Slightly Mad Mid-Month Musings: June

 I am currently doing some examining - I can't tell you the exam board, the spec or the level, or I'd have to kill you.

I stupidly signed up to mark two different specs, thinking one would happen a few weeks before the other, but in fact it turns out they are running concurrently. I have had a week of technological hitches caused mostly by my own blundering idiocy, and I haven't even finished the training yet.

I've also been suffering from horrendous hay fever, despite the fact that I haven't left the house except to go to work in several days. It was raining most of today but I still had several hours of violent sneezing and coughing, even though I am taking anti-histamine tablets daily and I sprayed some Beconaze up my nostrils too. Looks like June is going to be as great a month as usual [high levels of sarcasm in vicinity...].

I am writing this as a brief nod towards my usual mid-month musing. I thought I'd focus on my recent painting, which obviously is now going to be on hold for several weeks.  

I hadn't done much painting in months but a few weeks ago, The Master came round for a Moroccan Feast and he was very encouraging about my painting. Admittedly, he was pretty tanked-up by that stage, but I take what I can get. Anyway, he seems to have pressed the 'go' button on my brain and I've been painting and sketching most days since [up to a few days ago when the exam-board trauma began].

I have painted all the small rocks from my garden - not just randomly, like the actions of a seriously barmy recluse with OCD. But as a means of brightening up my garden without doing any actual outdoor work [which would trigger the hay fever]. The rocks were washed, primed, painted and then had a design drawn on them, and they are now undergoing daily fine coats of spray varnish. I will then have to persuade P to do some actual gardening before I go out wearing a face-mask to position the rocks artistically among the pots of anonymous foliage.

I included a picture of the first lot, pre-varnish, on the previous art exhibition post on here. Here are some pictures of the rest:

You can't see the designs very clearly in these pictures [I had to take them quickly] but I will take some better ones when they are in situ.

I have also started a project where I intend to try to sketch and paint members of my family like a sort of portrait gallery, but in a kind of cartoonish or comic-book style. So far, I have done one of my great-nephew, which still needs some tweaking, and one of my husband, P - unfortunately, I was looking for a quirky picture of P, but the one I used in the end looks more like Anthony Worrall-Thompson. See what you think:

Great-Nephew

P [or Anthony Worrall Thompson]

These two pics were done in watercolour and ink.

Right, I'm off to try to get one of the bits of software to start working again. The next post on here will be the results of the 20-20 Summer Sizzler Competition and Mike Poyzer's Writer Showcase, if it is finished in time...