Life and art musings.

I've always felt I was lucky to enjoy art from an early age, at first it was comics and all those wonderful posters.  Then at around age ten I discovered the library would let me take home art books.  This appreciation of the wondrous art that people can make has never left me... and just lately has been an equally wondrous boon to me.  It's been a grim year for me thus far.  Two illnesses this year have left me much reduced, but I know how lucky I've been when I saw some of the other poor devils in hospital.  I can still do pretty much everything I could do before, but some things not for long.  Sitting at a table with pencil and paper is still well within my capabilities, so I need to do more of that, not less as I have been doing. I'm the oldest of four brothers. We're all knocking on a bit.  I've suffered two losses within my immediate family.  I won't go into it, but it's crushing.  This stuff happens to all of us.  I need to remind myself how wonderful my life has been, and still is.  The people I've lost would all be telling me to get on with it, they knew that, to paraphrase somebody else's quote, a day spent without doing the things you like is a day wasted.  In my case that's art, music and humour. So...getting on with it... My son and his wife like the same things I do...museums, art galleries, and old buildings.  Yesterday we made a second trip to Oxford within six months, the first time we visited art galleries, this time we went to Oxford's Natural History Museum among other things.  Imagine my surprise on seeing this... ...it's one of nature's cartoons.  They still exist in Africa.  One of its popular names is the Elephant-Headed stork.  I've been drawing cartoon birds very similar to this for years.  Here's one of my pics.  My start point for the birds was crows, but they aren't a million miles from the fella above... The same museum had a wing called the Pitt Collection.  Crammed with a phantasmagora of so-called primitive art...masks, totem poles, etc.  Wonderful.  Here's a pic I took... ...the mask top right is the spitting image of Bart Simpson from the famous Simpsons cartoon series.  There's nothing new in art.  I was blown away by the remarkably  inventive skill of these ancient artists. I've been making an attempt at doing more art.  One thing that's not new is not being satisfied with what I do.  My current mindset has not helped.  I know I'm not alone in this.  We had a prime example of this just recently on POL.  Our brilliant Russell posted a painting he was unhappy with.  Others saw it differently, and gave him rave comments.  (Rightly so).  So Russell decided to put it into Talp after all...and won a top prize.  (Again...and rightly so). After a few weeks of doing nothing but mope around feeling sorry for myself, I decided to draw something, and then decided not to post it because it was silly, and I ought not to be doing 'silly' right now.  That's where my mind was.  Finally I posted the daft  idea about wine-tasters today, and find everybody has accepted my 'silliness' and commented very kindly so far.  Having sat on that for I while, I struggled for something to do next.  You like illustration...ILLUSTRATE something, I thought.  I'd been reading about Conan Doyle's 'Lost World', so I thought I'd do the scene where he releases a young pterodactyl to a dubious audience.  Here's my first attempt... I didn't like it.  My advice is if you're unsure about something it's worth posting because you'll always get a fair reaction from the people on POL.  But I'm an old codger and I'm certainly not going to take my own advice, so I didn't post it.  I had another go, which seemed a little better, that I did post. Here's another 'no go' pic... ...I'd intended to do a singer surrounded by musicians, but didn't like the singer.  So I attempted to save it by sploshing colour all around her.  Still don't like it.  I should have just started again. Sorry to inflict all this 'poor me' stuff on you, but it's said that talking about things helps.  That's what this is.  And now I  ought to be getting on with something.

I thought you'd get what I'm saying.  You aren't whinging Sylvia, that's what I've been doing.  Life is full of new things, and as you get older they aren't always welcome.  For the last couple of months I've needed a stick to walk.  It's no big deal, I'm very lucky I can still walk.  Living alone IS a big thing, something else that's new.  But I can still draw, a bit slower than before but that doesn't matter.  It's the process of drawing and painting I like, even when I'm doubtful about the end result.  Doing it is the thing.  When it goes wrong, I get to practice my Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and that's good for me. You are an inspiration to me.  I love the painting you've just posted.   I've switched my subscription for the magazine to digital, this gives me a 'WALL' in my POL studio space.  I save paintings by other artists on POL that inspire me.  I've only been doing this for a few months.  I have some of your paintings on my 'wall'.  Mostly the people you draw, because that's my main interest.  Here's two of yours from my 'wall' that I particularly like... ...I admire them because they are uniquely yours.  They are just great.  I hope you don't mind my posting them here. So you and I will just keep going Sylvia, it's great to have such a choice.