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

Eating chocolate icecream

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Oh dear! After a couple of gin and tonics some chocolate icecream became too tempting. We’d only had a small evening meal and hubby was talking about cooking our breakfast tomorrow as supper tonight. So I had the bright idea of pulling a tub of chocolate icecream out of the freezer. Not healthy or good. But it tasted lovely.

The only way I can lose weight is not to buy nice things. I have to really restrain myself. A first world problem. People in most of the world wouldn’t even know what icecream is. Its an example of greed I guess. We can grow huge because we are sold empty calories. Sugar and fat in a delightful combination. And people starve. It’s a stark reality that there are too many have nots compared with those that have….. Yes I do feel guilty. Yes I should not be greedy. No I don’t have any real excuse. I was lucky to be born in a rich first world country. That should not stop me trying to help others and change my attitudes for the better.

Walked ten thousand steps today

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I’d done 9270 steps today, walking to the doctors surgery and back, but I wanted to get to ten thousand. What to do? It was mad but I walked backwards and forwards inside my house, from the front door to the back wall. Over and over. Touch the wall, turn, touch the door, turn. Check if the steps registered (sometimes they don’t). I could have gone out but the rain was tipping down. So wet the cats looked like otters just out of the river when they ran in through the cat flap! Backwards and forwards, till I did it… Tomorrow? Don’t know.

Digital drawing of Jazz

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I was talking about digital art, about simple ideas to create interesting images. This is one of my old digital drawings I did years ago. Blocks of colour with added squiggles then drawn over the top with black, white and a few colours. Yes I did use different opacities but I think you coukd do something like this without them…

Playing

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I sort of see birds, owls, flying out of these flowers? Or old fashioned rocket ships, or a totem pole. When you play with patterns you can find all sorts of things. I like seeing faces in things. I recently found out it’s called Pareidolia. We studied it during one of the semesters at college, the mind looks for patterns and sometimes finds them.

Tig, remembered

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Tig was a stray cat we took in several years ago. I loved his black nose and chin. I used to draw him at sketchfu and this was the drawing I did of him after he died. He was very bright and got up to all sorts of mischief. Our outdoor cat could be his son! The similarities in looks and behaviour, even their thick shiny, glossy coats.i

I do like drawing cats. Most of them are black and white, but we once had a ginger cat and when I was a child I had a tortoiseshell cat. I have lots of paintings and drawings. Seeing this brings back fond memories.

Tired

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Just a black and white sketch of a face which I then did a small edit on through the photodirector app.

Yes I am a bit tired. But this is more about trying to draw emotions without a reference image. I can see a lot of mistakes, particularly where I’ve mirrored the image. The nose does not sit right, the shading is wrong. But I like using cross hatching. I like thin pens. I don’t think its too bad.