Some days the paint just muddles

... and puddles, and goes grey and bloopy. (That's a word).

So, some days I draw instead. Here's a recent scribble. I was wishing I could go to the market more often, but when it was done, I was surprised that she didn't look like she was having a grand old time.

Wonder what's up with her?

B

Away...

Painting!

I was struggling with the concept of a post a day, when I realised that the thing I really wanted to be doing was a painting a day. Just like my friend Eileen's been doing with dedication and charm! So I've been just over there at the table sploshing and splodging and trying to learn. Here's one of the efforts.

This was painted after a quick late night sketch from a photo we took in Malta a few years ago. I had a lovely time flicking through photos in the album and thinking about that trip. Bright memories of pale yellow stone houses baking in the sun, dark shaded alleys, cyprus trees and the most delicious honey and fresh-baked bread I've ever tasted. 

Memory lane is fun, and memory lane with scribbles and paint splots is even more enticing.

Tweety boyrd

My love is like a tweety bird,
It sits up high anon -
With furly wings and purty things
I wish I had got done.

It's time I know to see the light
I'm almost out, have lost the fight
To post a day
There's just no way
Weekend again has taken flight.

My love is like a whirly bird
Of thought and colour and song!
To draw and dream and spin a wheel
And run around in the sun.


I've been out on my bike today, checking out the streets and smelling the jasmine in old gardens caught in roadside glimpses as I swander by (yes, that's a word. It's for cycling slowly and looking at the sky!). I saw a house that looked like it came straight from Yorkshire, plomped down in the middle of Richmond. Tall gables for that snow we so often get in Melbourne, oh and the sleeting rain. High blue stone walls and green-sashed windows. I need to go back to take a photo.

My friend is house-sitting and the house-sat cat tried to eat my sewing bag, too. Much careful investigation and sniffing. Is this a suggestion I ought to wash it? (I might - now!)

Memory

Memory feeds imagination. 

Amy Tan 

US novelist (1952 - )

1977. Or so the picture says. I remember the garden and how it went forever. When I wanted to run away, I packed a bag with the essentials (doll, bear), and I ran off to the end of the hedge. Not on the driveway side: the other side, just so I could stay inside the garden but look back at the house. Too far away. I think that's far enough: I'll go back now. 

I'm the one on the left, at about that age. Lovely sardonic sister on the right. (Big sis, how did you know everything?)

This week after the last class of my editing course, a bunch of us were splitting a bottle of red wine down at the bar around a chunky dark wood table. One of the classmates said; "Tell us about something you saw on your travels. Something that really stays with you. That was unexpected and surprising". 

The result was an amazing storytelling session, with wonderful flights of description and fascination. Memories shared. All the senses. The silly things we do. Moments of mistaken irony, surprising gorgeousness, startling and unexplained. Painted word pictures. Such imagination, memory. 

Aren't you glad we've got it?

Flashback Friday portrait

One of the magazines I love to read is called History Today. We get it from the UK on subscription, and it's chock-full of images and articles about interesting times and people. I love reading it for the unexpected things I'll find.

This is a drawing I did after a portrait miniature in the last issue. He's my Friday flashback.

Fashionable cats...

Now fashionable cats, they know their mind.

They like a bit of black.

A swishy tail.

And if they happen to be fat red-and-white stripey softy Antonio Banderas cats, they like to dress as pirates and thrill the ladies....

(Softie made for Sharon, because Flickettysplits was amazed I'd never made one. )

So, today...

Today, moments after I was introduced to her, a colleague said,
"I'm doing something for the Melbourne Cup".

And I said, "Melbourne Cup?"

"Oh," I said, "I'm not that much into football."

Which might reveal just how much I'm into horse racing, too....