Friendly Totem

Gale force

Abstract 294

Sunset yesterday evening

These photographs were taken from my back doorstep around 5 o’clock yesterday.  The weather throughout the day had been very mixed  –  very windy, occasional brief bursts of sunshine, a little rain  and a lot of cloud.  This sunset was therefore a very pleasant and unexpected surprise.

Under the influence of Georgia O’Keefe

Abstract ‘Elegance’

Simply Blue

Abstract ‘The Gathering’

Snowdrops

 

There can be few more uplifting sights than the banks of snowdrops that appear in abundance at this time of the year.  The resilience of these small flowers never ceases to amaze, however severe the weather might be.  In fact, this particular winter has been remarkably mild   –  so far!

Boarding the ferry

 

 

 

 

Abstract ‘Synesthesia’

Just think about it! (25) How long does it take to look at a painting?

‘There have been a number of surveys of how visitors interact with paintings in museums. One found that an average viewer goes up to a painting, looks at it for less than two seconds, reads the wall text for another 10 seconds, glances at the painting to verify something in the text, and moves on. Another survey concluded people looked for a median time of 17 seconds. The Louvre found that people looked at the Mona Lisa an average of 15 seconds, which makes you wonder how long they spend on the other 35,000 works in the collection. A survey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art supposedly found that people look at artworks for an average of 32.5 seconds each, but they must not have counted the ones people glance at.’
James Elkins (Art Institute of Chicago}

In his essay Looking at Pictures, David Hockney draws a parallel with words on a page of text: it is necessary to go beyond the pattern of marks/letters on the surface to understand their meaning.

He quotes the lines of the poet George Herbert:
‘A man that looks on glass
on it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass
and then the heav’n espie’.

Under the influence of Jackson Pollock (3)

Click on the image to enlarge

Linear pattern