Summer Effervescence!

You probably have guessed from my last posts that I wasn’t at home ...... I was away in Franconia; a wee bit of staycation with a lot of family biz going on, so my pastels have become indolent. Not a great fan of declaring that I'm not at home but now I'm back it’s time to hit the easel again and Ophelia is still waiting. In the meantime I've still got some sketches of Franconia to post but today I feel I need a bit of summer, lightheaded and colourful so here is one of my most favourite paintings, Summer Effervescence!

Look at those little bubbles of summer fun popping up on the surface; laughter, cocktails, travels....... all of those things that are missing in summer 2020, lets hope that summer 2021 brings all of those joys.

 The summer accessory of 2020 in Germany and in many other countries is the mask! Who would have thought it but here we've been wearing them since the end of April; in supermarkets, public transport and since the re-opening of beer gardens, in beer gardens/restaurants to enter/go to the loos and museums. Do they help? I can’t tell you, I'm not a doctor or a scientist but what they are effective in doing is acting as a reminder of the fact that life hasn’t returned to normal and we are in the middle of a pandemic. I'm tired of listening to petty arguments about ''personal freedom'', masks are restrictive, annoying, my glasses steam up, sweaty and just a general pain and that’s just for the time I'm in a supermarket, bus or museum...... let’s spare a minute to think of  those people who have to work in them all day; 9 or 10 hours and then reconsider moaning about 20 minutes in the supermarket!