Art Sunday; Marc Chagall

Art Sunday; Marc Chagall

Thinking about magic, how things are sometimes not what they seem and how excited I am at going to see my daughter. Not only does she live in a particularly beautiful part of Scotland but, I don’t see her very often now that she has move away from this area. Marc Chagall seemed like a good choice for this week because his art has a ‘magical’ feel to it. 

Also because I’m thinking of Nemo and hoping he is OK, he loves fantasy art, it is his favourite. I don’t think he would choose this particular artist, but he does love fantasy art in general. So Nemo, where ever you are, thinking of you, hoping you are ok and hope you come back to us soon. 

This is just a little information on the artist from Wikipedia, follow the link for a full write up on him.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall

Marc Chagall
Birth name Moshe Shagal
Born 7 July 1887
Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now in Belarus)
Died 28 March 1985 (aged 97)
Saint-Paul, France
Nationality Russian, later known as French
Field Painting, stained glass
Movement Surrealism, Expressionism

Marc Chagall; 7 July 1887 – 28 March 1985), was a Russian–French artist, associated with several key art movements and was one of the most successful artists of the twentieth century. He created a unique career in virtually every artistic medium, including paintings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall's haunting, exuberant, and poetic images have enjoyed universal appeal, with art critic Robert Hughes referring to him as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."

 

Song saturday; Santana

Song Saturday no 2. On a bit of a roll now with this 'magic' idea. Am soooo looking forward to getting away today.

 

Song Saturday; steve Miller Band

I'm off today for a couple of days to the West Coast of Scotland to stay with my daughter. It's gonna be magic, and so is this; Abracadabra, by Steve Miller Band. In fact ALL Steve Miller is magic and we just don't hear enough of them any more. This is not the best video visually, but the sounds good.

 

The weekend Bootsale, a Knitting Doll and a Vegetable Book

The Weekend Boot Sale,

No not a Cobblers Paradise as one of my American friends once assumed, but what is known outside the UK as, amongst other things, a flea market, a trunk sale or similar. A matter of 500 yards from where I live is a playing field that every Sunday morning from April to October is used as a Boot Sale venue. And this is what I found there this week.

Who amongst my lady friends doesn’t remember this little doll?? I had one, my sisters  both had one, all my cousins and friends had one and we would all sit for hours making long thin sausages of wool which were later stitched together to make different things. Thinking about it, all my cardigans were stripy cardigans, made from left over bits of wool collected up by my Nanna and knitted together. When the cardigans were finished, the left over, left over bits were given to me to make these little sausages.  These little wooden dolls were the elite models, the common ones were made from mothers old thread bobbins and a couple of nails. Both of my grandchildren were mildly curious but when they saw what was in the box they didn’t have the faintest idea what it was for. My  stiff old fingers did manage to make a couple of sausages from wool, yes I did remember how to do it, but I don’t think the children were that impressed. Personally, I love it, I think I really bought it for me not them, AND…….it only cost me 50p, what a bargain.

A couple of tables later I found this. What a gem. A small, soft covered unassuming book packed with just about anything and every thing you would ever need to know about growing vegetables. All written in plain English and illustrated.

This book devotes two double pages to growing tomatoes. At least I think I know where I went wrong this year. Seems in this climate Tomatoes really don’t survive outside, they need green houses, more feeding, more water and more soil than I gave them. No wonder mine didn’t do very well. Never mind, I will try again next year.

In fact this little book has two pages on green house tomatoes and two pages on inj door tomatoes and what the difference is and which method you should chose

Another 50p bargain !!

A morning well spent I think and all for only £1.00... what value.  

Song Saturday; Runrig, Lighthouse

Song Saturday
RunRig
Lighthouse

The last few days have been warm and sunny, I've had the grandchildren staying, we've spent time at the beach and I've poste the photos. I've chosen my artist for this weeks Art Sunday partly because he complimented my 'sunny days out by the beach' mood and now.............a lighthouse. :-)

Art Sunday; Contemporary Scottish Artist David Smith

I just love this guys work, sometimes you find work that you admire but wouln't want on the living room wall. This work I love, I admire it and would have my living room filled with it, and the bedroom, and the hallway.............and every other available space. It is so very, very realistically Scottish.

Paintings and information from this web site;

http://www.scottishartpaintings.co.uk/artist-david-smith.asp

David SMITH

David Smith was born in Dunbartonshire in 1957. He was educated at various colleges in Glasgow including Glasgow School of Art and the Glasgow Print Studio.

David Smith is constantly inspired by the Scottish coastal scenes and the fishing villages of the East Coast of Scotland. Other subjects which regularly feature in his art works are the Scottish islands and mountains.

The palette and inspiration of David Smith's contemporary paintings are taken from the Scottish Western seaboard and the landscapes of Scotland.

This combined with David's love of climbing and hill-walking is reflected in his paintings. His distinctive art style generates a feeling of a particular time and place and the associated atmosphere at the time

David Smith has been the recipient of a number of art awards including the prestigious David Cargill prize at the 2001 RGI art exhibition. He is a member and current President of the Glasgow Group of Artists

Day out to the beach.

Remenber what I said this morning ??
''It's stopped raining.... yipeeeeeee, off to beach with grandkids, taking sketch book and camera, at last, a day to enjoy........yipeeeeeeeeeee''
well here are the photos of the day, and a very nice day it was too. :-)

It's stopped raining.... yipeeeeeee, off to beach with grandkids, taking sketch book and camera, at last, a day to enjoy........yipeeeeeeeeeee

Big thank you to Sue..... it's arrived !!

GREAT BIG THANK YOU SUE :-)

 

 

The beautiful light after the rain

These pictures were taken today at about 6pm in my living room. It has rained and rained all day until about 6 when it very briefly and suddenly stopped. My living room was flooded with light that cast yellow shadows every where. I think it had rained so hard all day that every thing outside was covered in water, when the sun shone so brightly the light reflected in every water covered surface before being bounced through my windows and into my living room. It was quite beautiful.

Art Sunday; Michael Zarowsky

Today was the day of my daughters house warming party. She moved from an ordinary terraced house in the town to a much bigger and older cottage in the country about a month ago. Over the last month she has been decorating and settling in and today, we all had a BBQ in the garden. As part of her house warming present I attempted a small watercolour drawn from flowers picked from my garden. I thought this little painting would suit an older country house.

(This is one I painted )

Trying to paint this simple picture of wild flowers started my thinking about some of the water colour artists I admire. This is one such artist, his work is wonderful, full of life and light and colour.

This…. Is how it should be done

WATER COLOURS BY MICHAEL  ZAROWSKY
visit his own site here

http://www.zarowsky.net/

Song Saturday; JJ Cale

JJ Cale
www.jjcale.com

Because it takes me back to a different time;

JJ Cale born John Weldon Cale on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter and musician. Cale is one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound, a loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz influences. Cale's personal style has often been described as "laid back".
Read more here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JJ_Cale

 

 

It's raining !!!! (& riders on the storm)

This is more like November than July. It has rained and rained and rained all day. And not the sultry humid sort of rain that comes in summer. No, this has been a  fill blown torrent of freezing rain accompanied by the biting,  icy wind. Horrible, just horrible, especially horrible because today was the day I had planned to go to the garden center which is usually such a pleasant experience, today it was a cold, wet and miserable experience.  I bought a couple of new fish for my pond and, some compost and a few plants.

Oh and the irony, yesterday was warm and sunny and I noticed how much the water level in my pond had gone down. I spent a while giving the pond a bit of a clean and topping it up with lots of fresh clean water. Tonight, amidst lashing rain and under torchlight, I stood in the garden scooping out bucketfuls of water from that same pond because I was so afraid it would overflow during the night and my poor little fishes would be swept out into the drains.

BUT.............they do say every cloud has a silver lining, maybe it was they weather, maybe it was genuine end of stock, what ever the reason, I picked up plants at crazy low prices. When the rain stops, if it ever does, I'll plant them out.

Public apology :-) Feeling especially guilty today cos I know lots of you come here and leave really lovely comments and I don't always get back to you, and I don't always visit your pages, and I know I should. :-( What can I say? in the words of my old teacher 'must try harder' have a great weekend

Art Sunday; Sam Skelton

This is a re-post of an 'Art Sunday' I posted a while ago but because this mans work features mostly children I thought I would re-post it.

Sam Skelton

Information from his web site
http://www.samskelton.co.uk/

Born 1949
Scottish Contemporary Artist

Skelton began his career as a graphic designer, which he studied at Glasgow School of Art. His art teacher at school had greatly encouraged his creativity, and Skelton continued to paint, putting work into a few galleries, until a few years ago demand for his paintings grew so that he could concentrate on it full time.

Skelton grew up in the industrial town of Kirkintilloch, and his memories of going to meet his father after school at the foundry where he worked, and watching the furnace workers, fill his paintings. His subjects are nostalgic evocations of Scotland’s industrial past: working class heroes, boxers, a couple on a park bench, a group of men in dark overcoats, watching a football game played on waste ground.

The stark simplicity of Skelton’s figures, painted on rough hessian, belie a rich heritage. These are the kids playing on the street so familiar from the paintings of Joan Eardley or the photographs of Oscar Marzaroli. The influence of the great industrial naïve painter J.S Lowry is clear. His paintings are suffused with the dark, low light of Scotland in winter, with the factory roof on the horizon line.

Skelton exhibits in Glasgow, London and Dublin, where he has a growing number of collectors

Song Saturday; Billy J Kramer

THE KIDS ARE BACK!!!

And its not that I don’t love them dearly it’s just that sometimes I wish they would, in the words of the song, ‘ ''go away and play outside’’
These images could have come straight out of my childhood, this must be one of the earliest pop songs I remember, oh dear I feel so old.

A few paintings of mine

Just a couple of paintings I've done over the last year or so. I do hope to do a bit more painting this summer.

Drawing class Easter to Summer

The one thing I made a point of not missing has been my monday evening drawing class.

East Mathers and poppies

This is one of my favourite places, it looks different every time I go there. Today there are poppies in bloom

A place called Salmondsmuir

This is the derelict cottage that stands about 500 mt along the road from my daughters new 'old' house. My daughter has just moved into an old agricultural cottage, it's owned by the farmer and is the first on three old cottages along a small road in a now non-existent hamlet called Salmondsmuir. Apparently the house my daughter rents used to be a small village shop, this one that stands derelict used to be a blacksmith and the end one is rented by the same people who have lived there most of their lives. If I were a rich lady I would liberate this derelict smithy from the farmer and rebuild it.............

Ahhhhh A child free day, also other adult free, arangement to meet free, appointment free..............generally speaking a totally FREE day. The first one for ages, and to make it even free-er...............its p****** down with rain.............which means I'm staying right here and luxuriating in my 'freeness'