used to got really hung up with trying to make an accurate copy of whatever I was drawing, now I’m not that bothered as the process is what I really enjoy. Strangely the less I cared about the resemblance to what I am drawing the more interesting and accurate the drawings have become – well sort of.
BTW these drawings were all made yesterday afternoon – if that makes a difference which I’m not sure it does.
Creative journeys are strange things. They have huge twists and turns that aren’t planned, well that is how it seems to me but it may be that I am doing things all wrong. So yesterday I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I seem to have discovered an approach to making paintings that suits me and everything was wonderful in the garden.
Then this morning I found myself clearing out a load of images from my iPhone because it was running out of space. Amongst the image I discovered one that ignited another fire in my brain – for some reason I thought ‘Blasted Heath’. Now I am sure that there have never been any witches active at Calke Abbey the image did have that feel. Perhaps it is where Heathcliff might have married Catherine? I think I am letting this whole thing get away from me.
Anyway, strange bedfellows make for an interesting couple.
Two weeks after the most devastating defeat for the Labour party in living memory we have entered a time when all concerned will be eating their babies, by which I mean they are trying to elect a new leader. Straight after the defeat it was the turn of the Blairites to get their knives out. This weekend its the turn of the, well I’m not sure what epithet to give them – maybe Unite – to get their retaliation in. It is so very depressing and so very predictable. When will any of these people learn that it wasn’t because they weren’t too right wing, centrist or left wing that they lost. It was because no one really believed that they could form a government and that even less people thought that Ed Miliband was a suitable candidate to be prime minister.
None of this will matter over the next few months. Instead what will matter will be purity of thought around subjects that I suspect an awful lot of Labour members don’t really care about. At the same time they will be reinforcing the notion being put about by the Tories that Labour is untrustworthy, which I suspect is the kettle calling the pot black but it is Labour’s own fault.
The one ray of hope is that they have been here before. In 1992 they suffered a defeat, perhaps nothing of the magnitude of 2015 but a shattering one nonetheless, yet by 1997 they had been elected with a huge majority after the Tories had pulled themselves apart over Europe, does that sound familiar? Of course the Labour party had elected a leader who proved on three separate occasions he knew how to win an election. However, Tony Blair seems to be such a dirty word amongst the Labour party that they really deserve everything they are about to get.
Spent an enjoyable hour or so watching a bit tele yesterday – then I made some sketches based on what I watched.
This old fellow seems to have just a little too much of the vino collapso or maybe it was the port.
WE’ve all had those moments when we have half hour or so to kill and so we start doodling …
So that is that …the final act has been completed and the project is now finished…what will I do with myself?
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