New paintings and regular art updates.
This weeks portraits using a little ink roller that normally is used for blotting out addresses to draw the basic structure, then soft pastels to colour them and a bit of black ink. Used hairspray to fix them.
The second set were played with in the Photodirector app I have, but I only put them through one filter.
Reflection of two ducks, turned through 90°. Somehow it became an otter or a beaver? Eyes, nose, mouth, pale fur. Maybe even some ears? Above it I can see some sort of dark eyed creature. Two large eyes and a pale button nose? Arms stretching out to either side of the picture. Ready to pounce on the otter head?
So many questions, imagination can be surprising, finding odd creatures in pattern, Pareidolia….
There is a maze at the far end of Westport lake which we got stuck in (some muddy patches). It’s only got small hedges so you can’t really get lost. Yet another mirrored photo…. And why not?
My collection of them keeps increasing, I look at each view with the thought that I can make it into something quirky.
Why should I?
Seeing this on a bench.
I took a photo
Why not?
Someines memory,
A lost Christmas wreath.
Someone used to sit here?
Recalled in dead foliage
And silk bows..
A duck and a coot. If this was a race, the coot is winning. The twig looks like the finishing line for a rowing race. The duck is a Mallard drake, I don’t know if he’s preening or asleep? I love the ripples on the water. My phone camera has reacted to the bright light and has reduced the exposure time so it appears darker. You can move the position of your camera to affect this. If you look at an area with less bright light then the exposure would open up again. But I like the strong contrast in this image and the depth of colour. It’s difficult to see the details on the birds because they are in deep shadow.
Digital faces, played with in the Layout app. I think this is a couple of years old. I think I did the original drawing in ArtRage oils. To me this feels ancient and modern. I’m thinking of iconic mediaeval paintings. Also with the faces without eyes I somehow think of Heironymous Bosch? Weird images. The columns also make me think about columns of figures in stained glass windows. Each face is the same image, imagined and representing a female face. I did not try to interpret it or give an explanation when I made this image. Perhaps I needed a couple of years to think about it!
Wooden cat ‘bell’ one of the weird things I’ve collected over the years…
I seem to collect cat ornaments and friends give them me as presents, so much so that they clutter up everywhere. I’ve got cheap cats and cheerful ones, a few expensive ones… What other collections? Books and paintings and indoor plants. It’s amazing what you can fit on hotizontal surfaces in a tiny terraced house!
It’s 5.50am and I couldn’t sleep so I drew my cutlery basket and surroundings.. Then I realised the ink from the calligraphy pen isn’t waterproof so did a water wash over it…
#bandofsketchers drawing prompt was basket.
Me when I was a student..
When I came to Stoke as a student our first year was in student flats but then we had to find our own accommodation. Six of us (three couples) shared a terraced house. Two bedrooms upstairs and me and my boyfriend now hubby shared the front living room. No hot water, just a cold tap in the kitchen and a broken electric water heater tap thing over the sink. No bathroom, loo at the end of the yard (freezing cold, you took a torch with you at night). No central heating. Just an open hearth with a grate in the back living room. We used to burn old wood and bits of cheap coal. No TV, just a radio…. I remember one winter it was so cold we slept on the floor in front of the fire. My hubbies crank on his bike snapped when he tried to ride off in the snow because he kept it outside and it was well below freezing. Oh and single pane glass in the windows. Had to go to the Polytechnic every day for a shower…
It was tough but it was fun. When I saw the young ones TV programme a few years later it reminded me of that house!
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was decay. It took me a while to find a subject that I liked. In this case it was a photo I took of an old bottle oven and fencing / boarding reflected in the Trent and Mersey canal. This was near Dolphin boats in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
I used Boldmere colouring pencils for the drawing which made it paler than the photo. I could use some watercolour washes to increase the depth of colour but I quite like the way this is blended. One thing I didn’t include was the debris floating in the canal after so many windy days.
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