Some Recent Doodles

Home Crafts

My latest passion is making stuff out of household rubbish ( not such a new thing for me!) and covering it all with a layer af papier mache( newspaper and flour paste ) and painting it with gaudy colours in the style of Indian gew gaws. It's great fun and excellent for filling the days when stuck at home during this awful Covid 19 pandemic. Today I started on a new pile of tat that includes a soya milk carton, cake box, toilet roll tube, cereal packet etc. It looks like a real mess at the moment but hopefully when the paste has dried will hold together like the previous space helmet ( see above ). H

azel has found it very amusing especially when it gets stuck on my head!

Mother's Day

Nice photo of my Mum as a teenager that my sister Barb put up on FB this morning. We miss her of course - she was a wonderful Mum and will never be forgotten. Hazel went over to see her Mom this morning - took some pansies to plant in the garden and waved and blew kisses through the window at her. I stayed in to paint the recycled junk boat ( made from milk catons, packets and waste containers ) called the S.S. Corona. Just one of the many silly projects lined up for the next few months we are stuck indoors. We have lots of rubbish so we are not short of materials. Photo soon.

New Doodles

New doodles from my sketchbook. Daily drawings for FB group "Daily Doodle". Coloured pencils and graphite.

Self Isolation

Staying in most of the time as I am in that vunerable over 70's group. Just back from a forage to local Co-op which foolishly I thought would be quiet at 8 am but car park was full and people coming out said there was no milk or bread! So wandered on a bit further past the lines of cars eager to get to Aldi and Lidl. The local Spar shop had milk and plenty of bread but at a price - almost a third more than the Co-op. O well, at least we have some and I bought some beans and tinned tomatoes as they are always useful. Thankfully we did our big shop last week before all this panic buying set in. Our freezer and fridge are relatively full so we could probably exist on what we have for a few weeks. But I expect when the mad rush for bog roll and hand cleaner is over the shelves will fill up again.

Interactive Arts 27 Years Celebration

Off to Manchester for 24 hours of fun and elbow greets. Met up with John Hegley to show him round the Curious Things exhibition which he seemed to enjoy especially the hand and feet shaped postcards. Then over to the Interactive Arts celebrations and speeches to open the exhibition in Benzie, The Link Gallery and Grosvenor Gallery in MMU. John read some poems and sung a song about Hazel. Did some colouring in of figs. Met Jim Medway the cartoonist/illustrator. Another former I.A. student as was Ryan Gander ( not present ) and many more alumni who gathered to catch up and knock elbows. Later in the Mezze bar for drinks and impossible quishy tower burger. Stayed night in the nearby hotel as Hazel had to come in the next day to turn on all the videos, TV' s and computers. Sadly because of the flu scare lots of people stayed away.

Lower Marsh SE1

Discovered this still from the 1950's film "Waterloo Road" recently on Instagram of Lower Marsh market in it's heyday. Sad to see it now with just a few stalls left. Even in the 80's it had some life when I worked at Cooper's Natural Foods part time. All gone now. The seond photo was taken a few years after Coopers closed - the building empty and falling into decay. Business's bought out and run down so property developers can buy up huge chunks of London for huge profits - sheer greed. A once lively community decimated. There;s Tim Cooper in the other photo - an early shot of the health food emporium with some of my paintings on the walls.

Doodles and Frodsham

FRodsham this morning - early start. Found a few DVD's in the various charity shops inc. a boxed set of jean-Paul Belmondo £2-50, Arthur Askey boxed set of avi. fuzzy films that some devotee had put together. Not sure I'll be watching much of that as it is a bit too blurry being 4 films on one CD. I thang yow! As Arthur would say. Hazel got a few bits and bobs including a spool of green thread, a plastic letter opener and a box of joss sticks that smell like a hippie commune. Then to a friendly antique shop where the owner amused us with tales of propelling pencils etc. Hazel bought one with a penknife attached for some reason. She obviously fell for his disarming patter! Then off to Lady Hayes antique emporium for more rummaging in piles of tat. Not much there really. Gone down hill from it's glory days of the noughties. Home for some doodling and tofu and egg seedy bun.