New paintings and regular art updates.
Digital abstract in ArtRage oils that I did five years ago. The centres is meant to be a metallic, shiny egg shaped object, and the outside the pattern that is seen on the object. It doesn’t quite work but I think you can see a contrast between the sharp lines of the centre, and the softer outer lines. I saw this today as a memory on my Facebook page.
About a year ago, the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. was destroyed in a fire. I was distraught because I had painted several murals in the Arnold Bennett suite at the back of the hotel. I had also been an extra in a horror film called Humanus which was partly filmed there. I would love it to be restored. It was old and quirky, and episodes of ‘most haunted’ were recorded around the building. But now? It’s a shell of its former glory.
The Leopard had fallen on hard times when it was taken over by Neil Cox and Neil Crisp in the early 2000’s. They started to pull the business round and bought out the essential quirkiness of the building, organising ghost tours and revising ad improving the good and drink. It was soon a venue people loved to go in. During that time they wanted some murals painting in the back room. I spent a couple of years between 2006 and 2007 painting ten or eleven of them. Why can’t I remember?
I loved doing it, and the figures in the paintings were often based on the locals, I even gave a talk to the local history group about what I had painted and the sources I used to decide on the subjects.
Now? I will definitely visit if its rebuilt. But I don’t think I could physically paint those murals again. And as I was only paid £75 per picture, for two years of work, it was never going to make me a profit, but I did it for the love of Art and the Leopard.
A digital drawing of a black and white cat, then which I then digitally manipulated to add textures and tilt the image. I used artrage oils free for the original drawing using a stylus on my phone screen, then photodirector to add texture and finally the editing tools including a sharpness option and tilting option on my Instagram account. I have also duplicated this image as four seperated cats, but that was done after I did this.
The garage we took our car to is closing down! The owner is retiring apparently. We didn’t know when we left our car on the forecourt. I’m trying to find his mobile number so I rang another business that knows him. They might be able to get his mobile number for me but apparently he will be going there later today so all I can hope is that they tell him we have been trying to contact him or that he goes to the garage and sees the car!
We tried other garages, but I would need to take the keys to the one who could help and they are seven or eight miles away, or the local garage but they can’t collect it until the third of February!
All we can do is hope the mechanic gets in touch for now. I would go and bump start the car but I don’t know if we have the strength to push it as its on the flat.
I just watched a programme about pottery on the TV. It’s set at the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. I like it because people have to do challenges, tonight’s was to create three low relief birds, in a small medium and large sizes. Each one had to represent a real bird. One person did three macaws, another kingfishers, a third falcons. Each contestant made really interesting birds, the standard was very high. One person got Potter of the week, one got eliminated. Its good to see an art based programme with real skills.
The drawing above is a digital finger painting I dis in ArtRage oils a few years ago. It’s meant to be a multicoloured pigeon.
Group of blocks, duplicated in a symmetrical pattern. I think the blues and oranges of the tiles, which are complementary colours add to the composition, as do the strong diagonals created by a bright shaft of sunlight. This was originally a photo taken in the shop at Middleport pottery, I think taken in the autumn.
I hate game shows
Quiz shows
Ice skating shows.
I dislike celebrities
Making cakes
Making music
diving and dancing
I can’t stand
Pop idol
Big brother
Goggle box.
Am I alone?
I guess hate is wrong
The wrong word
But the TV is not always good
We are drowning in crud.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was ‘random’. Random cat drawing, they are so able to almost tie themselves in knots! I just realised the dots could be like that game ‘twister’! Felt pen and black ink fine line pen.
This photo doesn’t do it justice. I don’t have a great view of the horizon because its obscured by trees and buildings, and the window needs clearing of ivy that is growing around it. There was a yellowish gap in the clouds where the sky was visible, then bars of orange/red clouds lay across it, like sand bars in a shallow sea. Have you ever looked up at the sky and thought it was mimicking an ocean view? It was like that. The best time I ever saw that illusion was when we were driving down to Dorset. We were climbing a big hill and the sunset appeared over the peak of the hill. It looked like the sea with land protruding into it. As we reached the summit the real sea became visible and the sky looked as if the sea was reflected in it. All pinks and golds and bars of lavender grey. We had a lovely week away.
A combination of objects and their reflections inside and seating and buildings outside. This was three years ago when the place we were visiting was called the Potbank cafe. Now its owned by someone else and called the Quarter. Its based at Eleanora Street on the Spode pottery site in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.
Some of the buildings on the Spode site are due to be demolished and apartments are to possibly be built there instead. If it happens it will be sad to see our industrial heritage destroyed in order to build as many ‘units’ as the developers can cram on the site. The view out of this doorway may change, quickly or slowly, no necessarily for the better.
Mallaband-Brown