Take this waltz

This is a page in the latest Desert Island Discs CJ that's passed through my hands from CollaborArt.

There's some wonderful songs available on this particular CJ,

but there were really only two that I wanted

and one of those had already been taken,

so I was left with the beautifully haunting "Take this waltz"

from the amazing Leonard Cohen.

I'll admit to being a late convert to his works as his music wasn't that highly featured on forces radio; so the very limited exposure I had was normally along the lines of

"Leonard Cohen? Don't go there, it's depressing".

Thankfully when I got back over here I came across "First we take Manhattan"and was hooked, so went out and found more. 

If you don't know any of his music, go and seek it out. 

It may not be to your liking, but you may be surprised.

Hope springs eternal

Inspired by a friend who's been through the mill lately,

but always comes up smiling, and sees the bright side.

It's something I try to aspire to.

It doesn't always work, but I usually get there in the end.

The alternative is to turn in on yourself and become bitter, dis-spirited and angry. 

And as another friend has pointed out, it must be tiring to be angry and confrontational all the time.

This was painted a couple of weeks ago when we had an end-of-winter snow flurry - although, if you listened to the media we were on the verge of the next ice age and due for a complete melt-down of civilisation. I mean, it must have been at least 2" deep in some places.

Anyway, in amongst all this doom and gloom,
spring has sprung and there's colour popping up outside the house;

snowdrops, blue & purple crocus and daffodils.

Hope you're all getting that spring feeling too.

(Acrylic on canvas)

More Attitude!

The next two pages in Sian's "Attitude" pair journal.

The pages are based on a poem I found a while back whilst mooching around the web. The original version can be found here.

It's been a busy couple of weeks here, hence the lack of posts, but there's bits of art in hand, so hopefully there'll be more posts soon (where have I heard that before?).