Maureen Chlorine

Bleeerg! I thought I was making a screen capture of the drawing taking shape but I landed up with a four second video of a black screen.

Be back when I can.

Sphere

You can do all sorts of visual stuff with computers but there's not the soul that you get in pencil or paint.

Now the question is...how on earth did the text below turn into what looks like Sanskrit? I was typing in English and as I moved onto the next word the previous word converted before my very eyes. Is this some sort of mystic message? Which if it is ....is not very useful because I can't read it.

magic carpet

फिनाल्ली गोट अ टिकेट फॉर सतुर्दय...एह? इ'म नोट टाइपिंग थिस थे कंप्यूटर इस सुद्देंली पोस्सेस्सेद। हा, हा...वहत इस थिस आईटी'स लूक्स...मर्दे, मिएर्दा वहत हवे इ प्रेस्सेद????????

Going to Britain?

I cannot believe the transport chaos in Britain. Easter holidays and there are no trains. Other countries provide extra trains and buses during holidays so everybody has a wonderful time. Why do people live there anymore? When did the Great fall off Britain?
Here's a link to one of my favourite songs. It's one of those ones that you sing along with in a very loud voice when there is nobody around. Sandy Denny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xag3vLtsO-k

Sheperdess

How to make your own shepherdess

Isabel de Castilla

This a really old, little watercolour that a viewer reminded me about. I based this figure on a woman I used to know in central Spain and she was called Isabel. Her husband worked for a Spanish ambassador, tidying up after dinner parties, taking care of his weekend house and generally living a very grand life during the week, a really nice guy, the husband that is. Anyway, his wife kept sheep and also dressed in an odd array of clothes that had once belonged to the ambassador's girlfriend. But she had a strong fashion sense and on an average day out with the sheep she wore astonishing chinese, silk jackets, polyester trousers, fluffy slippers and a teacosy on her head. So the above drawing is based on her, but in this she is carrying a dog which was for a children's story that I never wrote.

The actual size here is only about eight inches across.

AAAAARGGGGGGGGGGG!

Nothing is working. I can't adjust the thickness of the nib. The quick doodler remains in a solid line. I can only close the paint programme by going to exit because the top bit of the toolbar has vanished. None of the drawing or paint programmes are working properly. I usually turn the electronic pen upside down to use it as an eraser but not today, Clarice! The drawing isn't finished by the way.

And...I have to go back to Britain in the next few days.

Here's a link to an oldie favourite of mine. Victor Manuel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5sskkdQyt0&feature=related

Dog

Here's a piece of classical guitar music and playing that you won't forget. "Campanas del Alba" performed by Magnus Gutke.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C7QqH0z3RFE

Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Which of course it's not because this is Spain at easter. It is lethal outside in the streets because most of the streets don't have names unless you look very hard. In some streets people have painted on "Calle Madrid" or Calle Segovia" but most of the time visitors gape out of car windows and crash into each other at the junctions.T he locals have a foolproof method for arranging to meet each other, for example..."I'll meet you at the bottom of the gas station road."

"Fine. Seaside or mountainside?"

"Mountainside."

"Fine."

And, since the bars regularly change owners, this method can be used again.

"I'll meet you at the gay bar."

"The bay bar?"

"No, the gay bar."

"I didn't know there was a gay bar here?"

"There isn't."

"Why is it called the gay bar?"

"I don't know."

You can actually waste quite a lot of time with this way of finding your way around town especially as the potholes are now up to twelve inches deep, so motorists are always swerving to avoid them and hitting each other.

Anyway, the illustration is done in Photoshop and Ultra Fractal 4.0.

I can see right through you

Spent the afternoon trying to put together an animation but I'm too impatient so I threw it out but these two figures emerged briefly.

The town is in total easter madness with cars doing a hundred clicks on the main road. Lost tourists, lost dogs. I'm keeping well out of sight.

Someone else out there

I accidentally came across a blog by a very funny person who also has agoraphobia. I couldn't believe her description of going to a reastaurant, ha, ha, been there, done that. It's always worse when you try to explain to people that you think you may actually die that they look at you like you're mad which I probably am. I would have left a comment on her site but it doesn't believe my password. Anyway, here's a link to her site.

http://www.fussy.org/

Crane Driver

Click on the photo to see a larger version of the amazing crane driver.

Fer Gud's Sake!

Well, I was actually going to write something before it published itself....This isn't the type of music I wanted to set it too. I want something racey and thumpy but can't find anything that isn't wrapped up in copyright. I'll probably redo it.

The beach bars are polishing up the plastic chairs ready for the easter invasion. The Swiss are already in their micro-swimwear and lounging at the campsite. Out on the bike, I got a wave from the man that has a dog on a piece of string, the man with the zimmer frame and Albert the Dutch guitarist who was just emerging from his van and blinking into the sunlight. The groups of walking ladies never wave so I've given up saying "Good morning" to them.

And I'm still getting a roly poly stomach now that I'm approaching a year smoke free. You know why I have phases when I put on weight? Because I eat while sleepwalking. I head straight for the fridge and make sandwiches and then in the morning there's breadcrumbs all over the breadboard. So, if I'm fast asleep how do I stop it?

A Small Video

Wacom Folk

Shanghai Lil

The drawing is nothing to do with the link and that's a real tree on his face. There's so many possibilities with Photoshop and Corel Painter that you can never run out of ideas. I would have gone mental if this software had been around when I was five! Probably just as well it wasn't.

Anyway, I adore Paul O' Grady so here's a clip of him. It also includes a pile of British Newsreaders and television people. I just watched it again and it still makes me cry with laughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v94M0k4vTLs

Blue Tibetan Dog

This is my dog Arthur who I am not pleased with at the moment because he peed right inside my shoulder bag, on my sketchbook, wallet, sunglasses and generally everything inside it. But you can't be cross for more than five seconds because he is a super sensitive soul and sleeps on my feet at night.

Here's a link to a Scottish musician that I like. Yes, really...he's playing it all!

http://www.livevideo.com/video/Lem/51547DD2222C46EC93CE6E51EEE1A2C9/dance-of-the-green-man.aspx

I've come about the peaches...

Ha, ha.

I Really am a Lost Case

I have this friend who I sometimes don't see for years but she has the ability to make me laugh until I cry. We used to write short stories about the same people which we had invented. My favourite invention was Mrs Floyd Ackworth who popped out of my head quite out of the blue. She had extraordinary adventures with tractor drivers, Mrs Floyd Ackworth I mean.

But the best was one evening there was a bunch of us eating in my small, mountain- top house and the door to the street opened. A man shuffled in with a crate of peaches and gave them to my friend Victoria.

"Here's the peaches you ordered," he said.

"I'm sorry...," said Victoria," but without my glasses I really am a lost case."

We never did find out why he delivered the peaches because he then went bright red and backed out of the house as if in the presence of Queen Elizabeth.

Anyway, that's only funny to us I imagine.

But in real life she always has great big dogs so here's a pic of her. And, in real life she still writes so here's a link to her work.

http://www.lulu.com/content/1336465

Trio

I seemed to have joined a trio for guitarists. I should point out that this is for beginners. I have never played with anybody else and today was the second class. My guitar teacher is doing this completely free just for fun. I suspect I am going to enjoy it. We all seem to be equally nervous and I am old enough to be the granny of one and the mother of the other student but they don't seem to mind too much. Anyway, just browsing on Youtube and came across this which I would really like to play one day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebkRv09Qw2A

I think I did the above in Corelpainter. The wind howls here in Spain. Nothing new there then.

Mountain Man

Getting quite a strong urge to get out the oil paints. Not that I do cartoons in oil but having trained in stained glass I have a love of Cobalt blue! The original glassmakers guarded the recipe for cobalt blue glass from generation to generation. I would love to make a window again but glass and lead costs a fortune now, and to be honest, I haven't made one in twenty five years but then I keep starting different things....

Guitar class tomorrow. I don't like the study by Sor I am doing.

Oh Really?

The campsite by the beach is filling up again. Massive vans with balconies and bikes and electric cars attatched. The owners are fiercely protective of their space which they carefully mark out with flowerpots filled with plants. I don't know when these people actually sit on the sand or stick their feet in the sea? They are always sitting on chairs outside their vans or wheeling around large, blue, plastic water-containers. One of them was even washing his car this morning...isn't that what you are not supposed to be doing on a camping trip? Do I even belong on this planet?

Today it's a mixture of Dutch, Swiss, German and British and several wooly dogs the size of small, armoured tanks.

My hands are stubbornly refusing to practice guitar and here's a link to an astonishing lute player called David Tayler. It's an astonishing piece of music too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-1ck_smC9k&feature=related

Trapped Flower Fairy

If you click on the picture hopefully it will allow you to see the poor fairy and no it's not a self portrait.

And, here's a great piece of music for those of you who need a great piece of music today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCO8apblfk8&feature=related

Music to make your skin shiver

Here you go....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0Fapq3pOrU&NR=1