On my urban hunt yesterday I felt generally lacking in inspiration. The only thing that truly attracted my attention as a thing of pleasure was this little bit of road marking. Sufficiently so, for me to stop and wait for a gap in the traffic negotiating the mini roundabout, to enable the shot.
Perhaps I was drawn to it because we have 8 weeks of resurfacing going on in our short road at the moment. The pavements are being repaired, and instead of rep[lacing the acceptable pavement slabs, we are getting an asphalt concrete surface of a greatly inferior nature. I had thought to refer to it as tarmacadum, which, at least has an air of character about it as a name, but apparently I am mistaken and the modern equivalent is merely asphalt concrete. I mean, I ask you - where is the pleasure in that name?
You see those lovely little square stone edgings along side the double yellow lines? I wouldn't mind if we could have a few of those. An earthen space has been left around the trees in the road, but the evidence at the completed end of the road is that there will be no elegant finish around these necessary and potentially redeeming breaks in the flow of asphalt, but merely a sprinkling of gravel.
And so perhaps you will understand why currently, and by comparison, the above represents a thing of beauty. Especially with that friendly little kink in the white dotted line.
This is a thing of beauty, as is your description/commentary. It's frustrating when the replacement is inferior. And it seems to have so often these days.
I did notice the kink in the white line. No doubt the painter had his mind on other tasks at the time and wandered away from his straight and narrow. Lovely angle.
It's funny you should say that you were drawn to this while struggling for inspiration because that was what I encountered yesterday in searching for a shot for the current artist's challenge. In fact (although not posting it yet) a brick insert on the sidewalk was what actually caught my creative attention but it didn't fit the artist's style so it will have to wait a day or two before I put it up. I like this very much!
Love your commentary and well spotted, the patterns in the different lines and curves is quite appealing. It reminds me of the two men who were painting the lines in the middle of our road when we lived in Cyprus. They had a 2 inch brush and a can of white paint. The thermoplastic paint and dispenser were at a suburb 50 miles away. When they had finished it took 3 weeks for the paint to fade in the heat of summer and they came back to repeat the process.
You are so clever, Helen, to create such a satisfying image from rather unpromising ingredients. The shapes, textures and composition are most pleasing.