Trust my timing

This has a special meaning for me right now. After Christmas, perhaps because I was just recovering from Covid, I started to feel that I should prepare to move house, to downsize to a flat that would be future-proof, or as much so as any place can be. This came unexpectedly. I'd often thought that 'one day' I'd do this, but then lately I'd been thinking that flats were not a good investment and I'd be better staying put in this house (where I've been for nearly 25 very happy years) and making sure I was fit enough to manage it. The sense strongly came that I should start to declutter, to get rid of all the things I've accumulated that I really didn't need - and once I started it was surprisingly easy.  The hardest bit isn't deciding what should go but, once decided, getting it out of the house to the charity shop or the tip or wherever. I've more or less completed that stage now. I've been praying to be guided to the right place at the right time, and sensing and trying to be obedient to the promptings - viewing a couple of flats when they came up, putting my name on the waiting list for a complex I like, getting the details of my house logged with an estate agent ready to 'go' when I wanted to sell. Various avenues for various reasons proved to be not the right direction.  Then a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the site manager via the waiting list to say a flat had come up there. I viewed it, it feels right, I've made an offer. I've put my house up for sale, I've had viewings and offers this week.... but until my offer on the flat is confirmed I can't do anything - and I've not yet heard the results of the most recent viewings either. I'm champing at the bit but I can't do a thing to progress it; it's all in the hands of others right now... and firmly in God's hands, I believe. I've really sought to be patient, obedient and discerning. I'm sure God is saying: 'I've heard your prayers, now trust me.' I'm really trying to. 

Artistic talent

I spent a happy afternoon recently at The Hepworth, Wakefield with my daughter and two grandgirls. The gallery is very welcoming to children, providing packs of paper and pastel crayons so they can sketch and draw. The girls spent a long time happily ensconced in one of the huge window bays, sketching scenes inspired by the foaming waters of the River Calder below, as it tumbles over a weir. It was a very hot day so eventually we adjourned to the café for drinks and cake. Elodie (11) continued her sketching at the café table, producing this picture of the little flower arrangement on the table. 

I was really impressed at how observant she'd been, capturing not only the graceful arrangement but adding her own touches. The vase was white, not red for a start, but in the picture red tones in with the rusty foliage. There's a confidence, freedom and lyricism to the drawing that I really like. It's taken pride of place on my kitchen noticeboard for now but I wanted to 'immortalise' it here too. 

 

Weir-d

Playing around with layers to create an impressionistic effect. I'm never sure whether these 'work' or not. Is it just blurry? I think some subjects perhaps work better than others for this technique and perhaps this is a near miss. 

The Peace of Wild Things

Just loved these peaceful images from Staveley Nature Reserve. Is there anywhere prettier than England in May? Even without obvious wildflowers or blossom, the colours were so soft and beautiful and I've tried to edit the photos accordingly. 

'When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.'    (Wendell Berry) 

Inspired

I visited an exhibition today in Leeds that contained an exquisite little book called 'A Venetian Brocade' by Helen Douglas, who is a Scottish artist and photographer. The images in her book are collages and layered images of Venice. I was really inspired by them and wondered if I could create something similar related to Saltaire. I took the basic idea (though I could not, of course, not slavishly follow it as I could only guess how she'd created the pictures). Anyway, playing around with some of my recent pictures of Salts Mill and the canal, I have come up with this collage. I do quite like it, though I'm sure with more practice I could improve on it. 

Patterns - and creativity

I seem to be adopting a blue theme in the last few posts. (Cool! 😄)  Here's a collage I made of reflections of Salts Mill in the canal. I'm often drawn to these patterns in the canal and river, which constantly change with the light and the movement of the water. Saltaire is so familiar to me and, even though it's a stunning World Heritage Site, I sometimes get bored by the same old views of the same old places. It's good to challenge myself to make something 'new' of it - and these sorts of patterns and abstracts are as 'original' as you can get, in that each frame cannot be repeated exactly. 

Having said that, I also feel a little frustrated that I get so far and then can't get any further, creatively speaking. This is not displeasing - nice colours and shapes - but I can't help feeling I should be able to make more of it. It's not really very artistic. It reminds me of when I was doing 'O' level Art. I'd drawn some flowers, quite nicely and neatly, and my art teacher took up a brush with red paint and drew a big messy outline around each flower head, with the idea of encouraging me to be freer and looser in my work. It clearly wasn't the right way to go about getting me to relax into it. I was horrified and didn't really see what she was getting at.  Now, I do, of course, but I still can't free my brain of that 'neat' gene. 

OK, pushing myself to riff on the theme now... a paler version:

Pale and layered ( probably like this the best!):

A layered and blended version: 

Change the colours: 

Spring

 'Spring is when life’s alive in everything.' 

Christina Rossetti

'It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, 

a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, 

and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.'    

John Galsworthy