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

I thought my media was gone!

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I just tried to delete some of my images because the memory on my WordPress media is on 99.8%!

For some reason all the photos went blank and the system would not let me delete any of the images, very worrying. What to do? All I could think was switch the phone off and switch it back on again… I held my breath. Yes! It’s working properly again.

I don’t know why it stopped, I had tried to use the free media section and it would not upload an image from there, so perhaps that created a glitch? All I can say is when I tried to look up the artist John Constable on it I got lots of images that were very generic, and non showed a Constable painting! Oh well….

Rainstorm

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Detail, pastel, my drawing ‘land and sky’

“it’s gone black over Bills mums” they say round here when it goes dark and cloudy. When the clouds pile up and you sometimes get snowy white tops to them when there is some blue sky too. The wind suddenly whips up. I was out in something like this today. One minute rivulets of rain were running of my brolly (umbrella) and the next it whipped inside out! The gust almost took it out of my hands.

I turned into the wind, getting soaked, and used the gust to bend the umbrella vaguely back into shape. Then I closed it to make sure all the little struts were shutting properly. One thread had wrapped itself round a strut, so I had to release it before I could concertina it down into shape. But all was well.

On the way home the sun shone in front of me and I looked behind at the dark clouds in the hope of seeing a rainbow, but sadly there was none.

Roses

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Finger painted in the new app and then collaged. Is anyone getting bored by these digital drawings? I am not going to keep posting these. I will try and do something else unless I can create something a bit better. There are lots of pens and tools on this app and it is interesting, but it’s going to take a while to get used to it….

A new drawing

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I’ve found a new sketching app to download. I’ve used it before on my PC but not on my phone. It has a myriad of tools and a lot more flexibility than the previous sketching app I had. It’s not as intuative but as I sort of know my way round it I’ve got a headstart. This doodle was done in a few minutes. It was meant to resemble the Alfred Hitchcock cartoon but it doesn’t really. Still it sort of works I guess.

Robin Hood

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If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.

I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.

I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.

So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…

The water horse

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Looking down into the water I saw a reflected horse, brown and white with a dark mane. Pleased to see some life around me I looked up from the reflection, but there was nothing there. Only an old tree overhanging the water, flecked with red and brown leaves, that was all, then the sky and a wooden fence….

I looked back down into the water, it was murky now, covered with ripples from the wind, no sign of my previous vision.

I stood up and started walking around the path. The lake was not big and it took me ten minutes to walk through the grass and sedges to the gate. The lake was in a dip so it was soon disappearing behind me. Flowers and hedges shimmering in the sun. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a horses head appearing out of the water, it stepped onto the bank, it started to trot, gallop, it was moving fast towards me. Covered in pond weed, mud slipping off its coat, steaming in the sunshine. I RAN as fast as I could. I could feel its breath on my neck as I reached the gate and flew through it. I stumbled and looked up. Just the sky with white clouds scudding by. No water horse!

Orange face

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Flood fill, low opacity, changes an image I drew a couple of days ago in Artrage. The white patches were created using either the eraser tool or a spray tool (I can’t remember). Adding light to a drawing can make an object look more three dimensional. As if a chink of light has found it’s way in through a gap in a curtained window or a hole in a roof.

Who is she? Could she be from an ancient Celtic tribe, perhaps a Bronze or Iron age person. I might make designs for jewellery for her.