#601 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, SerendipityLeave a comment

A spring morning and the fish are swimming, this is always a good sign to wake up to. Sunshine streaming in through the blind and creating sharp fish shadows. This last week has been busy, but I am winning the tasks v time battle. Some paintings sold at the weekend which is always worth a skip and a jump.

At the risk of repeating myself I also took a photograph yesterday that makes me really happy.

If I were the sort of person to ever go anywhere posh enough to wear an outrageous hat, then this image might be my inspiration. As it is this photograph may end up as one of my art greetings cards later in the year. After a week of toil, today, Wednesday is almost a day of rest.

My fingernails are no longer ravaged by packing and unpacking, decorating, or framing art and took themselves off to a nail bar yesterday. There is a huge flaw in my rest plan though. There has been a large amount of seagull poo deposited on my car. Neighbours had suffered a similar fate over the weekend but we had been lucky, not so yesterday. There are parts of my red car that would be camouflaged and easily hidden in Antarctica. Nobody needs a photograph of that. So here we are, ‘hump’ day, enjoy the slide towards Friday.

#600 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photography, Serendipity1 Comment
Bluebell ‘wood’

An early morning foray into the Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club to catch the garden waking up.

The birdsong was magnificent this morning.

I’m not sure that I got the best of it but this is a flavour of the morning song.

I was on a quest to get images beyond the clubs boundaries for future social media posting.

I even found a feature on my phone camera that I don’t quite understand. But it does actually count as a glimpse across the boundary.

May is such a gorgeous month for getting up early and doing photography. The daisies were barely awake when I caught them.

And once again while searching for landscapes the Arum lilies forced me to pay attention to their unique beauty.

But I did get some sea views. The whole point of my morning expedition.

But the plants were quite persuasive, dew-drenched and touched by the morning sun.

An early morning well spent.

#559 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, SerendipityLeave a comment
Hot Pot- Oonagh Glancy

What to ponder on a warm Bank Holiday Monday. This fabulous painting by Oonagh Glancy is the nugget of this ponder. It symbolises a coming together. For the first time since Covid, Drawn to the Valley also threw in mass catering at their Spring Exhibition. Coffee, tea, cakes and other treats were served at a huge communal table. It was the highpoint for visitors, simply sitting down and talking between artists and visitors, old friends, new friends, complete strangers and hungry bowling escapees from the Bowls Club next door. Competition whites smudged with spring-green grass stains.

Sally O’Neill  Asheltor Woods

Everyone was talking about how much they loved the communal snack table. Isn’t that fabulous. The art, of course, covered all the faces of the Tamar Valley and was as glorious as has come to be expected of the first exhibition of the year.

Julia O’Dell
Lynn Saunders

Artists of the Tamar Valley also get further afield.

Michael Jenkins St Ives Harbour
Jane Athron Looking Towards Lancaster Gate.
Julia O’Dell Godrevy Lighthouse

And some of us stick close to home.

Juliet Cornell Tidal Pool

There was so much to contemplate and consider, what a great exhibition.

Tessa Jane Yet It Seemed So To Me

#558 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse Lawn Tennis ClubLeave a comment
Spring greens

That was a busy weekend and we still have one day to go. Our geraniums found the sunshine to their liking and have begun their spring/summer showoffery. Blissfully unaware that this year we have had a hosepipe ban imposed already. The ban caught us all by surprise and only half of the yard has been power-hosed. The irony is that the ban was announced with four days notice and for those four days it rained so hard, power- hosing the rest of the yard was impossible.We are going to have to hope that prolonged sunshine bleaches out most of the winter mould and mildew, or spend the summer apologetic for our lurid green paving. May 1st already! Where did April go? A whirl of planning in all sorts of directions. A family house move, an exhibition and lots of social media activity for an upcoming Open Gardens event. Not, you will be pleased to note, our green back yard and the Geraniums, but a Tennis Club where we are members. I signed up to be a big part of the planning of the event in the depth of winter knowing full well that I would not be here for the actual event, but that I could continue to support remotely. The opposite of working from home.

Doing Home Work Away, I suppose.

To that end I have gathered loads of gorgeous photographs to share on Social Media. Instagram and Facebook. Here is the QR code for Instagram should you be interested in an English Garden by the Sea.

Everybody is getting a little excited.

This gorgeous old wheelbarrow was super happy to arch his back and pose like a Silver Fox at a fashion shoot and his drooping tulip friend also took little persuading to look winsomely out to sea.

May the first, one of my favourite months off to a good start.

#557 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Suddenly temperatures have shot up. Thank goodness. Yesterday at a Street Food festival I managed to get sunburn and have to wriggle out of my thermal vest while deciding exactly which Street food vendor would get my spends.

Oddly she is from Otley

Publicity for the Festival had failed to attract our attention in Plymouth, but our friends sister who still lives in Otley alerted our Gillian to a brief, burger orientated, Northern migration to our Atlantic City.

Co-incident with the food festival Plymouth Argyle were facing a seriously important match in the same place on the same day.

The sun was out, spirits were up and the atmosphere was buzzing.

We got our first sight of a newish statue.

Jack Leslie https://g.co/kgs/7qC8qd

Should you be interested, Plymouth Argyle won their match and we chose Poutine as our international food of choice.

#556 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn to the Valley, Serendipity1 Comment
From the moors to the sea.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I had the pleasure of receiving and unpacking the work of 42 artists who had submitted work to the Drawn to the Valley Spring exhibition.

On average the artists had submitted 10 pieces of work. That is a lot of glorious creativity to unpack.

Work that beautifully swoops from the moors of the Tamar Valley down to the Atlantic Coast.

Sometimes in minute detail.

I know that I witter on about art a bit but last night was such a delight to see how people are inspired by our local and dramatically changing landscape.

It is also just the loveliest thing to spend some time with the artists themselves. We work away in our studios like solitary bees only coming together infrequently.

For local people a trip to Meavy Lane in Yelverton might be just the thing for a long Bank Holiday Weekend.

I’m going to pop along on Monday to see the exhibition in full show-time mode. More pictures then.

#555 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn 2023Leave a comment

And Poof! Just like that the temperature has risen and blossom is all around. Late blog because I have more activities than time today.

30 hours in a new pair of sandals. Woo hoo,only tiny blisters and a whole flat packed up and ready to move.

Normal service will resume tomorrow. Friday Fabulousness to all. I even found a roundel of rust while rushing hither and thither.

#554 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterday I bought myself a glossy interiors magazine. Clearly from its slightly tatty corner the Plymouth Station mice are big into interiors. And we just thought their nest building was intuitive rather than based on actual knowledge or skill.

This was not bought on a whim, one of my favourite television chefs had opened his home as an aspirational dwelling. I have long had aspirations on Nigel Slater, there are others, men who cook or love food and art.Nigel, because he has one of those television fridges with a camera at the back.  Nigel stretches in and sensuously pulls out his exotic left overs and then artfully creates a midday snack and then wanders into his beautiful North London garden to nibble at nirvana while birds sing and the wind fuffles* the leaves of his elegant trees.

©World of Interiors

I have long wanted Nigel Slater as my North London BF.  Seeing limited images of his home just makes that need even greater. Then this article showed me that,just once,our stars nearly aligned. Nigel is actually best friends with Edmund De Waal an artist and writer who, in my Dulwich Park years, I was on nodding terms with.

Edmund de Waal installation at the home of Nigel Slater. © World of Interiors

Nodding terms is admittedly no great link but on one early Summer morning Hugo took leave of his adolescent senses and took Mr de Waals lovely dog behind a tree for some experimental dogging. Mr de Waal was unmoved by this unexpected event, saying that Hugo was rather lovely. We talked awkwardly until the moment passed. I managed not to be creepy and kept off the subjects of World Wide success in book writing and pottery. We parted convivially and our future nodding acquaintance acquired a little more gravitas. If only I had known he was best friends with Nigel I could have steered the conversation away from the awkwardness of dog shagging to friends who do great snacks, so close and yet so far…

©World of Interiors

https://www.edmunddewaal.com

https://www.nigelslater.com/

https://www.worldofinteriors.com/

*fuffles, one of life’s illogical spell check errors.

The word I wanted was ruffles but in the context of eating with a fantasy friend fuffles is exactly the sensation I was after.

Hugo met a lot of dogs in Dulwich Park. These are the trees but I don’t think this is the dog in question. That would have been weird.

#553 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

I am a mucky painter. The only time my studio desk is tidy is when I am a procrastinating painter. Yesterday’s victory over the admin for entering an exhibition gave me time to do all sorts of life admin and a spare hour, to start another painting. The chance, I realise to talk about light quality.

Late afternoon light.

Thankfully this is proper paper so the blotting paper battles of the last couple of days are over. I rarely paint at night but I wanted to get a push on this one. The next picture demonstrates why I need to get a daylight bulb.

Artificial light, no natural light.

My studio faces west but our back yard is painted a brilliant white. So early morning, reflected light extends natural daylight from early spring until October.

Early morning light.

And then finally, although this picture is far from finished the positive impact of a mount.

Sunset Storm WIP

I realise there is not so much pondering here so far,but the blotting paper debacle did, in a crisis, teach me that I can prep paper with Alcohol inks. I gave that a little whirl on this painting which is a doodle really. I over-did it but the marshmallow clouds are exactly what I was aiming for.

More scruffyness

#552 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, SerendipityLeave a comment

Six original paintings and 3 prints , wrapped, labelled, priced and packed along with 20 cards, ready to go to Dartmoor for an exhibition later in the month. It has been a busy month artwise. Some of my bigger pieces have been hanging,for sale, in a large waiting room for some years. Relocation and an interior designer with differing tastes has returned the unsold ones to my studio. Some have subsequently sold but others will find their forever homes later in the year.

All the pictures for the latest exhibition look like classical landscapes but there is a twist, I have been galvanised recently to represent wind in pictures, using abstract imaging to demonstrate buffeting and movement, or not, when the experience of gusting storms affects the way the landscape feels.

One picture is vaguely accurate but is actually entirely imagined. The Rock at Yelverton is a place to go for families, hikers, dog walkers and lovers. This rocky outcrop is a destination and holds multi generational memories. A virtual geocache of love.

It is both exactly as I remember it and yet always different whenever I visit.

Currently it is in a box with all the other artworks. Memories and sensations trapped first on paper, then mounted and framed, snuggled in travelling blankets and boxed up ready for their big moment. A Spring Exhibition at Yelverton on Dartmoor.