;

Good morning one and all, well today is certainly a little cooler, and breezy, thankfully just at the moment it is not raining. We need to get out for our walk today as according to the forecaste by lunchtime, as a wet front is fast approaching and will soon be with us. Liz tells me that she does not walk in the rain. I say that she does, but is in real danger of melting.

Joking aside. Even on unpleasant days there are special things to see and experience. Yesterday we walked as is our custom, it was overcaste and coolish, I actualy wore a jacket; my small camera was as usual in my pocket.

 On sunny days everything you see is in the high contrast mode and it is difficult to see details, particularly in the shadows. On an overcaste day the clouds act as a sort of defuser for the light, they sort of even the light out and remove lots of the contrast, therefore making detail photography much easier. So if you want to take a photo with the intention to paint or draw from, an overcaste day is much better. Example above, not a perfect photo by any means, but one you can work from as you can see into the shadows. It was taken within two hundred yards of home, anybody know where?

At the top is another Jerusalem painting this time looking towards the Temple Mount from the Arab Quarter. Suprisingly with the old city being so busy, everywhere there are quiet corners like the above, where life is a little calmer and peace ouses out.

 I feel that there are about a dozen more images to complete the present Jerusalem project. So bordom is not in the offing.

See you all soon,

Duncan

Well we try with all this wi-fi. internet, zoom and goodness knows what else, I dont know about you but being a bit of a neolithic creature, it does not come easy. To be blunt and I will use good language, it is rather frustrating.

Once again I have tried to downloaded zoom, as a consequence, frustratingly, my whole screen changed, taking with it all my favorite short cuts. Growl, frustration snarl and a few expletives later a little calmer, with jiggery and pokkery and threats, my original screen and shortcut reappear. So now I will calm myself down, breath deaply and relax.

I need a holiday, lets go along way away from all this pandemic and make our way to the Sound of Mull on the West Coast of Scotland.

Well here we are in an open 25ft boat crossing the Sound from Iona to Staffa. The dark patch in the middle of the island is Fingal's cave. What a lovely day, dolphins, wind, waves, birds and a good thick coat. I was held firmly into a corner of the boat by my wife, so that I could paint without falling over, or overboard then with about eight crayons in my hands, did this. I am amazed that the horison came out level, as throughout the duration of the painting the actual horizon moved considerably upwards and downwards constantly; you will notice from the waves that it was a little choppy. We landed on the other side of the island, which involved a small jump from a tossing boat onto the jetty, a walk to Fingals Cave and then a walk onto the island top and a stroll mongst the puffins; getting back onto the boat was a little hairy; what a day.

I still need zoom; maybe I will use it on Liz's computer.

So, yes, all this isolation is awful, being dependant on and learning new computer communications is also awful and stressful, but life is ever so very good.

Liz and myself are now going to have afternoon tea, with a nice slice of victoria sponge and a good old fashioned cuppa.

See you later.  Duncan

Well at last the Israel project is finnished, it was a bit of a slog, however something worth while is often hard work, but very well worth while in the long run; at the end there were just over eighty images in the work. To celibrate, above is the last image produced; a watercolour of the arab quarter souk near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. For artistic licence I had to include a teddy amongst all the toys. Unfortunatly the complete work will not available for puruseal untill after this lockdown is lifted a little.

So what is ahead now?  A parrot, more about that at a latter date, but it is coming along nicely, and happyly it accepted its primer undercoat of paint this morning. without making to much fuss.

Something a little more serious. The next maritime sculpture was started. All sorts of challenges there. More about that later.

I do appreciate all these delivery drops by people who are working ever so hard. A young chap just dropped off a Tradecraft order to us; we are his 140th drop today; now that is hard work, and still cheerful as well, nice chap. Without people like him, my painting would be difficult in the extreme, as now all my supplies are ordered via the internet. I do have one rule which I follow as far as possible; which is by only using internet sites which also have a normal retail outlet and shop. That way we might have a funtioning retail business structure when this is all over.

You know, life is rather good, this mornig a few of us met on Zoom and prayed together for a while,  a little later we went for a super walk along the canal, the weather is so lovely, spring has erupted. and tonight a dozen of us from church are also meeting up on Zoon for fellowship.

So keep heart, life is good, there are good people and things out there and God certainly loves and cares for you.

I greet this morn, for today we celibrate our risen Lord.

Today is the principal Christian feast and celibration, it is when we join with the early disciples and rejoice that He is risen, He did not die, but defeated death. The disciples not only celibrated the risen Jesus, but they were also celibrating that they had been saved from utter depression, defeat and evil. Jesus had shown that he was a man of his word and what he said was to  be trusted. Thank you Lord.

A few years ago whilst staying in Jerusalem on a Friday night at sundown, or the start of the Sabat (Sabbath), I with a few other travelers were dragged to a West Bank settlement to celibrate the Sabbat.

Present were a good number of Israeli believers (Christians), a Palestinian believer, a Lancashire Jewish believer and us. It was afamily affair. They celibrate the start of the Sabat with a party. And boy, oh boy, what a party, they know how to do that, as the photos show. The kids were wild and uncontrolable, but lovely and friendly, note my bunny ears. We all made lots of friends that night.

So today is Easter Sunday, so let us celibrate the risen Lord!

Today is Easter saturday. The day inbetween. Inbetween what?

Yesterday we remembered Jesus's death. Today we remember that he is dead ,as it would seem. The disciples wher distraught with themselves. Everything had come to nothing. All their prayers had not been answered. It seemed as if God had left them totally on their own and desrted, leaderless and at the mercy of the crowds and Romans. They hid away, not knowing what to do.

Lifes a bit like that sometimes.

So today we sit quietly and wait. We remember that life at times can be aweful; during those times we just have sit quietly, have a cry, maybe sob with a friend, or maybe give comfort to another in distress. While we do that we wait.

Tomorrow is another story.

Whilst we wait, maybe this picture from old Joppa is appropiate. A quiet peaceful corner. Go there in your mind and prayers, be quiet with God whilst you wait for tomorrow.

Today in the Christian calender we celibrate and remember Good Friday. It is the day when Jesus died on the cross. It is the day when we were forgiven. It is the day when we were given a Saviour. As a Christian it is a special day among special days.

A few weeks ago whilst in Jerusalem we visited the garden tomb, a sketch of which is on this blog today. Remember that one hundred yards to the left of this picture is Golgotha, The Skull, or as the rocky outcrop is often called, Calvary; where Jesus was executed on a cross. To the north of the city, outside of the walls, by the side of the Damascus Road for all the passing world to see.

The ink sketch of the tomb was a privelage to be allowed to draw, the conditions were challenging and very difficult in which to work; crowds, everybody wanting to get a better view, nowhere to sit. Constantly being knocked, but everyone was curtious, polite, quiet and respectful. The  pilgrims when aware that I was drawing, were interested and then went about their prayerfullness and meditations quietly.

Sometimes being an artist is such a privelage.

Well two pictures today, the first from Joppa and the second from our kitchen back at home.

   We often entertain and as such on occasion buy turkeys or somthing else of an appropiate size for the number of guests expected. Well a few months ago we saw this massive turkey as a yellow label offer, at a silly price. So home she came and roosted in our frezzer, awaiting Easter and a house full of all sorts of people.

Due to isolation and not socialising at the normal level we have this enormouse turkey, which if we cooked would do nine meals for the pair of us, plus numerous sandwhichs and a half dozen curries. Just a little bit too much for one sitting.

So the decision was made to quarter it. The question is how do you quarter a frozen solid turkey.

The simple answer is, with brute force, a hammer and chisel plus a lot of hard work But it worked and I hasten to add that the chisel was cleaned first, I'm not sure about the hammer. 

At times like this it is important to laugh a little, and we did; only we laughed a lot.

Regards Duncan

Had a good day yesterday. 

Having posted my blog with a water colour of Jerusalem on it, I got on with my work. On my blog I said a lot about sharing my work and that really is so very important for me. I believe in myself, but having said that, encouraging positive comments from others, does help to  sustain me in my art.

Then a little while after the posting, there was a small but sygnificant flow of encouraging comments from you all. Thank you all, I appreciate the encouragment.

This morning in my quiet time I read about Jesus just sitting beside the Sea of Galillee before he gave the Sermnon on the Mount. Within a mile or so, I was also sat by that sea a few weeks ago. Nice memory.

Todays picture is of the lovely Liz walking through the Jewish section of Old Jerusalem, hope you like it. 

Each of the districts of Jerusalem have their own distinctive style and feelings. The Jewish sction is much more tidy and ordered, whilst the Arab section is all chaos and rush, rush, rush. I love it all.

The weather outside looks lovely, the washing is drying nicley and shortly we will be going out for a walk, maybe not even a jacket today. Looking forwards to it.

See you all soon.

Duncan

Now I am into my fourth week of shut down and to be honest I wish it were over. But I am OK and still keeping myself busy. The Israel project is coming on fine and maybe another week or ten days might see the finished product. Being an artist is about many things, important for me is the showing and sharing of my work; at this junction of time this obviously is not happening. I have this pile of work and no one to show it to; a little frustrating. That is life and reality, the other side of all this is how we cope with all of this frustration.

I am fortunate in having a good woman by my side, that helps a lot; we encourage and support each other. A plan was decided to work upon at the beginning of all this, which was a good old fashioned school timetable approach to each day. Such as:-

1   Up wash, dress, shave, breakfast and most important, my quiet time.
2    E mails, an hour or so of studio work. Contact others and give support to them by phone and computer or something else.
3    House work, clean for a while, the house has never been so clean.
4    Lunch
5    Exercise, walk for an hour, practice social distancing.
6    Studio or other work, Phone those on my list to keep in contact with.
7    Supper
8    Off duty, relax watch a dvd, read a book, or something like that.
9    Bed about 11.30 and sleep like a baby.

A routine at times like this is so important. The exercise is deliberately in the middle of the day to  divide it and give the day's span two halves.

The picture today is one which was produced yesterday and is a back street in Jerusalem.

I think that starting the day on a positive note (quiet time) and realizing that throughout all this awe-fullness, the reality is that we are loved and cherished by our loving God.
Then we can use the expression "Thank God" to have a lot more meaning that just an phrase.
So I will say"Thank God".

Kindest regards Duncan