Politics

Politicians and No free school meals

Whilst I am obsessed with faces I rarely if ever do portraits but this image of the minister for department of work and pensions kind of summed up your new basic Tory. Whilst many many children go hungry through half term and Christmas people as above have so much it’s disgusting. Parents have struggled to feed their families for many months if not years as Theresa May named them ‘Jams’ (just about managing) but with the pandemic causing unemployment, low wages and the previous cuts to benefits it’s making things almost impossible for families to cope. Tory MPs accusing struggling parents of trading their vouchers and food parcels for Crack and other drugs, trying to demonize the poor adding to the their burdens we can see the Tory’s never change. Thank God Boris Johnson has stopped saying they are throwing their arms around the people of the country to protect the most vulnerable in society at this terrible time it has felt like a lie to far. Maybe the Tory’s should have thought of that during welfare reform when 130,00 people died.

Lies

I haven’t been very active of late wrapped up in my life as we all are at times but the last few days have been enough to bring me back out of my bubble to face the larger horizon. We all fib from time to time…to avoid hurting or upsetting loved ones. Over the last week we have seen and heard what a liar the president of the USA is and how those lies have impacted the lives of Ambassadors and immigrants. Huge whopping lies that people have excused ignored or repeated to gain favour with the corrupt narcessist in the white house even as a Brit watching from the UK shires I can see how a trade deal with America will impact our lives but here in the UK we are not immune to liars. We didn’t know the metal panels were flammable… We are not responsible for the 72 deaths of the Grenfell tower. We now have emails proving they did. We didn’t want to spend money on renovations to public housing so we could give our rich homeowners a rebate on their council tax. Reading the news article about the second inquest into that night of fear pain and flames reading the tributes of surviving family members remembering their loved ones recently lost will break your heart. This is not about telling your friend their arse doesn’t look to big in those jeans these are lies that are beyond the pale lies to protect profits or profits a president in a re election campaign…these are lies from which people die, spotless careers ruined the cause of pain and suffering for individuals and the finality of death…

Drawing with a dremel

Drawing for Acrylic/ glass

😊 xx

Watch “Sheep! Drawing with a Dremel 😊” on YouTube

The new Dryad series

So I’ve been playing with a new idea ‘Dryads’ I first encountered them in the C.S. Lewis ‘Narnia’ collection of books which of course had a basis in Greek Mythology. I always loved the idea that a tree has a spirit, not trapped inside the tree itself but in the warm earth waiting for Spring, when they dance through the woods and countryside and clothe themselves in pale green silk spun by the worms of the mulberry bush….

On a roll

So started experimenting last evening and got a bit carried away on little canvas boards and in my sketchbook…not sure what I learned other than colour is becoming the most important aspect to my painting and freeing up my mind and arm! I brought some inscribe pastels whilst not so easy to blend they have strong vibrant colours and are certainly useful for sketchbook experimentation…! The last two images of sketchbook pieces were done with them and I’m happy with the results 🤔😁❤️.

So I’ve been busy

After Christmas I began to realise that my work was taking on a more representative style and was failing miserably…so I’ve been focusing on my sketchbook and using Charcoal and graphite to try and develop a more expressionist language. One thing I am discovering is that colour is the most important aspect, above form, though a hint of clouds still linger and that is something I want to keep as it is the whole subject of my work, clouds and sky. I’ve written much about that in previous posts. I want to break free from traditional sky, sunset and sunrise colours blue is the only colour we see but light reaching us is all the colours of the spectrum…but the atmosphere filters it down to blue.

One other thing that this study is affecting is my space I’m slowly filling it with lilacs, reds, blues and hints of yellow…I need to introduce some pinks…maybe cushions?? 🤔😂

Watch “Sky over Goldington” on YouTube

New

So that’s Christmas and New Year over . Now we are faced with the reality of a new year stretching away into the distance, for me my goal is not to drift but to take control as much as possible. To keep working

with my clouds and to set up more time lapse studies. Paint as much as my hands will allow me too and to learn to pace myself to stop fatigue overwhelming me! To work more in my sketchbooks when the pain in my spine becomes too much to stand or walk too far, and to get as many people to see my art as possible 😁!

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