I've started another painting a few days ago. One that I've wanted to do for quite some time and never got around to doing it.
It's a lot of work, many layers, loads of fine detail meaning painting each leaf with a small brush.

Not finished yet!

First session



3rd session:



4th session, where I'm at now:

The Mac used to be the only drive-through for years, decades.
Now there are a few more, Kentucky is one of them.

I hardly ever go there as I have to drive 45 mins to get there at a shitty 80km per hour.
With the steep petrol prices (E1,85-E2,08 per liter) it'd become quite the expensive meal.
No matter how much I love the occasional McTasty, not worth it to drive that far.

I only do it when I have to be in that area around dinner time. Which occurs less than once a year.

Countdown - series -2025
About a secret taskforce.
Promising for sure!

Only 3 eps right now, tomorrow nr 4 will be aired.

Sounds good, Toody!

Thinking... it's been a while since I was last here.
The site logged me out and having seen a plethora of x-rated topics on the board I couldn't be bothered to look up my login password.
Today I decided to have a look around :)
Seems the content is back to normal.

Thank you, Julie! :D

Dept. Q is a great series! - 2025
British crime. Experienced police officer gets shoved out of sight in a meaningless new department to investigate cold cases.
I hope it gets renewed for season 2.

Smoke - 2025 - series
Excellent series on a former firefighter, now arson investigator.

Only 2 episodes so far, it's only just been released, 3rd episode is next week.

It took a long time this year for summer to arrive!
The only drawback is the strong wind, making it impossible to sit outdoors in spite of the sun and otherwise lovely temperature.

Today is going to be 28C, then couple days of even warmer weather: 30-34C.
That's too much for me, but nevertheless happy that summer's here!

I've got loads of cornflowers, chamomile, poppies daisies and so on.
The first flowering of my roses was overwhelming, so beautiful!

Anywho, enjoy summer!

Thank you, Kristie!

OT -----------
Made a new smaller painting. It was a request. Made it for the man who's helping me out in the frontyard. He removed a ton of unwanted stuff.
He wanted to do that whether he got something for it or not as he needs to stay busy. It's therapeutic for him.
Then he saw my paintings and asked if I could do one for him.
I figured it was a fair enough deal :)

He's really happy with it but he'd love a flying seagull. I will add that for him.

Thinking... the garden has had enough water for now!
It's been chucking it down all day. Cats can't go out and I just got soaking wet from cycling 400 meters to the supermarket and 400 back!
Wearing a woolly hat to keep my hair dry and my thick winter jacket which is water resistant.
Totally insane at this time a year. I cannot recall ever having this weather in May before.

Then had to scoop a ton of moss out of the garage's gutter as it was clogged by it. Took me 10 mins.

My jeans soaked, can almost wring out my winter jacket and my woolly hat.
Thursday we're going to get more rain...
I worked so hard on a new section of my garden, at this rate it's all going to chit!

Thank you!

I got myself a new Christmas tree last year, the old one had had it. That was large, so is the new one :)
I too love having it up, cosy lighting etc, but it does take away quite a lot of light where I'm usually sat so at a certain point I'm fed up with that.

Thank you so much, Merry!

Happy to hear you enjoyed seeing the progress of the painting!
I've got the seascape up on a wall. Made space for that one, haha. Had to take another one down as I simply don't have free wall space anymore.

You're kidding me?! No Christmas trees allowed after my birthday!! Which was May 13th.

Thank you so much, Sir!
I keep challenging myself the last couple of years so I'm learning new techniques, how to paint new things etc. I really enjoy that!

Thank you, Julie :)

Enola Holmes 1 & 2.
I really enjoyed them!

Thank you, Julie :)

I now see I never got to post the finished version of the other one as the forum wasn't accessible for quite some time.

This is the Scottish landscape finished:




And I did another one after that, a seascape :)
Somewhere off the coast of Guernsey.

Thank you, JaanDoh!
I have been thinking to at some point have them published as an oracle card deck.
At first I didn't have enough paintings, but now I do :)

----------------------------

My latest painting, not entirely finished but close to...

I started a new painting a couple of days ago, based on the beautiful roses and daisies that are flowering in my garden.

This is the first session, trying to paint in yet a different style than I've ever done before. I was in doubt when done with this, I'm not really a flower painter either, but seeing it the next morning I felt I could really work with this!





Second session I had this:





Right now, after the 4th session, I got this and I'm really happy with it. I will add a few more things, then I will call it a finished painting :)

Right before the war began and tensions were very high, I looked up what it was all about.
If that was correct, it is the US that caused this.

What I read... Ukraine wants to be part of the west and as such it had to join NATO, whether it wanted that or not.
NATO = US basically, forcing other countries to allow their military bases and meddling in the member countries.

If Ukraine would join the west and for that had to join NATO America could also have bases on Russia's doorstep and Russia did not want that.
Can you blame them?
I can't. Quite logical. You don't want your arch enemy that close, within shooting and spying distance.

The whole "join the west, MUST join NATO & MUST allow military bases" is what caused this shizzel to occur.

If Russia had had a similar thing with Mexico and would then be able to have Russian military bases on America's doorstep we'd have a war as well.
America would go ballistic, just like what happened with Russia & Ukraine.

They could've sorted it, saved everyone a helluva lot of money and save a lot of lives if a compromise had been made:
Allow Ukraine to join the west to trade etc. WITHOUT the military bases.

Again, if this info is correct then I totally understand why Russia did what it did.
Doesn't mean I agree with this war or what has happened and is happening, but I do agree America should take its finger out of every pie in the world.

As it is there aren't even a handful of countries that could take on America if need be.
Russia is one of them.

The ones that want & try to control the world also reside in the US for a big part, although these days I do suspect also in the EU.
That means we cannot have the US be all-powerful.

Personally I'm not chuffed about the opposing countries that (can) keep the balance, but without them America would be way too powerful.

In any case, based on that info I read, this war could have been prevented if only a compromise was reached. For instance no NATO bases in Ukraine.
I believe Russia would have agreed, albeit cautiously.
I believe the only reason it escalated is that America refused to even think of backing down from having military bases in Ukraine.

This whole "Yes, join the west, it's great!!" thing is just a (American) power scheme to get military bases in as many countries as possible.
The ultimatum of "yes you can join, but only if you allow our bases" is sheer manipulation and part of a carefully construed plan.

At least Russia is smart enough to see that.

The result of that scheme is what has been going on in Ukraine since.

Ooooh, that's a bummer! Hopefully you'll succeed at getting another one!