Collage in the Morecambe house...

 I studied for a BA fine art degree at The Wirral Met ...

...five years as a mature student...

...did'nt finish it, but after five years I felt I had some understanding of what it didn't mean!!

However during that time I collected some cartoons that were published each weekend in one of the papers....by Psillos...a Greek artist working in fashion and political cartoons.

The papers got filed in a folder in my studio and there they have been ..on the shelf with all the other arty stuff I've accumulated since 1999.

Until this week.

We were up at the bay house and the weather as you know was fierce...

...so no walking for us.

It only took a couple of hours and a pot of wallpaper paste and we clad an old wall outside the room at very top of the house under the eaves we call  ...

"The Club Room "

A  wall at the  top of the stairs and above it in the space made watertight by the builders last year.

...a painting of the seagulls that nest in our tall chimneys.

... the collage really brightens up the space..

...with a great smiling mouth in the middle!...

Some information about Psillos....

Demetrios Psillos has worked for John Galliano at the start of his career, he moved into Illustration and found success in New York with clients including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, The New Yorker, Wallpaper and The New York Times. On returning to the UK, he continued working as an illustrator for The Times and Vogue. His successful illustrations for Nigella Lawson’s Food & Lifestyle columns led Demetrios to create the animated title sequences to the multi-award winning ‘Nigella Bites’ series. Love his gorgeous vivid colours! www.demetriospsillos.com

I'm planning another wall...I have lots of cartoons left still...but the clay man doesn't know that yet.

Keeping it as a surprise for his March birthday!!

paulatim

Morning View Jan 5th 2022

 I often post a pic straight from the bedroom window to Instagram...

"Morning View"

It helps me to see the change in the garden from the window each morning.

Here's today.

...and another...

Already 5th January.

The willow is a favourite tree in the garden..I watch it dance in the breeze.

Story of Ballyferris Mr. M's Car.

...and so the story goes...

Chapter Two

Mr Megaw's Car

Mr. M was our next door neighbour. He lived with Mrs. M and their daughter Margaret. I didn’t know for a long time that she was called Margaret as everyone knew her as Miss Peggy. In my “singy” moments I used to hum, "If her eyes are blue as skies that’s Peggy M.......". Of course any Irish person worth their salt will know that it should be “Peggy O’Neill”, but mere facts like that have never stopped me changing things to suit the occasion. Perhaps another reason to doubt my story, but that would be a shame as you would miss out on the whole magic of what I am telling you. Mr. M’s car was like something out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was large and square cut with massive running boards, shining silver headlights and a wonderfully loud claxon horn. Now although the Ms were exceedingly posh for St. J’s,  they were also very kind. So the five Macs got to drive to the caravan in this amazing car for the first few years that we holidayed in it. The caravan ,of course, had already been hauled there for us by other means, and thus it was that we were on the way to our first great Ballyferris adventure.

Mega preparations had to be made before setting off. There was always a cooked chicken in a tin pan with a bobbley lid , you know the kind that I mean. All weathers were provided for, though I could never understand why, as I shed shoes and all heavy garments as soon as we arrived at the caravan field. There were always two questions asked as dad started up the old car. “Mary , have you got the kitchen sink? And “Mary , have you packed the grandfather clock?” The reply was always “Of course, Douglas.” And off we would go. Two children and a baby setting out on an adventure with mum, and dad at the wheel sounding the claxon horn at every impossible situation, while the eight year old screamed with delight.