New paintings and regular art updates.
This popped up on my Facebook memories today. My little cat, simple painting, but with gold leaf. I used it a few times because my friend had given me a book of gold leaf. I know I found it hard to manipulate. I did enjoy using it though.
What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?
My favourite month is May, when blossom opens on trees, the sky turns a beautiful cerulean blue, and suddenly bees and insects wake up. Then I watch the blossom unfurl, tight buds become satin skirts and whirl outwards. Scent fills the air. Beware storms, thundering through the sky, their gusty winds can strip the flowers before they are pollenated, or frosts can burn their delicate petals. Their safety ensures a good crop of cherries or pears. Apples too can sink or swim depending on the weather.
May brings beauty in other forms, buds and leaves follow the blossom, the leaves stretch as water floods into their veins, brilliant greens or pinky mauves fill in the gaps between the twigs. Warm sun is absorbed as the leaves feed on the light. Photosynthesis is a miracle of nature. Clean air circulates, breezes stir, hedgerows grow and light up with May blossom.
Yes May is my favourite month, the warmth of the sun starts to return, days are longer, brilliant and lovely, if we are lucky we can enjoy the seasonal spectacle.
I saw this window in the Japanese restaurant near us. I decided to collage it to see how it would look in a duplicate form. I tried rotating it but I think this is the best version of it. I like the flatness of it, the misty feel, as if you had come across this structure on a foggy night. Perhaps reflected in a still river. I love playing with images.
A night visitor, all prowl worn out, purring gently, wants love. Left me no room while I was out. Now do I move him or let him stay? Gentle purring makes that decision easy.
What is your favorite place to go in your city?
My city stands on its own, not really part of a conurbation. It is between Birmingham and Manchester and there are small satellite towns dotted around it.
When I first came to live here, what always struck me, was how close the countryside is. South and East are Staffordshire farmland, West is Shropshires rolling hills and also Cheshire with it’s flat plain and salt mines, North East is Derbyshire with the pennines hilly beginnings and also the Staffordshire moorlands with old industrial buildings hidden in its valleys.
The area is crisscrossed by canals, rivers, train tracks and roads. Alton Towers is a few miles to the North east, further north is the old silk mill towns of Leek and closer to Manchester is Macclesfield.
The Trent and Mersey canal runs through the mile long Harecastle tunnel at Kidsgrove, where the water runs orange (from old iron mine workings?).
There are forests, fields, caves, lakes, walking and cycling routes. Bakewell is reasonably close, home of the Bakewell tart (pastry with raspberry jam and an almond paste topping?). Also famous for food is Market Drayton to our west. I think they make Gingerbread there.
There are National trust properties like Little Moreton Hall and Biddulph Grange. Big garden centres and antique centres. Not forgetting the gem that is the Dorothy Clive garden.
The city is not without its merits, Gladstone and Moorcroft, Middleport and Emma Bridgwater potteries and the potteries museum and art gallery all tell the history of the city.
But I like to get away from the hustle and bustle into quiet surroundings. Not forgetting the coast which is about 80 miles away in Wales.
Stoke on Trent is full of industrial heritage, a lot of it needs rescuing. But I love the place.
Another from my photos of the BCB, British ceramic biennial that was held in Stoke on Trent a few weeks ago.
Some pieces were more beautiful than others, some seemed to have more significance. Some like this seem playful. A piece that has been twiddled and twisted, creating a root like structure but with almost a trumpet bell on the end of it.
Simply placed on a surface in front if a window, the object casts interesting shadows.
I don’t know what I think of it, but it was worth documenting.
What’s the first impression you want to give people?
On a few occasions now I’ve been described as an honest and pleasant lady. I’ve also been told I look ten years younger than I am, but that’s a matter of opinion.
I was raised to be polite, and to treat people in the way I would like to be treated. I’m beginning to think I’d make a good Miss Marple though, I’d like to be a sleuth. Finding out about things, basically because I notice things. I have a good visual memory.
So I guess my personality is one of pleasantness and curiosity, with a side order of creativity. Is that OK?
Next weekend I’m busy with an open day at Spode and an exhibition and craft sale at the Whitfield centre with Orme Art Group. I was trying to think of a theme to use for some little paintings I want to do and I’m thinking owls and maybe hedgehogs (which will be curled in autumn leaves). If it happens I’ll post some pictures.
You’d think they were brothers
A single mom?
But no, they are not
Two mums, not one.
Each boy cat is happy
One is fat
He’s big and he’s round
He stays on the mat,
The other is older
On a bag, flat!
My other cats female,
Much more aloof
She’d rather be sitting
Up on the roof!
At Miso Japanese Restaurant in London Road, Stoke-on-Trent. Lovely food. I’m so happy that I was able to take my relative out there for a birthday supper.
Sushi and then Bento boxes with Plum wine to drink. It was an extravagant evening, but a real pleasure..
Miso is mentioned in Richard Osman’s book “The bullet that missed”, it’s a crime novel. Part of The Thursday Murder Club series. The owner of the restaurant didn’t know that Osman had written about it!
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