..on a recent woodland walk

and waiting to say good morning again

Painterly is how I woud describe this photograph. The textures and the subtle greys contrasted with the zingy lime green, which is the same green as the leaf of the snowdrop.. this appeals to me. The composition is not quite balanced. The subject is down towards one corner, and is nearly, but not quite balanced by the dark tone on the top right. This creates a tension which keeps me looking, in a way that a perfectly baanced more traditional composition would not. I know I won't get tired of looking at this.

I will print it out quite small - just a few inches and frame it simply with a large white mount. I will hang it somewhere I will see it every day.

I won't title it The Suffering of The World though (even though it has those connotations for me). Can you think of a more poetic title which still suggests that fragility/resilience association it has for me? Perhaps conveying the idea of strength in adversity, or compassion for those who suffer.

I have loved your wonderful comments on this thread. Thank you so much for making a most interesting conversation.

.. if you have had enough of my obsession with this image!

I was  looking for things for my January nature table and my daughter proferred two tiny snowdrops (the green pot is just one inch high). The flowers were still closed and as I looked at it a wash of tenderness came over me, felt really towards my daughter but projected by me onto the snowdrops..

I decided to photograph them outside even though it was minus four out there. The frozen window of the shed  looked like a good place but I had to prop up the little pot with a pebble on the sloping ledge. I knew as I was doing it that the stone was not quite right, but it was so cold I just made it do (it was interesting how many of you picked up on this). I  was struck by the snowdrops' fragility - why does it flower in January? But I was also in awe of its resilience.  Frost, snow, gales and rain - nothing stops it flowering. The recent wars have cast a long shadow on us all, and the images of suffering are seared into ur minds, and the two little bowed heads conjured up unbidden, media images of children  fragile and vulnerable, so that the photograph became for me soomething deeply moving and precious.

What a heavy weight of meaning to put onto two innocent flowers!

But I think this is what we do. The Quakers have a saying that something speaks to your condition. Each person brinngs to a work of art their own history and unique sensibilities.

Tomorrow I will write about the aesthetics and why I am having it framed, and then I will change the subject. Promise!

A lovely  weekend visiting friends and family and looking at art (here and here ) and also looking at people looking at art prompts another question.
 
If I give the recent snowdrop image the title The Suffering of The World how do you then look at it? What do you bring to it? What do you see? What has channged even though the image has not changed at all...

..of your interesting and  thoughtful comments on this image which I will leave up for a few days and perhaps
garner a few more comments (should you feel so inlcined!)  I am fascinated by how we look at art..

I am so taken with this image I will be writing more abuot it..



On this Burns Day I leave you with a quote from the bard -

Art moves you.

David Hockney.

As good a definition of art as I have heard.





Does this image move you? And if so, can you describe in what way? And why?

I would sincerely like to know.

Here in UK we are having some horrible weather. I hope you are not affected by power cuts/floods/wind damage/transport diruption etc.

I can get a bit cabin-feverish and sluggish staying indoors for a few days (especially when I had some interesting plans!).

So it has been baking cakes and clearing cupboards for me.

It might have been nicer to photgraph the cake!

How is your paper clearing challenge going?

I have at times felt a little embarassed that I have to devise 'games' to make myself do the tedious chores but I have now found scientific justification for such methods.  It goes something like this. Each tiny micro-goal achieved (each tick on the to-do list for example) gives a small hit of dopamine. Lots of small hits of dopamine produce adrenaline. Adrenaline gives you energy to achieve more goals and before you know iit you are feeling good!  Yes?

..at every turn. Literally. Have you noticed that sweet things are now in almost  every aisle of the supermarket?

They are stacked at the entrance to the store and at the entrance to the fruit and vegetable section, at the ends of most aisles, in baskets in the soup and savoury aisles,  beside the rice and pasta and sardines, adjacent to suntan lotions and batteries,  hanging off the walls among the tea and coffee, there are sweet versions of almost all dairy products, and of course there they are to hand at the checkout.

What hope is there for someone with a sweet tooth like me!

I only have so much willpower against such blatant manipulation. And its ten weeks till Easter.

I didn't get very far! At the end of the drive I waited for the bus. It was still dark so I had my phone in my hand so that the driver would see me. Bitterly cold though the snow had gone, and so slippery underfoot. The bus never came. Black ice on the roads apparently.

So I lit the fire and some candles and cooked a nice breakfast, baked a cake and cooried in.

The shed door is frozen shut, as are the lids of the bins and the compost bin. Everything is silvered over and slippery underfoot.  Just going out of the door feels like a wee adventure!

But a thaw is forecast and I will be venturing a little bit further afield for a few days.  Back soon. Have a good weekend and stay warm.

A pan of boiling water to make a drinking hole for the birds poor things..

And a few new items on the nature table. The witchhazel, hamamelis mollis, with its curious scent which is musky and citrusy at the same time, three diferent kinds of pine, and ivy.

What are you finding?

A question about papers - Do you keep old letters? I have lots and can't think what to do with them. What are your thoughts?

Not me, but I rather wish it was!

This time it is papers.

I am sure there are people who simpy deal with them without fuss, but I seem to need to make a project of it, so I am doing a vatiation on the 30 day challenge where on day one you gat rid of one item, day two  two items and so on...

I have written the numbers 1 to 30 on a sheet of paper and will put a line through one number each day - a low number if I am busy, a higher one if I have more time. I have already scored off number 30.

By the end of the challenge I will have got rid of 407 bits of paper from drawers and files and shelves!

Meanwhile, am waiting for snow..

An exotic looking addition to the nature table. It is worth bringing a bloom inside to appreciate it closely.

This hellebore Ice 'N Roses is incredibly hardy. When the temperature falls below freezing the whole plant droops to the ground, but rises up again miraculously as the temperature rises again,

Icy weather is forecast, but with sunshine! Beautiful.

Don't try to feed a heron who comes to your back door!

The heron seemed to be looking at me so expectantly, so trustingly and patiently. I thought 'it must be hungry'. Having no fish (or frogs or voles) handy I foolishly held out a handful of suet bird food. Well, my fingers must have looked like nice little fishes! That neck is long, that beak is sharp (I felt it), and it was so fast I only just escaped with my fingers intact.

I'm afraid it went away hungry from my door.

It's not been back..

..was standing in the garden and when I came in to fetch my camera it followed me up the steps!

There are a lot of herons along our shores and they are often seen waiting very patiently for dinner to swim by. I didn't kmow that they also eat newts and voles and frogs. They nest high in the trees here and look rather incongruous sittting in the branches. This one looks like a juvenile and stayed around for 20 minutes or so, seemingly unafraid.

It must be those minimalist websites I have been browsing. It suddenly seemed OK to get rid of lots of things I've been hesitating over. Silly, but it seemed I needed permission!

..to make a fresh start.

Food shopping tomorrow!

..with short forays out of doors to add to the nature table..tiny crab apples on the floor of Cornation Wood.

It's interesting to see what the birds eat. They don't seem to touch the quince which are quietly rotting on the bush. Like Cathy's waxwings stripping her holly bushes, we have seen redwings and fieldfares from Scandinavia strip the rowan tree of all its berries in a few hours. Have any of you seen waxwings this year?

The little shop-bought narcissus are filling the house with the smell of spring!



I wonder if you tried the looking/not looking drawing technique I described yesterday. It is much easier to demmonstrate than describe so I hope it made sense. You may find if you follow it with a more conventional representational drawing that it will be both easier and beeter than you hav dpne before. (I have fixed the link, and the commens on that post are most interesting too.)

You may like to try this method of seeing/drawing if you have not tried it before.

Set up your table so that the thing you want to draw is at one side of you, and your paper is well to the other side so that you cannot actually see what you are drawing! Make sure your paper is not going to slide around and place your pencil or pen near the middle of the page. Now look only at your holly leaf (or whatever else you want to draw) and take your eye around the edge of it very slowly, drawing your line at exaxtly the same very slow pace as your eye is moving. Your hand is recording exactly what your eye is seeing at the same time as you are seeing it. This will maybe feel very strange if you have not done it before!

You may make a false start or two, but once you get into it you will probably become fascinated at the inticacy of the shapes and your left brain (the wordy part) will quieten right down and you will make the shift into right brain..an almost meditative state although you will be concentrating  fully on the experience of both seeing and recording. This is a wonderful 'warm up' exercise, rather in the way a pianist might play a few scales before practice.
livesimplysimplylive.weebly.com/blog/simplyif-you-buy-only-one-book
It produces preliminary sketches which are often very beautiful in themselves.


Read more about this method in This excellemt book.

Would you like a drawing lesson?

Holly leaves are the most exquisite things to draw. See if you can find some and just look at them for a day or two. Look at them side on, or with the tip facing towards you. Look at how complex and irregular they are, how the spines twist and turn, showing the matt underside. Look at how glossy the top surface is. How do you draw the shine on a holly leaf?

Sunshine and frost. A perfect day for a short walk.

Today's picks  - holly and the first hazel catkin.

All the Christmassy things are put awy, but  I still want winter table decorations and holly fits the bill.. a few red berries would have been nice but I never see any holly with berries here. We planted a female holly in Coronation Wood some years ago, but to no avail. Yet.


The words of the The Holly and The Ivy have been in my head all day, so perhaps a last glimpse of Christmas past with these spine tingling voices from King's can be my last Christmas flourish!

..and that is enough. Looking closely at what is around me.

My neighbour's rowan tree is festooned with lichen. Beard lichen (usnea subfloridana. I have a lovely book called The Names of Plants which rather unhelpfully says that usnea is 'a name of uncertain meaning'.

I know it is considered to be indicative of clean air which is nice to know, but it also has antibacterial and antifungal qualities and has been used in the tretment of wounds.

I have seen it used in Stockholm houses between the inner and outer windows where I suppose it absorbs moisture and keeps the winter windows clear.

A little more light each day now, a brighter weather forecast here, and a reason to go out every day to add to the winter nature table..I can feel my spirits llift as I wonder what I will find.

I'm having a rather unsettled start to the new year, still reminiscing about the old one. The highlights like the dinner party in Paris on my birthday (how romantic is that?!) and the low points. The death of a dear friend, a man who had goodness through him from head to toe like  the letters in a stick of rock.  A friend with a little dog in the village with whom I went walks has moved away to the city.  She winkled me out of the house in all weathers and I do miss her.

With the clearing of the Christmas decoarations I think I must let 2023 go. Perhaps the comfort of looking back is that you  know how things workded out, whereas 2024 is the unknown, with uncertainty the only certainty! Letting go of both past and future and being in the present might be wise, and focussing on what is under my nose. I had planned to create a nature table for the solstice but the weather was so wet I hardly went out, so a nature table for January - a winter nature table might get me out of doors and out of my head. 

How is your year going and have you chosen a word? Do share.

A new idea for January..