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Simon Rae

@simonrae.bsky.social
129 followers 216 following 161 posts

retired Lecturer in Professional Development at the Open University now doing drawings for pleasure… holder of a #LTHEchat Golden Tweeter Award

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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Do you listen to Radio…? Surprise yourself… tune into Resonance or Resonance Extra www.resonancefm.com extra.resonance.fm They need money to stay Independent and Ad Free Donate via their Fundraiser page fundraiser.resonance.fm
fundraiser.resonance.fm
Support Independent Radio - Resonance Fundraiser 2026
Resonance is a listener-powered artist-led radio station with a mission to make space for art, music and ideas under-represented elsewhere.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
#RIP BRUCE LACEY 31 March 1927 – 18 February 2016 British artist, performer and eccentric content.theartsdesk.com/film/bruce-l...
content.theartsdesk.com
Bruce Lacey: Art's Great Adventurer
“Bruce Lacey has had this unbelievable career,” says the Turner prizewinning artist Jeremy Deller. “His is an alternative version of British art history - people didn't seem to know that Bruce has int...
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Excellent quote… ”Every day, Computers are making people easier to use” Dave Karpf From Friday 26th September Memex 1.1, John Naughton's substack open.substack.com/pub/johnnaug... #LTHEchat @lthechat.bsky.social
open.substack.com
Memex 1.1 | John Naughton | Substack
John Naughton's online diary. Click to read Memex 1.1, by John Naughton, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
If you haven’t already please VOTE. (This only applies to the UK which is currently in the grip of Council Elections.) (I’m not advocating that you vote for any specific party, that’s up to you, but I’m just keen on there being as large a turnout as possible.)
Poster with the word VOTE in different colours arranged down the poster.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
#LTHEchat Thanks Sally and Phil, that was fun… hope you got lots of pointers for your next book!
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Magic pink underpainting of those clouds… #Art #Sunset
Photo taken through the window of the sunset… the gold, the pink, the trees… beautiful!
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
#inmotion The coach has left the Coach House where it sleeps and is currently bowling down the High Street to the pub… #PrintPromptMonday - OK, I know it’s Tuesday but I overslept!
Black and white Lino print of the Coach House, a small residence with a central front door at ground level with a hay entrance above and a wide entrance for the coach on the right. A weathervane sits on the peak of the roof and trees boarder both sides of the house. Underneath the house is a legend that reads COACH HOUSE.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
working in #Galleries, #Libraries, #Archives, or #Museums Call for abstracts: Citizen Science: Theory and Practice Journal Special Collection “Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities in Participatory Science from a GLAM Perspective.” Submissions via: forms.gle/tZmaSEPixgAU... Deadline: Feb 28th
forms.gle
CSTP Special Collection Abstract Submission Form
Thank you for your interest in submitting an abstract for this Citizen Science: Theory and Practice (CSTP) Special Collection entitled "Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities in Participatory Science ...
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
#RIP Bruce Lacey Top chap - miss him. #Artist en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_L... en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... www.theguardian.com/artanddesign... camdenartcentre.org/whats-on/the... www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/... www.trunkrecords.com/releases/bru... youtu.be/vNa5L8Yd31A?...
en.m.wikipedia.org
Bruce Lacey - Wikipedia
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Indoors. Jug on a table. #printpromptmonday
Black and white Lino-cut print of a large jug standing on a patterned tablecloth in front of a white painted brick wall.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Two naive black and white prints… #PrintPromptMonday #IntotheWild The Gate leading out, and Big Trees.
A black and white wood panel print showing a five-bar farm gate between two gate posts flanked by hedgerows.A black and white Lino print showing three big tree shapes growing from a verdant undergrowth.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
OK, #AI question… These #LLM based GenAI apps are ‘trained’ on a huge amount of #data But what data exactly? Like all of the Gutenberg Project or Google Books…? Sounds a bit WASP to me. And what about copyright? Are these things trained on data that is mainly ‘western’? Help please… #LTHEchat
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Listening to this late… I'm going to have nightmares Assessment - Forget free will, the generative AI will have decided it all for you, all we need to do is press the button. (PS - did you know all our student data has been given to the machine?) #LTHEchat #AI www.linkedin.com/posts/helen-...
linkedin.com
Helen Beetham on LinkedIn: I'm delighted to bring you an Imperfect Offering x Second Breakfast…
I'm delighted to bring you an Imperfect Offering x Second Breakfast podcast, talking Trump, cybernetics and generative AI with the original and unbeaten tech…
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Jean Tinguely… www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... I wonder what a collaboration between Jean Tinguely and Nick Park would have generated…?
lrb.co.uk
Daniel Soar · On Jean Tinguely
This is what’s weird about Tinguely: what should be forbidding and abstract – mechanised geometries, industrial...
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Perhaps a bit more needed… WI-FI is a must these days and Power/Energy to run everything - which inevitably drags in Infrastructure and Contracts etc Mind you, if we could all achieve Digital Wellbeing it would help! (@lthechat.bsky.social Helen Beetham)
A modified Maslow’s Triangle.
Starting from the top: 
Digital Wellbeing;
Self Actualization;
Self Esteem;
L❤️ve;
Safety;
Phisiological …?*!!!;
WIFI;
POWER
Infrastructure, Contracts,
Green, Ecological, Profit;
GAIA.

This was done very quickly on an iPad in response to a question during a weekly #LTHEchat session on the need for Digital Wellbeing in HE.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Looks good… www.npg.org.uk/whatson/even... #WomensArt #WomeninArt NPG #Computing
npg.org.uk
The legacy of Ada Lovelace - National Portrait Gallery
Join us for a special event at the Gallery celebrating Ada Lovelace, whose portrait is currently on loan from the Government Art Collection
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Yes… thank you all. Got me thinking. Isn’t your student’s failure in assessments not just their failure on the course but also your failure to teach them? Maximise your teaching success by making the assessment fit the student and help them to pass. #LTHEchat
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Visited a small museum in Valadon’s birthplace near #Limoges some years back… en.visitlimousin.com/stay/leisure... #WomensArt
Photo taken in Musée Espace Valadon (https://en.visitlimousin.com/stay/leisure-activities-and-facilities/cultural-activities-in-limousin/musee-espace-valadon-bessines-sur-gartempe-en-4130865/) in 2019 showing a view of a studio space in homage to Suzanne Valadon in her birthplace near Limoges. 

At the top left is a painted canvas of a female nude sitting on a white cushion. On the right is a canvas on a fabulous curly easel showing a portrait head of a woman. At the bottom is a wooden print rack with some prints and sheets of drawings stacked in it. The floor is tiled in plain pottery tiles. The walls are white. A bedspread is pinned to the wall behind a red stuffed settee. Several blank canvases and an easel are propped up against the wall.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Call for Papers Feminist Media Histories: An International Journal Special Issue on Craftwork within the Digital Guest Editors: Christina Corfield & Whitney Trettien online.ucpress.edu/DocumentLibr... #WomenInArt
online.ucpress.edu
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
This weekend I came across Hannah Ryggen (1894-1970), a truly astonishing textile #artist from Norway. nkim.no/en/hannah-ry... Her work was considered so offensive in 1937 that it was #censored. #WomensArt See also: theconversation.com/reading-pica... @theconversation.com
Hannah Ryggen, "Drømmedød" (1935). Foto: Anders S, Solberg

Drømmedød / Death of Dreams (1936)

The tapestry is an eerie narrative over the death of hope, as well as the Nazi imprisonment and torture of innocents. Here we see a representation of the pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Carl von Ossietzky, who was sentenced to death for treason. He holds a caduceus, in which the top is shaped like a heart. The heart symbolizes hope and tolerance, but may also symbolize mourning.

Above description copied from the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum website.

The image is of a tapestry mostly brown in colour. The top third shows prisoner’s faces behind bars. In the centre is a full figure hanging down held by several blood-stained captors. The bottom two thirds is plain brown with a central vertical panel of a repeated squared logo design. The overall image is almost that of a large bed with heads at the top lying on pillows and a patterned bedspread pulled up from the foot of the bed.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Well… that was fun! Thanks everyone.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
AI, Language Learning, and Comparative Literature. An Interview with Dr @thorstenries.bsky.social (pp. 7-13) discusses the impact of #AI on the #humanities disciplines and on #teaching e.g. the challenges of motivation, and social effects of AI on learners utexas.box.com/s/gm8yuat7t8... #LTHEchat
utexas.box.com
2023-2024 Comp Lit Newsletter final.pdf | Powered by Box
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Sage advice… with worrying energy implications. Who knew feedback could eat up so many resource - and not just teacher time! #LTHEchat #AI
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
That was fun… ChatGPT on my iPad thanks everyone for letting it have it’s say, and obviously it comes with a health warning 🚫 Thanks all
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
We’ve just watched Episode 6 of #Patience on @channel4.bsky.social but can’t find out the full cast… Anyone know who played the bad female Superintendent who had tried to halt the enquiry? Tried @IMDb and @radiotimes.bsky.social but no luck… CGI or AI? Nah, they’re not that good yet.
Publicity photo for PATIENCE a TV show on Channel 4.

The photo shows the two main characters in the show.

On the left is Ella Maisy Purvis who plays Patience Evans, a young autistic woman, working in a clerical role in the basement of the City of York police station. She is wearing a red roll neck sweater under a dark jacket. She has blond centre parted hair and is wearing noise cancelling headphones.

On the right and slumped slightly lower is Laura Fraser who plays Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf in the City of York police. She is wearing a turquoise silk blouse under a dark jacket. She has dark shoulder length hair.

They are standing between shelves in an archive of police reports.
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Jack Blackburn @hackblackburn.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Amazing story in today’s Times After more than 85 years, lost lists of Kindertransport evacuees have been found, allowing them and their descendant to track their history Many never knew they were part of the Kindertransport beta.epaper.thetimes.co.uk/app/THETIM/e... #history #holocaust #hmd80
beta.epaper.thetimes.co.uk
The Times e-Paper
The Times e-Paper
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
How's this #monochrome image #OnlineArtExchange… A faded black and white furniture catalogue circa 1900 from Heal and Son for Chairs and Table fixed to one of the Tables in the lovely Broadway Gallery, Letchworth Garden City. www.broadway-gallery.com Go see it… @artukdotorg.bsky.social
A faded black and white furniture catalogue from Heal and Son for Chairs and Table.

It is a two page spread, chairs and table on the left and curtained dresser on the right. Below these headings are faded photos of the items of furniture. Below the photos are details of size and price. In the bottom left corner is a square logo for Heal and Son.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
A thought post #LTHEchat… Is a student's response to an assignment a form of #feedback on your #teaching? So that would mean your feedback on their #assignment would be feedback on their feedback… Does this change the dynamic?
Laurillard's Conversational Framework

Essentially the diagram shows the relationship between student and teacher and the interflow of theory, ideas, conceptions and feedback etc.

Google Laurillard's Conversational Framework for more details.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
To @lthechat.bsky.social @profsallybrown.bsky.social @kaysambell.bsky.social #LTHEchat The first Golden LTHEchat award of 2025! Fabulous night, give yourselves and everyone 10/10, A++ or whatever. You don't need feedback to know you done good!
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Anna Landre @annalandre.com · 07/01/2025
Do you know a UK-based wheelchair user who works in a lab and would be willing to user-test our prototype of what is believed to be the first-ever lab coat adapted for wheelchair users? Please share far & wide! Interest form: forms.office.com/e/66FhcQjqRT More info: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/new...
Two photos of Anna, a young white woman using an electric wheelchair, wearing a blue lab coat that fits her well with tables and dry-lab equipment in the background. Text reads: "A team of researchers and designers led by UCL is looking for wheelchair users working in wet lab environments to user-test what is believed to be the first-ever prototype of a lab coat adapted for wheelchair users."
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
A depressing article about a new style of #terrorism - seemingly random acts of terrible violence driven by nothing… Depressing because one feels instinctively that nothing will be done to fix it… thecritic.co.uk/the-nihilism...
thecritic.co.uk
The nihilism of newcomers | Chris Bayliss | The Critic Magazine
It came as no surprise when, on the last Friday before Christmas, a man of Middle Eastern origin drove his car at high speed into a crowd of families at a Christmas market in Germany…
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Merry Christmas
Black and white cartoon of Santa, a tree, and a reindeer.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Spent the evening watching #Yesterday… fabulous film that reminded me of how exciting the #Beatles were back in the day when I first heard them cranked up loud on a low-fi record player playing their first #LPs that I’d got for Christmas… I’d almost forgotten. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterd...
en.wikipedia.org
Yesterday (2019 film) - Wikipedia
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Erasmus+ empowers students through opportunities to study, work, and grow across Europe. Join us in bringing this programme back to the UK. www.europeanmovement.co.uk/this_is_eras...
europeanmovement.co.uk
This is Erasmus
Erasmus+ empowers students through opportunities to study, work, and grow across Europe. Join us in bringing this programme back to the UK
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
#RIP Don Van Vliet Jan 15 1941 – Dec 17 2010 American visual artist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist known by the stage name Captain Beefheart Trout Mask Replica youtube.com/playlist?lis... #Music #Artist
youtube.com
Trout Mask Replica [2022 Remix by Ant Man Bee] - YouTube
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
This sentiment as the final sentence sums it all up for me… “It would be better for universities to stop thinking of students as numbers and more as real people,” #AI #Assessment
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Sally Brown @profsallybrown.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
I am a excited because on the 8th of January @kaysambell.bsky.social &I will be doing the 1st ever #LTHEchat on BlueSky talking about feedback.If you’ve never been on 1 before in the other place,we post a blog in advance & from 8-9 pm uk time we post 6questions for a worldwide community to answer
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Bizarre sensation this morning listening to Bob and Roberta Smith presenting Make Your Own Damn Music on radio #Resonance 104FM Felt like an actual part of the artwork, not just a listener Felt manipulated like the oil paint on one of his canvasses Normally a reader or a viewer but not a material
A painting by Bob and Roberta Smith RA
Make Your Own Damn Art
2010.
Oil on board. 1005 mm x 999 mm x 64 mm. 
© Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/make-your-own-damn-art

The image is made up of the words from the title of the painting painted in bright block letters in stripes across the painting which appears to be planks of wood laid horizontally and fashioned into a square. Nail heads are just visible at the end of the planks. 

MAKE is in red on a buff background, YOUR is in pale blue on a red background, OWN is mostly in pale blue on a dark blue background, DAMN is in red on a buff background and is noticeably narrower than the other words, MUSIC is in green outlined in red on a black background.

All the letter have a slight shadow which gives a 3D effect.
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Sundance @sundance.bikesky.social · 06/12/2024
A friend of mine just reminded me how important it is for us to use alt text. We discuss plenty of other urbanism modifications like curb cuts, bike lanes and access ramps pretty often IMO, alttext should be mentioned in the same breath. It means a lot to many folks on the platform
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Alice Sheppard @penguingalaxy.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
To everyone who uses alt text, thank you. I can see. But my eyes are terrible. Without glasses, I can see things clearly if they're 5cm from my eyes. Even with new glasses, I can only see so much. Many websites have fonts too small for me. But also, it helps me get all the cultural references :-)
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Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
"The portrait of Francis Williams is the only painting ever made of Halley’s comet in 1759, on its momentous first predicted return." What a fabulous story! A long read for a long weekend: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... #histsci #Astronomy
lrb.co.uk
Fara Dabhoiwala · A Man of Parts and Learning: Francis Williams Gets His Due
The only certainty about the picture is that it shows Francis Williams. No one has ever been able to discover who...
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Lots of sawing and building work on a remixed episode of Bob and Roberta’s Make Your Own Damn Music on radio ResonanceFM104 to accompany my morning porridge making as he explores the urgency of facilitating every child’s Right to Art which involves breaking down a lot of walls. www.resonancefm.com
Cartoon face wearing glasses and a pink T-shirt. The caption reads:

“Can you afford creativity?”

The image is signed @simonrae
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Sara Houston @sarahouston.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
This’ll be good. Online European Dance Development Network event on 29th November led by my longtime collaborator Monica Gillette www.ednetwork.eu/activities/d...
ednetwork.eu
How Can We Move?
EDN's online event of the year.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
I’d love to see what my town would look like without all the paraphernalia of cars…
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Arggg… Listening to fabulous radio program on #Resonance 104FM playing classical music and talking to classical musicians Elgar, 3 Counties Festival, opera, trumpets 🎺🎺, Debussy But it's from the Archive… don't know who what or when 🙁 www.resonancefm.com
Close up photo of 4 ears of corn

Wheat colour against a black background
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Mother Frog Slut // Steward of Giant Reptiles @toadcialism.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I say this with love: use alt text, and READ alt text even if you aren’t visually-impaired. It saves me and other herpers from having to say our pets’ species a zillion times and provides context during slow load times! Alt text makes this place better for everyone, and part of Bsky culture!
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Butter Pecan Ice Cream Connoisseur @moniselseward.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I saw some posts (?) about what should be left at the Sunken Place. Can we add the trend of posting pics w/o Alt Text? I'm especially looking at Educators. If you do it here, you do it in the classroom. Stop. #Accessibility #Teachers
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Adam M Ibbotson 🏺 @adamibbotson.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
🌟⭐️GIVE AWAY ⭐️🌟 Get your hands on a copy of the 2nd Edition of my book 'Cumbria's Prehistoric Monuments. 🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟 TO ENTER, LIKE AND REPOST THIS POST!! 🤩 [A winner will be randomly selected a week from now! Good luck!] #archaeology #StandingStoneSunday #giveaway
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
An oil pastel drawing done in New Quay, Wales some time ago.
A drawing done from the window of the cottage we were staying in for a week in New Quay, Wales in October. 

In the foreground is a municipal carpark and toilet block. Beyond are the brightly painted buildings on the quayside. Then comes the green fields on the far side of the bay below a fairly threatening sky.

I used oil pastels which sometimes turned on their side to get a straight edge line.

And yes, they are messy! I try to remember to wear a latex glove on my drawing hand to keep clean 🙂.
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Simon Rae @simonrae.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
A6 #LTHEchat Don’t know it possible to change in today’s difficult environment… Best to just keep on keeping on for the student’s
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