A couple of oils - and a story of stupidity

 Still struggling with cameras, and more particularly with Microsoft's various updates on uploading photos to my computer: I do feel that I'm getting a little old for this sort of thing.

Not to mention cack-handed: I've managed to stop myself from posting on or moderating on the Painters' Online website, by deleting the wrong person, i.e. me, rather than an AI post.  Took just one slip of a silly old fool's finger, and - I slipped.

Have a couple of oils, one 10" by 8", of a wet and windy path which I painted in the Winter but couldn't get a good photograph of, and another - which again: t'ain't perfect, but it's the best I seem to be able to do - of a more Summery bit of coastline, not far from the Wintry one I showed earlier.

I used Prussian Blue - not a colour I often use, and - now I know why.  Came around in the end, though. 

Actually a bigger painting - but let's just say I cocked up, and leave it there!  

I may have another crack at it later: but patience with technology isn't one of my stronger points. 

Goodbye Charlie, you were a champion

 

Chased her last rat, nipped the last dog tails or legs as they hung over furniture, begged for her last treat or substantial portion of my dinner - Charlie, my landlord's dog - whom I've known for just about her whole life - passed on very quickly, thank God, a few days ago.  Why I wept buckets I'm not sure: I knew she was ailing - she had been for quite a while - she was very old - she could drive you right up the wall and back down again.  In her last year, she didn't quite know where she was: she would stand stock still, look at nothing in particular, and bark; she evacuated her bowels (sorry Charlie, I know this is indelicate, but come on, you did!) right outside my door, and occasionally in the landlord's flat when she felt she needed to make a point: this is not something she'd ever have done when younger - she got ornery, forgetful, irritable, deaf - you could walk up to her from behind, and she'd suddenly jump when she caught your scent.  

My landlord, one Chris, inherited her from his mother: Charlie then imprinted on Chris's partner, the lovely Pat, who died in due course; Chris was told Charlie was vicious - she was as vicious as a marshmallow on a feather cushion once you got to know her, and vice versa.  Feisty, yes!  Absolutely she was feisty - aggressive, conscious of her status and dignity, mistress of all she surveyed: biting my second landlady in the bottom when she got cross with Chris .... oh yes: she was all of that.  But never vicious - that was a vile calumny, and if Charlie had understood it was, she'd have had your throat out......  Vicious!  Tush...  

I painted her portrait in 2017, as she flopped, in hot weather, in a crack in the paving outside my landlord's flat - she didn't pose: she got up at the most awkward moment, but!  I had thought to take a photograph, and there she is.  I miss you, dog: I expect to see you coming round the corner, wagging your tail when you realized it was me - never over friendly to other dogs (well after all, who DID they think they were, trespassing on her domain? - coming round here, sniffing her backside!  The very idea!): yapping at my door when she sensed fish and chips - she was very partial to a chip; even more so to a bit of fish in batter - chicken was popular too; a slice of pork; a bit of roast potato ... all she asked was a little consideration, a nibble, the occasional succulent slurp - and that's all she got, but she was quite reasonable about it, on the whole.  

Then, a few days ago, a gasp, a stagger - and that was it.  It could have been so much worse, and I'm grateful for her sake that it wasn't.  This may well be sentimental - yes, it probably is: but I'd rather be sentimental than as cold as a witch's wotsit - a lot of emotion was wrapped up in that dog, for all of us living here: and she deserved an In Memoriam, so - this is mine.