Fantasy

Tried fantasy pictures from teen years on. The results are too grim to think about. I did quite like the encaustic attempts especially once computers came along and allowed easy colour manipulation & cropping!

Derbyshire & watercolour

While looking for standing stones I also found this to remind me that I used to carry a miniture watercolour set in my ruksac as well as sketchbook & pencils. Curbar? Baslow? Stanage? Not sure which "edge" this is. It looks like Baslow, but where from?

Encaustic Art

Used by Egyptians a few thousand years ago - pigment in bee's wax applied with a scoop, "yang-ting," stylus or smoothing iron. You can now buy special miniture irons, but I started with an ordinary one. Back in the days when my hair was not all grey & I spent time doing this sort of stuff, I demonstrated the technique at Moorgreen Show one year.

I found this while looking for standing stone pictures!

Standing stones

This Blog is full of dangers, digression being the worst. It's going to end up being stream of consciousness stuff, with the original aim lost in the process. On the other hand it's been said, "... it's the journey not the arrival ..."

I suppose Stonehenge in 1964 was my first awareness of standing stones. That was back in the days when you could touch them, in fact I think some of our school party climbed on them & mimed a sacrifice. In those days I had no digital camera to whip out & snap, nor was I inclined to draw anything! We rambled around Avebury too!

Scotland with the same teachers & again a stone circle, much less grand lurked near our campsite in Glen Lyon. Then came Ireland in 1966 where they seemed to be more densely packed than people! I'm not sure if I had a Box Brownie of not. Probably not, I was more concerned with life just washing over me than trying to catch any of it.

Climbing on Derbyshire gritsone brought a closer proximity to local stones & taking children walking put the boot on the other foot so to speak, from the early encounters when I was the pupil! Then I started to record them. These first 2 are the circle above Froggatt over 20 years ago. The main stone is still there - I visited it with children this year. The circle is still visible, but less of the stones stand, the passage of time having been speeded by the passage of feet.

The next one is a few miles away & has more stones. Had more stones ... I've not been back recently
This one is close by too, but a little lonely.

Then returning to Ireland reminded that there are more lonely stones. One overlooks Valencia Island, Killelan & Mortimer's campsite at Mannix Point, Caherciveen, Co. Kerry. Looking for these photos took me through others that belong in this blog, but were not of standing stones & only reminded me that we did not go last year & probably won't go this year either ...

We searched out loads of them over the years. Some were in spectacular places, some were almost inccessible. Cycling across bog on an ordinary touring bike is not recommended. Kath had one of the early steel frame "mountain bikes." I managed a complete somersault at one point when the front wheel dug in. Good job it was a dry year! When we got to the stone marked on the map it turned out to be one of the ones defaced by Christian influences. That was not the worst, on Valencia Island, one had been smashed & used to construct a shrine with a plastic madonna in!

The one at the back of Beentee behind Carhiciveen took the most spotting, but was worth it. It made me think of a petrified wizard. (As in turned to stone, not frightened!)

The colour treatment for a Christmas card was my favourite.

I had aimed not to write much in this blog, but you know how it is ...

I've got a tee-shirt that says "Mick - can talk for England," it's a good job the person who gave it me doesn't read everything I write!

Standing Stones - Encaustic Painting

From sketch & photos in Derbyshire & Ireland, I attempted to reconstruct some of the standing stones in encaustic paintings. The first is just the original painting scanned, but I like the inverted image better. The same with the last one.

Encaustic Painting

It's so long since I did any encaustic painting the dust is about knee deep on the equipment. I've still got about 60 half finished ones!


This one was the one I liked the most of all the ones I did. The original used silver, black & dark blue pigment with the bee's wax. I only used a full size flat iron, no miniture one, stylus or blade.
It had the gate closed. After scanning it, I messed with the colours & then decided I wanted the gate open.
I think I used the scanned image on a Christmas card in about 2001. It could have been earlier, but certainly not later.
Opening the gate was a computer cheat. Then I messed with the colours some more.

I did about 15 versions altogether. These are my favourites.
I think I gave the original painting to Donna.

Visart

As I was trying to generate some murky images the other night, so many great ones appeared that I thought it was worth sharing them outside the main blog, so that it doesn't clutter up too much. It still counts towards my total server allocation for this ID, but when I get in need of space, I can just delete old posts from here. Some of the images I add to this blog may have cropped up in cards in the past, or will appear in the future. Meanwhile here are some of my favourites from the other night.
Remember to click on the images for the full effect.