Guardian article on how people cope with lockdown

[ThrelfallYorky]

As soon as I saw that painting I felt it would make an excellent image for a greetings card. It's great.
I came to acrylics very late, really, tried oils in my early development as an aspiring Art student, but preferring watercolour. After realising that I was destined to work in Graphics, and going on to do that, I never really kept up with paint. (There's nothing like doing something every day as a job to put you off doing it as a hobby or relaxation). It's only over the past few weeks I've felt like "getting things out of my system" via Artwork again. I used to do quite savage caricature and cartoon work at one time, when I was very unhappy with the way the "day job" was going, but rarely since.
Then, tidying up  and throwing stuff out from a plan chest, a few months back, I came upon a completely unused A3 spiral bound sketchbook - no memory of ever buying it ... and decided to use it when all this stuff started.
When we moved in to our house, new-build, there was a very neat front lawn. I decided we needed a white rose bush in the centre of the lawn. OH started digging - a whole, solid bag of cement, and two flanking it of solid, spoilt plaster!!! The rose tree had to go in the back garden.
A few years later, when internet firms, etc had designs on digging through the lawn to get to us, we decided to have the lawn - not weathered the years very well - completely removed and laid anew. The story was the same wherever they dug. It was a huge dumping ground for builders' waste, and it all had to go, before soil could be imported to give a good lawn a chance.
When digging in our rear garden, quite early on, we came upon a woman's thigh-length black suede boot, size 6, would have looked good on a Panto principal boy. For some time we were apprehensive that if we dug anywhere we might find the other boot - and the occupant! Fortunately we never have done so - yet!
TY

[Caw1]

It's amazing how many bags of cement are left in gardens whilst building was going on! We only ever found the one... that we know of but sadly the took all the top soil away and we're left with clay. Over the years OH has had top soil delivers to put on the lawman and flower beds along with the contents of our two compost bins annually. It all helps but we still get Greta lumps of clay.

As for painting, my mother and my daughter were and are talented artists... I used to do a bit I liked using pastels more than paint but if I did it was acrylics too, my mother used all mediums, including Indian ink and created some wonderful pictures that my son now has.
I'm a sewer mostly as was mum and my two grandmothers.

Caroline

[ThrelfallYorky]

My mother trained at an Art College pre-War, an excellent plant artist, and my grandfather on the paternal side painted those murals in big hotels, so I couldn't really fail to end up in something visual.
I forgot, we moved in to the house when it was a very new-build, and the houses nearby were unfinished. We had the longest back garden, and the builders left a huge heap of topsoil on our land ... and a huge heap of rubble about 3 gardens away. We had just moved in, not even got fences up, just marker stakes, when.looking out of the kitchen window, I saw 3 middle aged men, not the builders, with wheelbarrows, calmly coming onto our back garden area, and digging into the big heap of topsoil!! I was young then, and not assertive enough for a few minutes, to take them on, but saw that they went round the corner, and, one, two, three, each went up their own drive, and tipped their barrowloads onto their own land, then came back for more!
I went out at the back, and asked them what they thought they were doing - and one said grinning, that I couldn't do anything about it, as I'd no fences up!
As soon as OH returned from the shopping he'd been doing that day, after an afternoon of me seeing our back garden vanish, we measured up for fencing.
Next morning we went out and bought fencing materials. On our return we saw the builder's jcb merrily ploughing and spreading all the rubbish and the remaining(!) topsoil all over all the gardens on either side of ours, and ours. We didn't get much at all of that topsoil, but boy did we get the rubbish!!! We couldn't win.
TY

[arthurk]

Over the years OH has had top soil delivers to put on the lawman and flower beds along with the contents of our two compost bins annually. It all helps but we still get Greta lumps of clay.

 

[Caw1]

Over the years OH has had top soil delivers to put on the lawman and flower beds along with the contents of our two compost bins annually. It all helps but we still get Greta lumps of clay.

 

Well that's what predictive text gives you and you don't read it back before posting 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[ThrelfallYorky]

I really like the image of "Greta lumps of clay".

[Roobarb]

I had an auntie Greta but she wasn't a great lump at all, always skinny. 

[Caw1]

I'm too quick in responding and just pressing 'Post' it will get me in trouble one day..... can't wait! 😁😁

Caroline

[ThrelfallYorky]

I'm always sure it's my subconscious taking over, when I find I've made a typing error ... and that it's what I really intended all along!
A friend is coping by demolishing and re-building his stone garden wall - the wall is stone ( although the garden's not that different!). At least he'll be fit when he's finished it!