Painting outdoors

I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you beforehand what I was doing yesterday, but I had been a bit intimidated by it.  Shadows of flowers are what I paint at the moment.  I do lots of other things too but I do like painting my shadows.  Yesterday gave me an opportunity to have a go on a larger scale.  In the end I plumped for a little 4×4 foot panel and that took me 5 hours!

What did I get up to?  I was one of many artists painting outdoors at a live arts jam in Peterborough.  Most were amazingly accomplished street artists using spray paint and then there were a few of us on our first live jam outing painting on smaller boards with acrylics.  It’s stunning to watch the full process from primed fence panel to finished huge painting.

In my case I raided my shed of paint, remembered the screwdriver to open them, copied one of my shadow paintings and prepared to have a go making it a little larger larger.  To challenge myself more, I decided, minutes before starting, to paint it upside down square by square…

Hmm yes, I don’t know why either..

The sun shone, I had a wonderful day with friends and family and the organisers were happy we turned up.  Here’s my finished version.

ps.. Sorry I’ve not posted for a few weeks, the blog’s seemed to merged into posts about events rather than the usual mix.  I’m sure the mix will come back.  You’re getting two posts today!  If I write, I want it to be on my work in progress (novels number one and two at the moment..) and seem to have amassed numerous friends with editing whips… which is good.  I’ll get my books published one day.

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yoga robin has mouths to feed

It’s been an odd year weather wise and that’s had impacts on flowers and insects.  How’s that affected me?  There’s this robin..  Well, there’s quite a few that treat my garden as their territorial dispute line.

I only have to appear at my back door in the morning and the word goes out around the birdy neighbourhood.  Then they all appear with their ‘pity me’ eyes and I feel obliged to provide them with some sustenance before I get my own fist cuppa of the day and some breakfast.

It was only when I decided to take a picture of one very persistent Robin that I realised two things.

They stood on one leg.  I almost convinced myself they only had one till I realised they did actually have two but one shot up pretty quick when they landed.

The other thing I realised was that this particular robin is feeding 3, very hungry, freshly fledged, youngsters.  As I stood close, trying to get a picture, they went from one to another then a third to feed all in turn.  The youngsters were all perched nearby where I hadn’t noticed them before.  Unfortunately I was so busy being amazed by the family feeding fest in my garden I forgot to take the pics..  oops…  one for another post – does taking pictures preclude you from seeing what’s in front of you or do you see it more?

Back to today’s topic..  No wonder this robin chases me as I awake and practices yoga as often as they can.

Do you know what goes on in your garden?