Still life, acrylic on canvas

Still life, Acrylic on Canvass

 I have a habit of not finishing paintings. I made a point of finishing this one. It’s a still life that I began in Thursdays art class. I took a photo of the arrangement, printed it off and finished the painting at home. I’m quite pleased with the result; I don’t usually do still life. It's acrylic on canvas and measures 50x60cm

Music from Josephine

Sat up and watched Jools Holland last night, love his shows he always finds really good musicians to play . Last night he had this young woman, she was brilliant, fantastic tonal quality to her voice. The first video is an interview with her.

Josephine

Music for the weekend

Today we had our first snowfall, I’ve never known snow come in October before, I think we are in for a long hard winter. It was only a small snow shower, and the snow didn’t lay, but the bus driver told me it was even colder inland (we are on the coast) and the snow was starting to lay in the open country between the smaller villages. I came indoors, turned the heating up and put on the radio. This guy was playing on the radio; he has a voice that reminds me of summer and warmer times.

CHRISTIAN KANE
Christian Kane (born June 27, 1974) is an American actor and singer/songwriter of Native American descent. As a musician he is  lead singer with the country-southern rock band Kane. He is also a well known and widely recognized TV star.
Christian Kane was born in Dallas, Texas. He is of Native American descent. His parents participated in and met at the rodeo. The family moved around the South and Midwest because his father was in the oil business. When Kane was in 8th grade they finally settled in Norman, Oklahoma. As young teenager growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, Kane was a wrestler and played American Football. He studied Art History at the University of Oklahoma but decided he wanted to be an actor and headed to Los Angeles before finishing his degree.
And this is what he is doing now;

A Life drawing

This last week has been a busy one for me; working, dinner with a daughter, childminding for another daughter, drawing class, friend staying, a few hours gardening over the weekend, and last but not least, I finally made the decision to have one of my life drawings framed and hung on the wall. I have so many life drawings, some fairly good, some not so good, some positively bad and all of them stored in portfolio or rolled up in drawers. Since decorating my living room, I've not been able to decide what to hang on the walls, until now. I decided to choose a life drawing I liked and go for it, this is the result. I've never hung any thing of mine on my walls before, it takes some getting used too.

You've been Trumped; the documentary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-13760844

There were a few things I intended to do this evening, instead I became engrossed in the documentary ‘You’ve Been Trumped’. The film makers followed the story of the Donald Trump golf course project in Aberdeenshire , it documented his harassment of local residents, disregard for land boundaries, and what can only be described as  environmental vandalism of the ( supposedly) protected sand dunes. I feel as if I’ve seen the face of evil in action; this man gives me the creeps.
The sand dune environment was a SSPI which means, designated site of Special Scientific Interest, one academic environmentalist described it as a completely unique site and Scotland’s equivalent of the Rain Forest. Scotlands Government and Aberdeenshires local council backed Trump for reasons I fail to understand and Grampian police, although claiming to be neutral, appeared anything but………the whole thing makes me sick. If there is any one in the UK who hasn’t seen it, then you really should, and if you are outside the UK, please see it when ever you get the opportunity. 

On the plus side………..a post note on the film said he has threatened to pull out of building the Disney style Hotel because the Scottish Government refuse to stop a planned off shore wind farm. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies although, the sand dunes them selves are already gone. This guy will give me nightmares.

Stardust...............a little music.

Out last night celebrating a birthday and this morning, we got up late, took it easy, and watched a video  The video we watched was Stardust, a  non demanding little fairy tale about a star who was knocked out of the sky, fell to earth, was saved from a gristly death and then fell in love with her hero. Yep, the star, in human guise,   found true love in the arms of the  young man who saved her and was also destined to become king. And.... they lived happily ever after. A non demanding, uncomplicated movie minus the sex and violence and plus the feel good factor, we all need a little escapism sometimes. We couldn’t help but admire the scenery in the film, then we realized most of the on location filming was done  in the Scottish Islands, no wonder it was astounding. The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2008.

Stardust is a 2007 British romantic fantasy film from Paramount Pictures, directed by Matthew Vaughn. The film is based on Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name and stars an ensemble cast including Charlie Cox, Ben Barnes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller, Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng, Rupert Everett, Ricky Gervais, David Walliams, Nathaniel Parker, Peter O'Toole, David Kelly, Robert De Niro, Mark Heap and Henry Cavill. Narration is by Ian McKellen.

Tonight is a beautiful star lit night with a silvery moon casting a bluish light on the ground. This song was in the movie and it fits pretty perfectly with the night sky outside this evening.

Arbroath Beach

I’ve spent so much time touring around the countryside these last few weeks; I began to miss the sea, I felt drawn back to the beach.  I gave in and walked the beach one afternoon and watched the low sun cast its light and shadow over the rocks and pools. It looked good, no more words, just the series of photos I took that afternoon.