Spooky mask

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged celebrating, Crowd, Dance, Fun, Morris team, Music, Photo, plague doctor, plague mask, Wassail2 Comments

Pre covid, my friend at the Wassail for a local apple tree.

Wassail? An ancient celebration to encourage apple trees to be fruitful again this year. In Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent it is celebrated by our local Morris Dancing team.

Morris Dancing? In ancient times Local groups of men (now anyone can join) used to get together and dress up, wearing boots or heavy clogs on their feet. Dancing to ancient tunes. Sometimes there is a person dressed as a hobby horse (with a large skirt and a carved horse head worn as a mask?) I don’t know enough about Morris history. I’m sure there is a lot of information out there.

So why this photo? It’s blurry, but it was taken at a Wassail. The Morris men were dancing, and the apple tree was beaten with sticks to get it to grow. And amidst it was my friend in his plague doctors mask, Cape and tricorn hat. And today I found it again and thought… Why not?

Island?

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Etruria, flipped images, Island, Mirrored, Photo, Photograph, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Trees, Trent and mersey canalLeave a comment

No, a mirrored photo, flipped on its vertical axis. The resulting image looks like a green island on a pond edged with a stone path. In actual fact this was a photo taken as we walked along the Trent and Mersey canal near Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent. Its strange how the eye sees symmetry as beautiful. Even ugly shapes can improve when you make them symmetrical. I also enjoy trying to create images that look like animals. If you follow this blog, or my Instagram page you will already know that.

Mice

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Author, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, Life, Mice, Mouse, Poem, Sketching, writer1 Comment

Two little drawings of mice for my friend Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg. She commissioned me to do a couple of illustrations of mice for a poem. In the poem the baby mice sing. I’m not writing it out as she holds the copyright to it. She just wanted simple line drawings and she was very happy with this.

Sketching a choir

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white drawing, Challenge, Choir, Drawing, Fun, Loud Mouth women choir, Music, Sketching, Zoom, Zooming2 Comments

Take a dried up, broad nib, calligraphy felt pen. Start drawing, watch as the view changes because the line up of images moves when you have the songsheet with the words displayed. Try and sing and draw at the same time! It’s hard to look down at your sketchbook, up at the words, and across to your fellow choir members. I challenged them to try and recognise themselves from these crude sketches.

Cafe/bar

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Black and white, Colours, Design, Drawing, fun can lids, monoprint, Mug, paint splatters, SketchingLeave a comment

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was cafe/bar. I haven’t been out to a cafe but I decided to use some mono printed black and white paper to create a table and mug. I added colours to define the objects and create a design on the mug. The circles on the table are meant to be splatters from paint can lids..

Going grey

Posted on April 12, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Age, diamond, Digital art, Digital drawing, platinum, Poem, Poetry, silver, Thought, Understanding?, winkles2 Comments

Wrinkles?

What are they for?

And going grey

What is the point?

Feeling worn out

Losing my mojo

Growing tired

But I ain’t dead yet

I have knowledge

I see patterns in history.

No not grey

Precious silver

Or platinum.

Not wrinkles

But the map of my life.

Strong like a diamond

Moulded by the pressure

Of living.

How do I draw a map?

Posted on April 12, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Animal, Art, Design, Drawing, Ears, eye mouth, Fun, Graffiti, Lettering, Map, Maze, modern, Text6 Comments

I’m playing with different ideas. I held two pens together to try and get parallel lines, and I wanted to do something modern, a bit like graffiti for this. The writing says ‘walk this way to get to the treasure trove don’t get bitten on the way through the winding maze.’

There is a gaping mouth and a big staring eye. Big clawed feet and huge ears. The animals body is covered in flowers….fun..

Tree again

Posted on April 12, 2021April 12, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Gardening, Leaves, Penkhull, Photo, seasons, Spring, Sunshine, Time, Tree, View, YearLeave a comment

I keep coming back to this tree as it spreads its branches over the view from Penkhull. I have watched it in leaf, with dying leaves, bare and now in bud. It makes me realise how fast a year can pass. The same with gardening, the seasons and plants come and go. And I’m a year older and no wiser….

Allotment view

Posted on April 12, 2021April 12, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Allotments, blue skies, Landscape, Penkhull, Photo, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, ViewLeave a comment

Bright sun and deep shadow. Looking out over the south of the city of Stoke-on-Trent from Penkhull hill. The gate has a square grill? on it. I like the way the spaces are captured like a square jigsaw puzzle. While people went off to beer gardens we went for a quiet walk instead. Green and blue, white scudding clouds. A pleasant day.

Go back to the sea.

Posted on April 11, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Age, Childhood, Lost, Memories, Ocean, Pier, Poem, Poetry, Rhyme, Sea, Thinking, WaterLeave a comment

Along the pier

Walk out to Sea

Across the tide

My life to be?

An old man thinks

Of times gone by

Boyhood days

Of gulls and skies.

Of storms and fog

Waves rolling high.

A girl goes skipping

The length of the pier

In the arcades

Candy floss, she cheers.

A woman now

Looks back in time.

Worm eaten memories

Are lost in rhyme.

From young to old

Each person’s regrets

Are tied together

In their own nets.

Sea and sand

Cliffs and rock

All remembered

As the gulls flock.

Mallaband-Brown

Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown