Painted ladies

I'm still struggling to write at the moment. If only I'd have a three day stretch where my energy levels were similar - or even three separate days, at regular intervals, which were roughly the same. Anyway, whilst I've not been writing, I have been continuing with this portrait-painting.

I have painted my two grandmothers and don't really know how to feel about these paintings. Here is my maternal grandmother. The thing is, this is the most cheerful expression I could coax her into (she does smile sometimes, but this was her photoface, as it were). Also, this is someone who laments the ravages of time on her looks and is of a generally sensitive disposition, so I guess I also approached the subject more nervously. It does look like my Gran, but it isn't a particularly nice picture.

This is the famous Granny Kelly. I'm much happier with this painting, but don't really know what it was that I did which makes this so much better than the other one. Or perhaps that's entirely my perception? I don't know.

Shortly, I'm hoping to get fed up of painting portraits at the same time as having the mental capacity to go back to my book. If not then I will probably have painted every living blood relative by Christmas.

I have also been sorting out shopping bags. Plastic-bags are an enormous red-herring in discussions of waste and recycling. For every plastic bag you use at the supermarket, you are probably purchasing two or three times as much waste plastic wrapped around your food and household products. Of course excessive packaging provides advertising space, so the financially interested parties concentrate on plastic bags, and this of course places the ultimate onus on the consumer.

However, these is an alternative you can design yourself; the cotton bags cost 90p each from Fred Aldous and the fabric paint was free on account of my friend Vic giving me all of hers (but you can also get fabric paint from Aldous). Really, I should not use fabric paint at all because I spill every fluid that comes within three feet of me and, well, it dyes stuff. So there are always drops and smudges where there weren't supposed to be. But they fold up real small and fit into a pocket. Not a jeans pocket, but a decent sized pocket you might have on your coat.