The Sea and stuff

 I’ve had an interesting few days.  I found something I thought I’d lost and was so overjoyed about it.  Then after that, more and more stuff took over my brain, you know how it is.  

Can I say that women are amazing, and I don’t think that’s said enough, or it seems, ever.  What women put up with, endure, withstand, cope with, persevere at and just hang on in there, to me is nothing less than truly awe inspiring.  

From the moment we’re born and the world starts moulding us, no matter how stifling it can all be at times, inside us is a wonderful being just waiting to make a difference to others. 

OK so we talk probably a tad too much, we don’t trust each other (husbands are known to run off with best friends, as we all know) and we probably buy a lot of stuff that is not absolutely essential, but in all of this we are actually running the planet, behind the scenes, if you ask me.

Our hushed army of diligent ants, lugging things back to the nest, carrying children, bags of food, heaps of laundry and buckets of whatever.  IT ALL GETS MYSTERIOUSLY DONE!  As if by magic, we don’t even think about what we have to do next, because we’ve already done it and are thinking about the next 10 things. 

Day in, day out, it all gets done. And if we’re lucky and we can carve out 10 stolen minutes to ourselves, are we ever idle, no way. 10 minutes to a woman with six children is a long time to achieve something.  I base that anecdote on a real lady I knew once, who has six children and told me about THE POWER OF TEN MINUTES.  

So here’s a 10 minute sketch of water that I did while listening to Byzantine liturgical incantation called Dostoino Est by Lege Artis Chamber Choir

I actually like it, it came from within, as they say.

Then I did this strange doodle in trying to push the whole ‘automatic drawing’ idea, and being not absolutely certain what it was that emerged, some kind of microscopic view of something or other, so put the two together...I think the colour doodle was more about the sound of water, than the view of it.

I made a new base for the bird table.  It turned out OK even though it was an ordeal to cut.  I didn’t measure anything or get my screw driver out, I just stuffed a piece of paper in it and pressed along the sides to make a template.  Of course I cut the wood on the outside of the line, which meant the thing didn’t fit and I had heaps of fun trimming it down.  But all the while I felt the little beady eyes of a particularly cute plump robin watching me.  We had a robin nesting in our garden last Spring, I hope the darling comes back.

Notice how even the wood stain has a sea theme....

I used marine plywood, but after cutting it out, I think it wasn’t waterproof so I added the stain, front and back.  The piece shrunk in the process, so I figured it’s probably pretty well waterproof now.  We’ll have to wait and see...

Fibula news

I finally managed to find - thanks to Meri - a very fine HD image of the filigree detail. I can’t wait to work with it in the next few days.

Looking ahead, I’m starting to get quite interested in a stunning archaeological find from France, made of bone found in a cave. I won’t say anymore for now...big clue: it’s very famous..