I've made a birthday card

It's for Liz, it's her birthday tomorrow.
The top pic is fruit bats. I remember them from returning from a  trip upriver and seeing a cloud of them. They seemed to be following the river, they were huge for bats - wingspans wide as crows. They looked as if they were returning to Castle Dracula. Such atavistic terror, and they eat fruit!

Remembering and Forgetting

"Misdirecting isn't lying."

 The sayings of Laurel's Mum #3

The book 'Subliminal'  by Leonard Mlodinow has a chapter called Remembering and Forgetting. It's a good book, basically about how your hind brain filters what you perceive before it reaches your cortex and you know about it so there's no such thing as objective perception. Anyhow, it's relevant to Laurel's story because she filters out so much - that's why it's got to be in the first person - so she can realise what she misses - and to today's pictures cos I reread the Elephant's Child the other day and though I remembered the story line I mis-remembered the detail, and the grey green Limpopo river which puts it firmly NOT in Sarawak.
Our river in Marudi was the Baram and it had crocodiles and snakes. The crocodiles were salt-water ones and not near us. The story was that they would catch people in the water and roll them and take them to their pantry, the entrance to which was underwater, where dead or dying they would be stored until the croc wanted to eat them.
I never saw a python though I ate it in a long house, I can't remember how it tasted. I do remember the Foo King café though - or maybe I misremember it and how delicious the huge prawns were. The snake I saw was little and possible poisonous. I saw it more than once, on the lane to the house, we used to pull our feet up off the pedals as we cycled past where we'd seen it. That's where the pitcher plants were too - on that nameless lane.

This print was the first I did. It's not very clear cos I forgot to brighten it:

When I'd done it I realised how fussy it was. I think there is a difference that is an improvement in the design between this one and the last one. I think the design of the gibbons is stronger and I think the cutting is better too though it might be different to tell on the blog because of today's being a bit foggy.

The sayings of Laurel's Mum #2

"Sure you can follow your dream. When you can pay for the petrol."

This is the same print  as two days ago only just in black and white. I can't decide which I like best - monochrome or coloured. I've not done the big one yet.

Not so good on the persistence today - went up to do some work on the self portrait - new brushes, trying for more tones - but it is b awful. So, do I persist or do I accept defeat on this one and start afresh. Couldn't decide so I just left it.

Here we go again

The new title sort of says why. And it's a new school year, my tenth since I retired. Maybe this is the year I learn persistence. I thought of carrying on with Little Weed but it seemed too much like hard work to remember how I formatted the posts, let alone any of the rest, so I decided to start again and this time maybe not get too fancy.

I have discovered that my laptop has a built in camera.

This is the last of my summer project -a series of prints as suggested by 'Artists & Illustrators' magazine.
I was going to do jugs but thoughts about  Kipling's Elephant's child and Henri Rousseau made me decide to do Sarawak instead.
I'm pretty sure rafflesia do grow in Sarawak though I can't remember seeing one. I wanted a carnivorous plant and pitcher plants were too hard and not colourful enough.
I do remember the gibbons and how one - at the sanctuary - got hold of the skirt of the girl who insisted that there was a proper way to boil eggs and the Malaysians didn't know how to do it. 🙊

I used acrylic paint and System 3 Block printing medium - which gives the paper a bit of a rubbery feel that I don't like, but it is much easier to clean up than the oil based ink I've got and it saves spending money and time looking for colours because I can use the paint I use for painting.
And I have just about got it done! There are 5 pics which fit together to make a 12" x 10" rectangle and separately have made enough notelets to last a life time.