SEASON'S GREETINGS

To everyone who visits me here  I send my sincere appreciation and every good wish for this season of good will and hope for a future with fewer flaws than the present but with all of its joys extended ad infinitum.

Here's my Nativity image. Interpret it any way you wish. The original version comes from a book of a suite of my ink drawings published by The Old Stile Press in 2010: Scenes from the Life of Jesus. The colours in this version are digitally created.

Walnuttian

No, but seriously, the most interesting thing is the way the two halves of the 'Walnuttian' brain, whilst being different, are joined in this remarkably...yes, tender...way.

I've outlined and highlighted the two sections in my photo of the walnut. See what I mean? Maybe our current brains are responsible for so much conflict because, um, we've lost that loving feeling?

I see a woman and child. What do you see?

BRAINY

I've just made a world-shaking, probably Nobel prize-winning, jaw-dropping discovery.

We are descended from walnuts.

Proof? Below is the incontrovertible visual proof.

Once upon a time there was a much more advanced civilization inhabited by beings with brains shaped exactly like walnuts. Our current brains are a de-volved, deteriorated version of the much more interesting and effective original. We can still glimpse its splendid earlier form by observing a walnut.

As you see in the photo I've just taken and placed next to a standard brain diagram, there's no split between the two halves in the wondrous walnutbrain: left and right are tenderly, harmoniously joined. Simple really.

I will now eat the proof and go to bed. Amazing what revelations can occur at 4 am.

SHOULDISM SEASON

Here's a self-page-turning catalogue of some of my past bookworks and boxworks. I think I may have posted this before but anyway, no harm in repeating, is there? It's best viewed on full screen. In case you can't get the full-size with the preview below, try going to this link.




SHOULDISM:
What is it about 'should'? Not a particularly good word or sound but it's okay, not a problem. Until you start putting it in front of almost every sentence you speak to yourself. This is the season of Should.

I Should send cards. No, I Should make cards and then send them. I Should make my own cards, it's so much more personal, it shows I really care and also shows how talented I am. I Should be doing more. It's the end of 2016 and what have I done? A whole Shoulding year gone by and my To Do list is still where it was last year. Now it's ten past four in the afternoon and I'm writing this instead of finishing that thing I Should have finished about a month ago. Should. Should. Schouldschouldschouldschouldschould.....

SELFIE SURVEY

 

Funny thing about selfies. They're everywhere. Why are we so fascinated by our reflection? Narcissus?

 For me, it's like those identity parades where a presumed witness is asked to point out the presumed guilty person. I'm trying to find out if I'm the same person I think I am. Which means, I suppose, the one I WAS. When? Yesterday? 20 years ago? Or much much further back? Am I guilty of nostalgia? Choosing a time when I was "really" me, as opposed to the more-or-less me whose selfie you're now seeing? It's a puzzle.

I used to paint a self-portrait nearly every year - much better kind of selfie, commonly practiced by the A-list (just noticed that A-list sound like Elites - ha!) of artists through the centuries.

That's about all I have to say on this subject for now. What do you think, if anything, about photos of yourself, taken by you or anyone else?

NECESSARY FACTS

Politics schmolitics, some facts are too important to ignore. I'll change the subject next time but right now I must share this important article.