Category: Serendipity

#144 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn To The Valley Artists, SerendipityLeave a comment
Work in progress.

Most artists work in isolation, myself included. Today was quite different, 12 artists from Drawn to the Valley got together in a cafe to natter and get to know each other. Most of us were unknown to one another or had not been in contact for a long period. We plan to meet regularly from now on, once a month, in the same location, Ocean Studios Cafe in the Royal William Yard, Plymouth.

https://realideas.org/our-spaces/ocean-studios/

Some of us brought small projects to work on, others just brought themselves and fabulous conversations.

I wondered if it was possible to paint a meditative mind map whilst in the company of others and it turns out that I could. Depicting the flavour flooding out of my herbal tea and mingling with the intriguing topics of conversation that were surrounding me. It is currently unfinished because I also talked a lot, no surprises there. But I am further along than when I took this picture.

#143 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, SerendipityLeave a comment

Today we are saying goodbye to a new, old, friend. New friends who die in the early stages of friendship are a huge potential loss. Who knows what fabulous shared times are to be missed. With only a tiny repository of past shared memories there is not much for us to trawl through. Bolstered by coffee and pastries we are celebrating what our dear friend Ken did best, we are caring for his granddaughter whilst his older family members and friends celebrate his life at a service to mark his passing. We have big boots to fill, a grandpa is a very special person. Ken was a very special grandpa and he was also a very twinkly new friend. Off now to twinkle somewhere else.

#141 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

This is not the picture you should be seeing today. All things being equal, and some passports arriving @theoldmortuary, todays picture should be a breakfast set up on the quayside of a warm Spanish town. Instead we have both set to with paint brushes. I’ve been catching up with the end of my colour course and Hannah is catching up with the gradual refurbishment of the spare bedroom.

When not painting we have decided to travel the world with the available culture in our city. So far we have travelled to Havana with Cuban Ballet, the inspiration for the top picture. Tonight we are off to Japan and tomorrow a crime ridden Social Housing estate in London. As yet unbooked is a trip to a South American cafe, other destinations to be added as time permits. But for now I am on roller duty.

#140 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Debs Bobber

The bobbers have effortlessly slipped back into the usual routine of three dips, into the sea, a week after a period of very stormy weather . Right now the water is 10 degrees but the outside temperature is only 4 degrees. This is a strange combination to get our heads around, but right now it is almost worse for Andy our regular coach/safety man. He stands on the shore keeping an eye out for Spearmint the seal or anything else untoward. It is really cold just standing still and watching. Last nights bob had three other non swimming onlookers so they all kept each other warm by chattering. Spearmint kept away, so the chatting was not interrupted by safety issues.

The sunset last night was rather gorgeous. The sun sent out an evening sunbeam to slightly warm us up, post swim.

©Debs Bobber

Before slipping away into a golden dusk.

©Debs Bobber

Something three bobbers celebrated with tea in bone china cups.

#136 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

A different waveform washed up on the beach today. Tranquility Bay does not suffer from too much sea plastic so I suspect this is a garden decoration delivered here by the recent storms. After this photo it was consigned to the bin but gives me the excuse to share this picture from the weekend when the sun was out and the waves were crashing.

The seawater pool is empty for maintenances but you can see the size of the pebbles that get thrown in there when the sea gets rough. Spearmint the seal has been known to climb in for a more confined dip. On really bad days the bobbers have attempted a half decent little swim but mostly we brave the open sea.

Still greige here hoping for better tomorrow. Meanwhile London is looking beautiful.

©Murray Saunders Friends of Gipsy Hill

#138 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Coffee Hunters, Devils Point, Serendipity2 Comments

A blustery weekend and some cancelled plans gave me some more time to catch up with my art course homework. This was a colour note for a blustery walk on Sunday. Storm Franklin was an altogether more blustery affair than Eunice. Franklin had blustered into the local Primary school and set off the burglar alarm. Crashing waves and the cries of Oyster catchers with a side serving of persistent electronic noise was not quite the coastal idyll I was planning to record and paint, but it is the combination I was gifted. The mellow dark notes were provided by a deeply, fruity, cup of black coffee. Black coffee is my drink of choice, now, for coastal walks, after two separate incidents of having the frothy top of a flat white splattered onto my face. I’m not a fan of drinking good coffee through a plastic lid. Thus the weekend map of my walking experience has two man made colour memories and four natural ones all combined to suggest the booming of a storm, the sound of Oyster Catchers and the irritating pulse of a triggered alarm system all interacting with a swirling seascape. This image just represents a tiny moment of time, all senses disturbed by powerful gusts of wind.

#130 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

February weather was as colourful yesterday as my art life is all day, currently.

Juggling the needs of life, dogs, blogs and an on-line colour course.

Artist / educator

Immersion technique is vital in both sea swimming and working through the exercises set by Tansy on the course.

I am pretty much on target with life, but the colour course not so much. A daily lesson is uploaded and there are weekend projects.

Here we are on Tuesday already and the paint is only just drying on Fridays tasks. I’m using watercolour which dries in seconds so I am substantially behind.

So, for me, Tuesday is the new Saturday. Tomorrow is of course Wednesday, a day I have high hopes of catching up. I have one of those 8-8 time slots for a booked gas boiler service. 12 hours in which to wait for an engineer to arrive when in theory I can whip out my paint brushes and fill my time with colour.

In truth I have four months to get all the colour course tasks completed. This is not good news for a recidivist procrastinator.

The End

#129 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life, SerendipityLeave a comment

Our second Sunday in a row when the weather determined our location. Without dogs there is often the option of spending a stormy, wet Sunday, hunkered down in front of a fire with a good book or a jigsaw puzzle. With dogs that option is not available. Another option is to just put on the right clothes and get on with the day. We took a different option and headed for the North Coast of Cornwall. Weather forecasts suggested, correctly as it turned out, that there would be an improvement of the weather on the north coast for a couple of hours after lunch. Let’s not pretend swapping coasts gave us a balmy carefree walk in sunshine. It gave us blustery, stormy weather with a side serving of weak sunshine but most importantly there was no icy, horizontal rain capable of penetrating any tiny failing of our waterproof garments.

Hugo and Lola had a blast finding friends and seaweed. The humans skimmed stones and took in the vast expanse of crashing waves as their mental and physical cobwebs were blown out into spume of the incoming tide. We also did our bit and collected waste plastics and other man made detritus from the beach. The odd shell might also have been collected.

Mussel shells were vivid as they were tossed around on the edge of the crashing waves, inviting us to pick them up, but the minute they dried out they lost their glossy intensity. Flipping them over gives a whole spectrum of softer but long lasting colour. Every bit as lovely but different. Just like swapping coasts can be.

#127 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Birthdays, Bobbing, SerendipityLeave a comment

A birthday bob yesterday with some of the usual surprise guests. A warship sailing past as we are waiting to get in. We love a busy swim. However it may appear, we were not lined up to wave to homecoming sailors but were waiting for Spearmint the seal to swim away from our bay so we could start our swim. We love her but she is not invited to our Gatherings because there are restrictions and responsibilities that protect her. There was far more action in the next bay and attracted by the noise she swam off. We jumped in but probably had only ten minutes in the water before she returned. Current advice is to get out of the water and give her 100 metres space.

Clearly she was going nowhere this time, so we retreated to eat birthday cake. Some of us had hardly got our shoulders wet. There was great disappointment but copious amounts of cake cheered everyone up and nature provided the perfect birthday card.

©Debs Bobber