Sketching Outdoors.

 

Top: The crossroads at the top of this hill on Thoresby Estate was part of my route to Primary School.

Middle: Thoresby Hall.

Bottom: I call it the Witch's Bench, Sherwood Forest. 

All artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig. 

Paint September. Mars Chocolates "Celebrations".

  #PaintSeptember was a Twitter art challenge.

Paint September. Clouds.

  

 

#PaintSeptember was a Twitter art challenge.

All artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Bridges over the River Trent, Nottingham.

 

Top to bottom: Wilford Toll Bridge, Wilford Suspension Bridge, Trent Bridge, and Lady Bay Bridge.


All artwork copyright ian gordon craig.

Newstead Abbey.

 

I find it hard to make something creative out of formal gardens. Hence converting my Newstead Abbey observations to moonlight.

All artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Thoresby Park.

 Thoresby Park. I call it the Homelands.

  I have decided the best days for a stroll around my favourite Dukery sites are those which threaten rain showers and deter the public. I had the place almost totally to myself today.

 All text, artwork & photography copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

A little more stable.

I seem to do so little at present, that it’s difficult to post any kind of meaningful update.

I had my 2nd Astra Zeneca vaccination, after the shingles had cleared, very lucky to have had only a mild case. My general health and state of mind has improved of late. Looking back a few months, I think I was in quite a “dark” place without realising it. So many things changed all at once: I remember happily sitting in the sun outside the Harley Gallery, Summer 2019, having been exhibited and sold there, after which a veritable tsunami of distressing events swept in, culminating with this covid epidemic.

Ironically, it was getting ill with shingles, which seems to have helped sort me out. With nothing much to do but rest, I kept repeating to myself: “Stop thinking about anything right now. Just rest. Get better, and then decide what it is you WANT to do”. More significantly, what things do I NOT want to do any more. That’s when peace of mind started to settle in. Long may it last.

Never dwell on the fact that things will never be the same again. Ask yourself, “How much of it would you even want it to be?”

All text copyright ian gordon craig.

Shingles.

 

I am on Aciclovir anti-virals. Had to delay my 2nd Covid jab. Government's own Yellow Pages site suggests Shingles side effect from vax. If so, no-one will ever accept the responsibility.

All text & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Early evening catch-up.

  It’s that time of the year, at that time of the evening, when the seasons could as well be slipping away from winter as moving into it. Walking back from the garage shop I see vapor trails once again in the evening sky, which have been absent during the lockdowns. I kind of missed them, and the familiarity of the patterns they leave as they descend to far away Midlands Airport.

I’m not sure when the current lockdown ends. I think quite soon. Even so, I doubt that will change my life all that much from what it has recently become, with its pandemic concerns. Last year, what with all the duties associated with Power of Attorney and Probate, my nose was pressed to the computer screen and its endless paperwork. I think it was stress and exhaustion which brought on the night sweats and palpitations. Now the paper-chase has ended, the sweats and palpitations seem to be over. Moving on…

All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Illustrations.

 

I have re-worked these two "intended illustrations" for “my intended novel”. Having kept the individual scans, I only had to drop them all into Photoshop, and clean them up a little so as to be clearer for possible Kindle publishing. Truth be told, I think I am extending the "intended project" too far. The chapters would be enough.

All text & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

More lockdown sketches.

 Above: Forest Fields, Nottingham, where I was tested for Covid and received my 1st vaccination.


All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Sketching inside & outside.

 All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Happy New Year. Ring out the old.

 

Ring out the old.

 The lockdown feels like it lasted the whole of 2020, although I think it was short of that. I really have no idea. Nor do I have specific memories of anything which broke the monotony as each blank day followed the one before.

The past two or three months before Christmas were defined by endless sheets of official paperwork spreading across the lounge carpet nearest the computer and the phone, as I ploughed my way through the obstacles lining the route from Power of Attorney to funeral arrangements to Probate. That will be my abiding memory of 2020. I now move on.

I have spent recent lockdown time reorganising my artworks as they appear on the internet, even going so far as to link them with the places they depict to their location on Google maps. Looking at those maps, I was shocked at the changes which have taken place in just the last five years, but mostly at how the pandemic itself has caused several to be listed as “closed permanently”. I shall miss the Big Fish. There have also been personal closures of a different kind, and look now for changes yet to come.


All text & photography copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Merry Christmas.

 

All photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

M-m-m-My Corona part 17. The Covid Pandemic, UK, 2020.

 M-m-m-My Corona part 17. Epilogue.

Tonight’s sunset reminded me of the first oil painting I did, albeit that one was actually meant to be a sunrise. But the low sun and silhouetted purple clouds? Exactly the same.

Lots of things at present are invoking memories of the past. I think I’m really tired. And when I get tired, rather than resting, I start finding things to occupy my thoughts. Not that I’ve been short of things to do. The sequence of responsibilities from Power of Attorney, to managing care home costs, to organising a funeral, to applying for Probate in order to then execute a Last Will and Testament, all against the current backdrop of lockdowns and restricted movements, took their toll.

I have been attempting to write another journal piece about this pandemic year, but to no avail. What is there to say about a life style of government-imposed rules, restrictions and lockdowns, interrupted by little other than trips to the grocery store?

I shall endeavor to rest my brain over the Christmas season.

 All text & artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

R. I. P. Shelley.

 

R. I. P. Shelley.

I just heard the sad news via Facebook. Quite a shock, even after all these years. One always assumes the people one was close to in the past, and had meaningful relationships with, are still out there somewhere, happy and healthy. Sometimes it's not so. She passed away September 2020. I don't know the cause, but the date corresponds to the Covid epidemic. I hope there was no pain.

Shelley Burton was an important person to me during the 1980’s, even though we were never destined to be together for life. During the two and a half years in which we were happily “an item”, she was both muse and motivator. The reason I exhibited well in the Nottingham Opens during the 1980’s, and indeed almost made it on to the wall in a Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, was down to her.

 All text & artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Magritte in mind.

 

 When Magritte said on one of his paintings "This is not a pipe". (Rough translation). He was right. It wasn't a pipe. It was a painting of a pipe.

All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

My Poem for the Pandemic. "Schoolyard Silence".

 

 

Pandemic Poem.

What day is it today?
How to make my time go by?
The street is filled with schoolyard silence,
No vapour trails in the sky.

It is the day of Lockdown.
Everyone's inside.
Nobody to visit the dying,
Nobody to hear them cry.

 This poem was included in my book "46 Contemporary Poems", self-published and available on Amazon UK.

 Poem & photograph copyright Ian Gordon Craig

M-m-m-My Corona part 16. The Covid Pandemic, UK, 2020.

 M-m-m-My Corona part 16.

I had intended to write something today about the current and on-going Covid situation. Not necessarily from a personal perspective, but also a historical one. For example, more civilians have already died from this virus in the last 8 months than died in the whole of the Second World War. So they are telling us. Whether they died from Covid or Covid was simply present, is not known. There are questions to ask. There may not be answers.

But my creative mind is currently blank. Erased no doubt by this pandemic situation: A time when both everything and nothing seem to be happening at one and the same time. Like knowing the world is still going round but, from the comfort of the lockdown armchair and from behind the face mask, who can tell?

It will pass.


All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Portrait November.

 A series of "fun" self-portraits in the style of various artists. Top to bottom: Braque, Gauguin, Magritte,  Modigliani, Picasso, Warhol. #PortraitNovember was a Twitter art challenge.

Artwork copyright Ian Gordon Craig.