Feathered or Furred

Posted on April 4, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Cartridge paper, Cat, Challenge, Drawing, Life, Pencil, Sleep, Usk Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

#uskstoke challenge. Today’s was to draw something furry or feathered. My cats were my subject. I used a 5b pencil on cartridge paper in a Daler Rowney, soft white, A4 sketchbook. One cat was on the cat tree which has several trays to sleep on. The other moggie was on the pile of washing that needs folding up. I’m going to do it when he gets off! He’s been asleep there most of the day.

So yeah, I could have done the birds outside. But apart from the odd wood pigeon, they don’t stay still long enough to draw.

Cracked sink

Posted on April 4, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Annoyed with myself, Bathroom sink, Blogging, Broken, Crack, Cracked, Dusting, Feather duster, Spring cleaning6 Comments

Oops! When you can’t get replacement, the last thing you want to do is break your bathroom sink. I was too vigorous with the feather (nylon actually) duster. I swiped at a cobweb and knocked a heavy glass bottle off the bathroom cabinet and into the sink!

Result, big star shaped crack! Grr. So a bit of spring cleaning leads to disaster…..

Purple swan

Posted on April 4, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Doodle, Fun, Play, Purple, Sketch, Swan1 Comment

FB_IMG_1583851757549

This was a drawing experiment a few years ago. It was an ArtRage oils drawing, using colours then mainly the dry marker to subdue the strength of the original brushes. You can use a sliding scale to alter the brush sizes and strength of the metallic colours, so sometimes the colours look shiny and other times matt. It’s worth playing with different tools in apps, it increases your knowledge. I’ve found some apps really difficult to use, especially if I don’t use them very often. But I will modify what I do, and play around with things to see what results I get. I end up with a series of images, then edit out ones I don’t like. Sometimes I keep all of them so I can show how my work progresses.

Cheers x

Clouds

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Chaos theory, Cloud appreciation society, Cloud types, Clouds, Design, Fractal, Layout app, Looking up, Photo, Sky, WeatherLeave a comment

FB_IMG_1576075688493

If you are bored, look up. You may be surprised at what you see. Clouds can be unicorns or dragons, fish or faces.

When I was young I would lie on my back and look up at the sky. Watching the clouds rush with rapidity or drift with stately slowness. Like the galleons I drew in my school exercise books. Then it was pirates racing to catch treasure ships.

Thunder clouds were mountains, or giant anvils, sometimes clouds looked like waves on the sea, or hills and beaches.

I gradually learnt a few of the names of clouds, cirrus, cumulo nimbus, stratus. Each had a wonderful ring to them. Magical beauty flying high over head.

Later I learned a bit about chaos theory, and fractals. How if you magnify a bit of a cloud, the close up looks like the larger image. I heard songs like Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, and about clouds being seeded to make rain fall.

You see they are interesting creatures, even if they are not mythical beasts.

So, if you are interested, look up the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook. Their founder set up a group which people can join. They have a cloud of the month, and sometimes send out a newsletter.

With climate change, and the increase in severity of the weather, its interesting to find out how water vapour can be so beautiful and yet so wild.

Playing

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Ball of wool, Cat, Doodle, Drawing, Life, ThinkingLeave a comment

FB_IMG_1585707668077

Grab a stylus and doodle your cat. I used ArtRage oils to draw this. I didn’t have enough memory on my phone so I deleted it, but I’ve uploaded it onto another device. So maybe I can get on and do a few more digital drawings.

Lockdown, I hope it means I will be doing more art, if I can get my mojo back.

Does being shut for the duration mean you’ve lost yours too or are you being brilliantly creative?

Stay indoors, stay safe…. X

Lifeline

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Colourised, Design, Hand, Lifeline, Photo copy, Photos hopLeave a comment

FB_IMG_1585946397139

I don’t remember when I did this but I found it on my camera so I thought I would share it.

I remember it was taken from a black and white photo of my hand, and then I scanned it and manipulated it in photo shop.

It was called lifeline. I don’t know where it is now. It just seems appropriate for the situation at the moment.

Ivy

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Image, Ivy, Layout app, Leaf, Micro poem, Photo, Poetry, SpringLeave a comment

IMG_20200403_170051

Ivy,

Reflected.

Autumn arrives?

No, Spring.

Metallic bowl

Captures

Fallen

Leaf.

I made bread pudding

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Butter, Cooking, Dried fruit, Easy bake, Eggs, Food, Hot, Leftovers, Milk, Puddind, Stale bread, Sugar substitute, Tasty2 Comments

Bread pudding made, yum!

It was a bit burnt on top. I used half a stale crusty brown loaf, soaked in water overnight. Then I added a cup of dried mixed fruit, and stirred it in to break up the loaf. Then added two eggs, some milk, three teaspoons of sugar substitute, a few knobs of butter and a teaspoon of cinnamon to make a wet mix. I put it in a greased shallow baking dish and baked it in the oven gas mark six (mid temp not too hot). I cooked it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It came out a bit burnt on top. The bits of crust were nice and crunchy. I served it hot with cream. You could use custard.

One way to use up stale bread. Thanks Frank’s wife for the original recipe.

Spring garden

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Daffodils, Dicentra, Flowers, Garden, Helibores, Muscari, Primroses, Pruning, Pulmonaria, seasons, Spring, Spring Garden, Spring plantsLeave a comment

IMG_20200403_164258

IMG_20200403_165540

Various views of our spring Garden, top view is flowers, including Daffodils, Muscari Hyacinths, Primroses, Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra), Helibores, Pulmonaria, and Celandine. The bottom photo shows the Pear tree propped up with some wood, the weight of the pears pulled it over last year, Cyclamen in a pot, the path to the summerhouse, with some railway track and our back yard, waiting to be tidied up.

I did a bit of pruning today. I’ve had so little exercise these last few weeks that I felt very wobbly when I’d finished.

Ghostly

Posted on April 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black and white image, Figures, Forty years ago, Ghostly image, Photographic paper, Photography, Photos, Pin hole, Pin hole photographLeave a comment

Have you ever used a pin hole camera? This was me and a friend at our neighbours house. The pinhole camera was a biscuit tin, sealed with sellotape and with a sheet of black and white photographic paper in the base. The lid had a tiny hole created by hammering a small nail through it. I used a piece of card, I think, to cover the hole. In this case I stayed still for about a minute, but my friend moved after about thirty seconds if I remember correctly. The image was created by lifting the flap over the hole, then covering the hole up again after the exposure.

I don’t remember developing it. I’m sure I did, it was part of the coursework at college to do some photography. I did a few more. One of an old man, standing in front of this window, and one of me sitting on a setee inside the house by this window. In it I had turned my head right for thirty seconds and then left. The result was my body was visible, but my head was missing, just a stump where it should be.

That was forty years ago, a long time ago. The dim and distant past.

Mallaband-Brown

Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown