Another #bandofsketchers catch up. Prompt was vehicle. Digital drawing, in Artrage app. I’m up late because someone was in the garden. We rang the police and they are trying to catch them. Can’t sleep so drew a green car.
Vehicle
Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown
I'm an artist based at the Spode factory site in Stoke on Trent. I paint, draw and create digital art. Contact me at mallabandbrown@aol.com
Someone in the garden. 2.30 am.
I was just trying to get to sleep on the settee downstairs when I heard two male voices talking as they came past our door, a pause, and then another call/response a bit further down. I was suspicious so I turned on the main kitchen and living room light. Then I saw a blurry face rush past the window. I shouted hubby and grabbed the phone. I rang the police, but had to stop my hubby going outside to confront whoever was there. I shouted i was ringing the police. They arrived about five minutes later with a large dog. They didn’t find anyone but said the dog had got a scent so they went off in pursuit! I’m shaking, hubby took a look outside, seems they were disturbed before they could do anything. I hope!
I eant them caught now, this is enough. It’s turning into a nightmare and I’ve had enough worries without this.
Jobs not career
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
I’m not a banker, politician, doctor, vet. I’ve done jobs that have lasted weeks, months or years, but none I would call a career. This is the Internet, so I’m not going into details. Why should I tell all and sundry? I did think of taking up a career, but it didnt work out (I failed the interview) I might be rich or at least well off. I didnt follow that path, so in ended up with a series of jobs.
But through it all I’ve been creative, I make art, it might not be the best, but I love painting and drawing, taking photos, making pottery, experimenting. Who needs a career if you have the freedom to be yourself?
Whatever you do, be open to chances, take care, I wish you luck
Lock
Hardware was the prompt. One of the circular padlocks I got for our sheds after they got broken into. Felt pen and ink pen. #bandofsketchers.
Back paw
Under his foot, my cat washing his back paw. I’ve been meaning to catch up with my sketching so this is a start…for #bandofsketchers prompt under your foot from a few weeks ago. Black ink and felt pens.
Etruria Inustrial museum this weekend
This weekend at Etruria Industrial museum, steaming the Princess engine. Pleased they’ve used my painting of it to publicise the event. (28 and 29 Oct 2023). I think the opening times are on their Facebook page.
The industrial museum includes Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill. The Princess engine is a beam engine that ran the belts to grind the flint in large floor pans in the adjoining building. It’s steam powered and runs by using a beam to rock up and down like a seesaw. This uses steam to push a valve down and then the vacuum created pulls it up again. I’m not an engineer, but you could come and see it running.
Etruria Industrial museum
Kilndown Close
Etruria, Stoke on Trent
Staffordshire.
(on the Trent and Mersey canal).
Gun control
I’m sad to hear of yet another mass shooting in America. I won’t say where, because every few weeks or days there are new reports of them. To pin it down to one murderous incident would emphasise it and possibly diminish previous ones.
Clearly thoughts and prayers doesn’t help. Each time something happens these trite words are uttered. As if a sticking plaster could stop a flooding river.
Guns, particularly assault rifles, are weapons of war. They destroy blood, flesh and bone. Bodies are ripped apart or badly injured. They are meant to stop an enemy, not kill a father, mother or child. Innocent people die, are buried or cremated, and often forgotten in the wake of the next mass shooting.
In the UK we have gun laws, there are very few shootings, so much so it makes the headlines for days if a shooting happens. Yes we have them, and stabbings, but you don’t get mass stabbings here either.
In March 1996, in Dunblane in Scotland, there was a mass shooting of children at a primary school there. Following the shooting the Cullen Report looked into gun ownership. Parliament bought in gun control and most guns were taken out of circulation. There have been no mass shootings since then. That’s 27 years. Yes there have been shootings with shotguns and rifles, but not like the madness in the USA.
The American constitution talks about an armed militia, the right to bare arms. Use that to change the law there. Make the guns the population can use muzzle loading flintlocks, the same as we’re used when the constitution was written.
Thoughts and prayers for sensible gun control!
Fear
I tried to draw an abstract image of fear. Everything is chaotic, your not in control, tight chest and gut. Swirling colours…
I’m not afraid of halloween or anything silly like that, but I’m scared to go out into our garden without my hubby. We have been through a series of thefts from our garden and now I can’t stop looking out of the window to check if anyone had come back. Hubby just rushed out because he saw someone on a bike like his, and I’m afraid to go into the garden incase someone is lurking, so many bad thoughts of what might happen!
Hence the drawing, a bit of self art therapy.
I don’t have one
What food would you say is your specialty?
I had cooking lessons at school, the classes were called domestic science. I learnt to make all sorts of things in those lessons. They stood me in good stead. I learnt mainly baking, from rock cakes to Victoria sponges. But also things like Danish open sandwiches.
Then as a student I learnt to throw a meal together from scraps and at a low cost. Beans of many varieties were used together with lots of garlic and herbs and tomatoes. With some oil of course.
Later I learnt to cook a good approximation of things like chicken Kiev and other staples such as spaghetti bolognase. They probably looked messy, I was renowned for using chunky vegetables instead of chopping them finely.
So give me a few ingredients and I can try and rustle something up. The important thing is I can afford to eat, many people can’t, or are in situations where they cannot get food at all. I don’t know how I ended up being so lucky, I hope it lasts.
In better news
My leg, that was wrapped up like this several weeks ago, is finally healed! Yippee! No more waiting for it to be re-dressed. No more washing it carefully. I can have a long shower (in the daytime when the bathroom isn’t freezing). I can start going for walks again. Probably in the rain. It’ll be small steps to avoid knocking it, but, Yippee!
Mallaband-Brown 