Archive
Bat, Dragon, Brimstone and Barbeque – a painting a day
Day One hundred and seventy one
size 6 in x 8 in, 15cm x 21cm
Today was beautiful. There were no appointments to make, the sun shone and I got some weeding done. I bumped into people in town who could do each other good once they were introduced and I had found that one needed to practice Spanish and one needed to practice English. Lovely aunt was happy and to cap it all DIY Dad got to incinerate food outdoors for the first time this year. We sat out in the garden and watched the sun set as we waited for the food to be cooked. A crescent moon emerged among the peachy coloured cirrus clouds and a bat flew high among the oak trees before the light had even half gone.
This morning I saw at least two brimstone butterflies, possibly a holly blue and later a large brown of some sort. I pulled seedling grass from the garden beds and probably thirty seedling of Hypericum , the garden is infested with self sown Linaria, Aquilegia, Geranium pyrenaicum, Prunella, Verbena bonariensis, Salvia, Verbascum, willow, as well as the usual docks, nettles, creeping buttercup, wood avens and forget-me-not. I leave the forget-me-nots and verbena and some of the others but the Hypericums have to go as do the sedges that sprout up everywhere.
The painting is of a strange fruit , I have never eaten it , I will tell you its like next blog. It is certainly colourful.
The photo shows the sky with a tiny moon.
#171 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Misty morning
Away
We went to Florence for my Christmas present….to see the art not to do any, but I did sketch the Duomo and Campenile from across the river. I note with some jealousy that you wouldn’t get a view of St Pauls this uncluttered due to the tall piles of steel and cement which now surround it, thanks to the banks for a lot of that of course. On top of the financial desecration.
At the central market there were literally sacks of dried ceps or porcini, they varied in grade according to how perfect the dried slices were. The price went from 5 euro to 30 euro per 100 gramme. There were also blood oranges from Sicily and baby artichokes in heaps as well as fabulous piles of fresh damp salads in all sorts of colours. The buffalo mozzarella was really fresh and made a great lunch with olive bread.
This would have been my next sketch had there been time. Its a view back to Florence from the top of the Boboli Gardens.
You find what you are interested in anywhere-Medusa I do find interesting, this is her decapitated body conquered by Perseus. She is fairly ugly faced in this but with a decent body; I was very struck by the muscular female nudes that were carved by MichelAngelo, legs like footballers or my legs on a good day. If the models were women they were involved in some very strenuous work…washer women?
#169
Purple anemones
Roses by the dozen-a painting a day
6in x 9in 15cm x 22cm
That is the trouble, woolly mind woolly paintings. I mean to be honest I have just had to spell check the word woolly…when did it aquire two ‘l’s and why does it need them? It did look a bit lost with only one.
Half term has been and gone and I am looking at the garden on a daily basis trying to keep the screams silent….where did all the weeds come from and how did the growth start so soon after what seemed to be a harsh winter?
#165
Carnation picotee – a painting a day
Day One hundred and sixty four – NFS size 6 in x 7 in, 15cm x 17cm
I am seriously out of order here, where is the point of a content free blog? My one fan has noticed the absence of content. I have apologised.
I have spent the last month and more trying to sift through all the complicated bits and pieces that are necessary to make life as an octogenarian passable, no it’s not me ,I am not secretly eighty, but the lovely aunt is. Without effective glasses, using an unmaintained hearing aid and with unpredictable holes in her memory my aunt has struggled. This is made worse by stress and stress she has had by the bucket load, that and quite a lot of isolation in a nice bungalow with snotty next door neighbours on the edge of a smart cathedral city. Give me a grotty location with some sparky neighbours every time; culture is great but feeling comfortable is a lot more important.
However lovely aunt enjoys a bit of classical music, used to go to the Proms in the fifties and sixties before it was ever televised, we have started to find the culture that is available in deepest Sussex. Surprisingly there is quite a lot. We have been to a recital in a church with the most wonderful cello playing.
DIY Dad sank to new depths last night, as I did a dreadful sloppy painting, he took the combination microwave apart on the kitchen table. He found the faulty component and triumphantly waved the circuit board at me. He thinks he may be able to mend it….by the way the general advice is don’t do this at home children and certainly not on the kitchen table because there are parts of the circuit on a microwave that store 4000 volts of power…I think that would kill you, or him. You would not believe the complications of circuit and component inside a microwave…but then it can cook a chicken and brown it in twenty minutes which is more than I can do with any normal oven.
No2 son has a number of projects on the go, one involves the new curvaceous beauty in his life whose pneumatic curves disport themselves across his bedroom floor, I look in last thing at night and have found them entwined sleeping happily…sorry I did say it’s an inflatable canoe didn’t I? He is planning trips to explore several local waterways once his sprain is healed. He badly damaged an arm in the school gym…the teacher still wants a note to tell him about the injury that happened under his nose and resulted in No2 being sent home for a trip to casualty ( I had my story ready as it was the second arm injury I had taken there in a month). The other project involves building a laser “gun” from laser pens…….this seems creative but dangerous beyond my childhood experience. I mean I knew someone whose older brothers made gunpowder and blasted holes in the bottom of their garden, but I never did it myself.
Lovely aunts friend C. invited us to Battersea for paella, I only ever had indifferent paella I discover, hers was fantastic I ate till I could eat no more and then we got stuck into the coffee and brandy. This little carnation is for her as I think carnations are one of her favourite flowers.
#164 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Winter apples
These apples are for cooking with in winter I think that they may be Calville Blanc d’Hiver.
Today I reheated the Oxtail stew I started yesterday, it was lush, lovely aunt ate until she was full. We have heard nothing from Social Services about setting up a meeting which is annoying.
163
Red pear
6in x 7in, 15cm x17cm- watercolour on heavy watercolour paper
Lovely aunt says this looks a bit too pale compared to the original, I have gone back to the original method of taking the picture as I have not got to grips with the new camera.
It also needs a bit of alteration to a curve on the RHS.
162
Pomegranate and snow
Click here to bid size 6 in x 6 in, 15cm x 15cm
Back in my bedroom and I can take things in there now for good, the wardrobe stands where it will stand for good, the hat box would go on top but the ceiling is too low just there, it’s been so long since we had a proper finished room to sleep in that I find my brain can’t recall what I like in a bedroom anymore; I have to come across the object and it then reminds me that it is handy to have that lamp, that basket and that bowl near the bed. I still have not found my rug- the coolness of the floor reminds me that I have a rug somewhere that would be good to step out of bed onto.
It has finally snowed, last night was frosty and close inspection revealed small snowflakes sprinkled over the frost this morning, but now it has snowed enough to coat the path. Last year of course it went on to coat the road in three inches of solid ice so that we were lending the sledge out to neighbours who couldn’t drive home with their shopping. Some pig in a Landrover Discovery drove up and nicked all the rock salt in the bin so we were really stuck; not being a bus route or anything we got no council gritting until the end of January. My brother came to visit and nobly dug a track through the ice for twenty yards.
My car is under some of this snow,
The final revision of this week’s recipe for food DT was put in my hand after the supermarket closed tonight. I suggested pork sweet and sour instead of chicken but No2 is implacable, someone will be going out early to get it, snow allowing…I suppose he has been relying a little too heavily on snow closing the school. I expect he’s dreaming sweetly of that now.
#158 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Holly leaf and Holly shadow – a painting a day
Click here to buy size 5in x 6 in, 13cm x 15cm
I am very jealous there are people out there who have snow already and we have nothing but a deadly frost. It is already five below zero.
I am very relieved that No1 son did not get himself organised to go on the protest in Brighton on Wednesday. By all accounts the police waded in as if they were dealing with seasoned protesters and kettled people irrespective of age and behaviour. No1 son would have reacted very badly to this and would have been climbing buildings and railing to escape and would no doubt have got into more trouble than was necessary. Perhaps when the Red Cross appear to bring relief to the prisoners at the next protest the police will begin to question what they are doing.
Kettle say ten children from a school and restrain even one in the way which the police tend to do, the news will flash round 1500 teenagers in under 24 hours and they will never forget because it has happened to someone they see every day. They would be able to see the bruises on class mates first hand after Wednesday I am told. As a parent I am utterly disgusted.
I can’t help remembering a conversation with two Police Officers a long time age, they were recalling going to Stonehenge on overtime to evict hippies who were camping nearby for the solstice celebrations. They described it as the best fun they had had since the miners’ strike. They did not appear to be monsters but they were obviously glad of a clearly defined enemy to lay into once in a while….I just don’t think that they should allow themselves to see school children as that enemy.
The holly leaf fits in with the series of leaves, even evergreens lose their leaves at some point, they just take care not to lose all of them at once. And yes, that is how prickly I am feeling.
#156 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Lemon a day 
