Trying...

...some gel plate printing cut out silhouettes. But they stuck to gel plate or the next print.

I have done this before relatively successfully. But I realised it worked better with glossy magazine cut outs and not the matt absorbent magazine paper cut outs.

See first extra for some attempts on this.

See second extra for an attempt with a cut out tree but that stuck too, and so then I abandoned cut outs. I did more with the blue and white colour I had ended up with on the gel plate.

So then I am brayering blues on the gel plate, but I found the white I had was too thin. So I tried a Golden acrylic fluid white but it was going to work out very expensive and was still too fluid.

What next? I got out some Sennelier acrylic white abstract paint. This was more like it. The thickness consistency I wanted. But it did dry out quickly so I had to work quickly. I was now getting what I wanted.

So one of those blue ones in the first extra ended up worked on with a few more gel prints on it to become the main blip.

This is more like it. I will be working on the other blue ones in the next few days.


The next bit is me reflecting so unless you have a cuppa (or a flask...) and a bit of time...
I am doing a lot of thinking at the moment. I suppose it started with the idiot neighbour next door and the way he has been over the last few years. And it culminating in the cowboy driveway people he employed and it affecting me and my health with the dust and fumes.

Do I want to carry on living next door to him? Is anything going to change? Unlikely. He has been trying to sell his house since before I moved here. But even I can see earlier ‘home improvements’ he has done have been done by cowboy/rogue workmen. And this latest ‘home improvement’ is no exception...it’s most unlikely he will ever sell his bungalow.

I have lived here more than twice 7 years. A long time for me to be in one place. Was I expecting this to be my forever home? I probably was. But I was expecting John to still be around. It’s nearly ten years since he died. He was a lot older than me, but that didn’t mean he had to die when he did.

Do I want to stay chugging along the same way as I am for the next 14 years? No, I don’t.

But what does this mean I want to change?

It could mean I want to physically move and start a new adventure somewhere else. I don’t have any roots, any ties that keep me to a particular place.

Or, it could mean I change my attitude to this place, and get involved in new ideas or projects. Maybe the vegetation in my garden will grow even higher saying ‘Keep out’ even more than it does now.

I do have a dream of a cottage with no neighbours. I had a dream before I moved here of a detached bungalow (I had traumatic reasons for not wanting to live in a place with adjoining walls to another property ever again). My dream was a detached bungalow with a white painted front and up a hill. I even drew a picture of it and put it in an envelope and sealed it and forgot about it.

I found it when i moved here and this place was exactly what I had visualised, and I had forgotten about it.

Maybe my stay here has now outgrown and I need a new place and new surroundings.

There is a cottage that has been developing as a picture scene in my head recently. I see the cottage with surrounding woodlands.I walk round it. I see the old outbuildings (maybe developed as art studios). I would need an increased income to to maintain and run this, and with this in mind some projects are developing in my head. I see the people surrounding me that I need to help me develop a concept as this.

There is another idea I have. A specially designed and built canal boat where I can sell my paintings from, and live. But that idea doesn’t really have the space I need for my work and supplies. I would really have to downsize. But it is a possibility at the end of the day. I know where it could be done and where there are walkers and their dogs going past, and holidaymakers too.

Actually the canal boat idea was both John’s and my idea and we did research on it. We even went to look at canal boats being built from scratch. And we decided that between us it was financially viable, and would leave us plenty of money spare.

I have some dreaming to do. And some more research.

I do have another idea if I decide to remain here. It was another idea John and I had...

So, some thinking, researching, and dreaming to do.

Take care.
Live your lives to the fullest.
Always keep your dreams x

N.B. I shall enter these words for admirer’s Silly Saturday challenge. Not because it is silly in any way, but to remind that dreams are important, no matter how impossible they can seem for whatever reason...