I wanted to paint a view of Westport lake with snow and ice so when the prompt water came up for #bandofsketchers I decided to go for it.
Metallic and normal watercolours in my little A5 sketchpad.
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 do love the sky
I’m a member of the cloud appreciation society and I love the sky. When it is misty and the sky turns salmon pink, when there are dark storm clouds in the background and bright sunlight shines on the landscape in front of them. We see amazing lightening storms, cumulo nimbus, stratus, cirrus, mammatus, so many sorts of clouds.
I love looking up at the sky, looking at the stars and meteor showers or seeing a satellite tracking overhead. I’ve seen Jupiter and Saturn and Mars and Venus in the telescope.
The sky can keep you occupied for hours x
In the mirror
I was passing an antique shop one day when I saw the face of a woman looking back at me from an old cracked and crazed mirror. It’s bronze frame was chipped and pitted with age. The face looked like an old master painting, like a Jacobean lady, with a powdered wig and pale face.
I didn’t know how it was happening but I was drawn inside and paid far too much for it. Minutes later I was walking down the road with a brown paper package under my arm.
That was the beginning of the horror…..
Memory of an afternoon tea.
A year ago, we visited the Rabbit Hole tearoom with a friend who was visiting from Yorkshire. We had to book in advance. The food duly arrived in this cake stand with beautiful pots of tea.
Sadly, like so many other places, the Rabbit Hole is closed at the moment. Such a shame for a quaint and magical cafe in the centre of Stoke-upon-Trent, the town which the city of Stoke-on-Trent is named after.
As I see it
Twin view
Red or blue?
Seperate at birth
Live apart
On two minds
Social distance
Don’t hold hands
Magnetic resistance.
Add your bar code
To your genetic load.
Fraternal not identical
Sisters, lost in time.
Colour palette
Today’s #30daysketchbookchallenge was paint.
I’d got a swatch card to fill in with my metallic paints I got for Christmas. I filled in the colours in the set and also some normal watercolours I already have.
Then I painted the water brush that comes with the set (you suck water up into it), finally I posed the question… But is it art?
Self portrait
Self portrait at 60, playing with metallic watercolours and then digitally adjusted.
One problem with metallic paint is getting the reflections right. Either it can look too light and flat or too dark. I tried using Chinese white over it to add highlights and some black for shadows as the metallic colours does not go dark enough. I should have let the dark paper show through more. The other two images have been digitally altered. The dark, deeper coloured one was using the curves tool in the digital exposure photo app on my phone and the other using the style app in photodirector.
Are the gods looking down?
What sees us under the deep blue sky? Alien faces with glimmering eyes. If they open wide a nova will scorch the ground. Smoke rising and polluting the air.
Photo of a tree, mirrored in layout app and then details added of a face using a symmetry tool.
Locks
Lock at Etruria, steps up to the road and over a bridge at the top. When the snow is thick I actually think its easier to walk in than when it’s like this. Slushy and slippery. But snow doesn’t last that long these days. Last year was as hot as 2016, which was the hottest year on record in the UK.
It would be good to take a long walk along the canal in the summer. Under dappled shade from the trees. Watching canal barges and boats putter past with their gaudily painted castles, and roses painted red, gold and green.
Dappled sky
Washed with Amber and lilac, gold highlights. Twigs sweeping the sky. Painting it with their fronds. Clouds form flocks of flying sheep, running home as night arrives. A symphony of colours shifting as they are viewed. Blue darkens to black, the colour I’d drained out of the sky until one solitary glimmer remains. Then the light of stars spring out. Tiny pinpricks in the firmament. Moon rise. The glow of it shines through a lowering fog. Time for bed and dreams.
