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

Contact me

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I just had an email through my contact me section of this blog. Promising thousands of engagements and interest for a small monthly fee.

The answer is, no thank you. I’m a single person business. My painting is labour intensive. I don’t employ an admin worker and I couldn’t trwal through lots of vague contacts in the hope someone might want a painting.

I am happy for people to contact me directly, I can then come to arrangements with people who want to commission me. It takes time to complete paintings. If I were to start doing prints of them I might need to advertise. I guess I’m afraid of letting people down and getting overwhelmed.

Does anyone else advertise? I don’t even have ads on my blog posts. I don’t like them and I don’t want to endorse products I don’t know and would never use myself.

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Trying to paint frost

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Brick built through glass,

Blue, crisp, cold sky.

Observed through ice,

Layered, feathered,

Hard and delicate.

Like royal icing,

Infinitely spun in shards.

Spiders Web of facets.

Glinting and clinking in the sun.

Breath burns holes in it,

A cold palm melts into a print.

Frosted glass?

Frosting on a cake?

Feathered moonlight,

Frost…

 

Playing with ArtRage

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I’m not used to my new ArtRage app on my tablet, neither am I used to my new tablet, everything is a bit mixed up. I’m mainly still doing things on my phone, but I’m slowly learning. I just found if I swipe the screen left I can find categories and tags, that’s useful..but when I tried again it wouldn’t do it?

Continue reading “Playing with ArtRage” →

How do I know what I know?

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Stuff is in my head. Stuff that I learned at school, or from my parents and family. From books I have read, from things on the TV and radio. From things I have experienced, felt, seen, heard.

The mind is a wonderful thing if it is allowed to learn. An empty vessel waiting for millions of little facts and ideas to inhabit it. General knowledge, science, literature, music, ideas, so much! I know things I didn’t think I know. Except about pop music! That’s what I really don’t know. I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about everything and anything. But I know a bit about quite a lot. But then am I a jack of all trades and master of none. You can see my grammar is not brilliant, I can’t do complex maths or calculus, but I know they exist…

The mind should be kind, I think. To be flexible and fluid. To try and understand other peoples minds and ideas. To care about things around you.

The mind can be beautiful. You have to try and make it that way.

Trees

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The trees spread across the world, as man finally withered and died. Killed off in a last great mass extinction caused by  humankind’s continuous destruction of the animal population and most of the plant world. Pestilence, fire, flooding and starvation had done their jobs.

All that was left were trees, rivers, marshes, seas and oceans.

The trees kept pumping out oxygen, the world was now habitable for any incomers, but there were none. Aliens may have admired our world, but they exist in civilisations too far away. None of them had things like warp drive. A nice idea, but not really feasible.

Nothing grew, except a soup of bacteria. One day that might evolve into the next great family of animals, insects, worms, critters. If man returned millions of years later he would not recognise the planet or its contents. Maybe the trees would remember….

Angels

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Guarding, guiding, helping, supporting.

Angels are (or not) mythical creatures, usually male. They fall into various types, angels and arch angels. Seraphim and cherubim. There are beautiful illustrations of them in icon paintings and renaissance art. I wish I knew more about the art and design of them in various  ancient churches. There are fallen angels which are represented in films. I feel attracted to the complex art that is created around them. The photos above play with the idea and I have tried to manipulate them to look like stained glass windows.

 

Photo glitch

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IMG_20191114_165233_550this interesting effect is on my phone. I was trying to take two seperate photos, but my camera on the phone was playing up. I guess this is like a digital double exposure. I haven’t seen anything like it before. It’s quite strange as the first image must have stayed on the image processor or whatever it is and the second image must have added to it. I think the coloured images were the ones I took first?

Would any of you photographers out there know what caused this?

B(u)y me for Christmas! Exhibition.

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I’m really pleased to have some of my paintings up at the Brampton museum and art gallery from 16.11.19 to early January 2020. This is an opportunity for local artists to sell their work in the weeks coming up to Christmas. If you feel like having a look I’d recommend it, there’s lots to see and to buy.

It’s going to be a busy few weeks. Not helped by my having a fall at the weekend. I haven’t painted as much as I wanted and I’ve hardly been out of the house. But I mustn’t let it stop me trying to get things done over the next week or so.

I’m going to do some more green, or snowy men, try and get some cards printed and get some glass jewellery finished off..

Watch this space x

I’m the king of the castle..

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My cats play and chase each other every few hours. It starts with the female cat lying down in front of the male cat, he starts to groom her and they start squabbling, she fends him off as he tries to nip her. They then start chasing each other, sneaking up and Pouncing at each other, racing round the room and up the stairs.

Lately it been a game of “I’m the king of the castle, get down you dirty rascal…” a game that children used to play where you would stand on top of a pile of dirt or maybe rocks and your friends would try and push you off and capture the high ground.

I’ve got a pile of clothes and laundry waiting to go upstairs, but the male cat has taken to sleeping on it. His sister objects and jumps up. A few times she has chased him away, only for him to come back and recapture it! I was going to take a photo of him, but he jumped down so I’ve drawn a cat on it. It does remind me of the game we used to play.

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