Sunday, 23 December 2012

Snow quilts

Mrsgunka, ManxMamma and Queen of Sheeba sent me these photos. I have to share them! Thank you all.

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art.

Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields!

The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from higher levels.

How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather.

Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations.

Simon explains:

The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise.

Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera.







Friday, 21 December 2012

Look closely

View_From_Here sent me this spectacular collection of photos. They're not what they seem... (Please click on the images to enlarge).

Thank you, View.

















Wednesday, 19 December 2012

How true!

I was a bit distracted today, so here's a quick cartoon to put a smile on your faces.


Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Living with a cat

I think this was based on Peter and Pirouette...









The real thing:


Monday, 17 December 2012

Brave mother

This is a lovely story from August 2012.

A fire broke out in a building in Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile. A German Shepherd cross called Amanda risked her life to rescue her 10-day-old puppies. She ran between the burning house and the fire truck over and over again until all puppies were safe. After rescuing all of her pups from the blaze, Amanda sat down next to them, protecting them with her body as the firefighters fought the blaze.





Unfortunately, one of the puppies suffered very severe burns and died later that day. The others survived and were reunited with Amanda after treatment.

Sunday, 16 December 2012

Mrsgunka sent me this really nice, feel good video. Thank you, MrsG.

Enjoy!



Saturday, 15 December 2012

Some comforting music

Grammy97 would like to share this lovely flash mob video with all of us:



Thank you, Grammy.

Friday, 14 December 2012

This is hard

The horror of today's events is just too much to bear.


Rest in peace, dear children.


Cold weather cartoons

Mrsgunka sent me a load of cartoons and I selected a few. I also added a couple I had saved earlier.

Stay warm!







Thank you, MrsG.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

Aww... cute!

My friend Dominique sent me this charming video. I think it's going to be too large a dose of cute for TW...

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Trompe l'oeil

Mrsgunka sent me these amazing photos of body painting. MrsG remarked : "Saw a building in Berlin that had zippers painted on each end. One end the zippers was closed and the other end was open and showed windows with flower boxes painted on the plain wall... looked absolutely real!"

I have always been fascinated by trompe l'oeil. Thank you, MrsG.