My Sabbatical

After a great deal of thought I have decided to have a year’s break from blogging to give me more time to promote my art work.  With the exception of Artstack and to a lesser extent Pictify I haven’t had time to present my work on any other online galleries for several years and although I strongly believe it is impossible to sell oil and acrylic paintings online I do need to get more exposure.

Thank you so much to all the people who have followed my blogs over the years.  I really appreciated your support.

I want to start working on a lot of my online portfolios (including Pinterest) but at the moment if anyone is interested the best places to keep up to date with my work are:

https://theartstack.com/artists/gerald-shepherd

http://pictify.com/user/geraldshepherd

and my own web site http://www.ionistart.me.uk/

Many thanks again.

 

PS I may sneakily keep going with my gardening blog (Which I actually neglected last year – ditto the garden!).

 

My Diary

June scribbled her way to work with me pursuing a calligraphic trail behind her (I diligently followed the terrain but sadly the river in my mind never found the sea). I had to rush to the shopping centre down a very long list, I turned round a full stop and came home reading every thing in reverse – entering the house through a cross in the wall. While the cat turned into a point on the floor I formed a vision from building block eyes and Mecanno mouths and then converted myself like Saint Paul climbing on a horse. After June had returned from her pencil and notebook job we dressed ourselves in lichen and liverworts and went out to watch a new year being pulled out of the cupboard along with luminous skeletons that were guaranteed to shine in the dark.

My Diary

A slow motion day as I walked across the churchyard laid out on our breakfast table; I looked at tombstones while outside a blackbird looked at worms (I frivolously wondered if he could make out all the names). I watered the deserts that are allowed to touch and then found enough music in the song sheet to create a sound boat and sail away to islands that aren’t – composing a symphony for shouts and swear words as I did so. We met the family on the upper deck of a flying saucer and talked like grain cast in front of hungry chickens; eventually the old cockerel went off to work while the others went home as the toys found inside Christmas crackers. June and I wore our paper hats as we watched a group of fauns follow nymphs across an army firing range.

My Diary

June and I slept on electricity pylons, crackling as we turned over. I got up when the dog was crowned Queen. I followed her majesty along the royal three quarters of a mile, keeping an eye on the chain smoking robots that lined our path – one coughed as a modulating frequency (I would have thought it would have been digital) and I composed my thoughts backwards, arriving at the question sometime after I had found the answer. June wanted to go to town in a flying pumpkin – instead of a flying coach – and we stopped off in a stone age cave to add graffiti to the pictures of running bison: they promptly stopped, as did the background music to the film we were in – June jumped off and went back home while I moved into the adverts instead.

My Diary

I walked June to work again along the alley in the middle of a violin – I could hear someone scraping the soundboard and I was just going to investigate when a woman came down the fire escape wearing only medieval underwear (I was so amazed how modern she looked I didn’t notice she was carrying the entire central heating system). The man at the end of the telephone spoke in strong colours before I pencilled in my reply; I was actually pleased with the subtle shading of the clouds before the entire picture was washed away in the rain. When June came home I showed her the blank paper and she showed me an exact reproduction of the Elgin Marbles on her bright pink bandana. I imagined my childhood as a small boat in a very rough sea.

My Diary

I got up in the radio only darkness, sharpened the saw blade of the mysterious workman who lives under the scarred floorboards and then caught the bus in the blurred light rain. My fellow passengers had spirals for faces and I plugged my haversack into my guitar amplifier. I met the old and new king as if we were both in a vampire dream and we spoke of holidays in mansions under the sea. I made underwater sandcastles and learnt algebra from polymathematical sea urchins. I came home as a starfish able to carry five bags at a time – although two of them were empty! I had planned to stop in town to fill them but filled my pockets instead. I then walked home twice as heavy as when I started and balancing a small neutron star on my orbiting head.

My Diary

I had a through station morning even though the day stopped at the terminus. I drew signs in the sand that could only be viewed from above (the small mouse climbed onto the chair as an old lady emerged). June and I watched a rain drop race before going up the road like the big hand of a clock finding that the number twelve was not all it was made out to be – it chimed anyway as the only skyscraper in town screamed; the baker came out to see what the noise was and I noticed he did not have any butter on his bread. The adults watched the letters of the alphabet dance without ever managing to make any words while I played with the children. I herded dragons in the fairy tale farm and then the dragons herded me. I ended up in the barn with the sheep.