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

Sketching on new phone

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I found a sketching app on the new phone. The result is a lot smoother and neater than my tablet computer. I think it’s because I have a protective layer on the screen so my fingers don’t drag and judder. I may try and get the same for the tablet. Also the touch sensitive screen seems more sensitive. It’s easy to be seduced by new technology. The more helpful it is to you the more you want to use it? No doubt I will end up with a neck that is permanently bent downwards towards a screen….

I am lost! Note, the picture I’ve added is not the sketch because I can’t find it on the phone…. Nothing changes, technology eh.

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Ah… Found it! Learning…!

Whats the point?

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Someone speaks to you, says they can do all sorts of things to help you. It just needs to go through some sort of committee .

You wait to hear back, but after a while you hear you have been unsuccessful. It’s like having a job interview for a job you didn’t know was available, you hadn’t prepared for it, had no knowledge of what it entailed but once someone had dangled the carrot you felt suddenly recognised for having some small amount of worth.

So

What is the point?

Have they read this blog and decided its not commercial enough? That it does not come up to scratch? Should I just post photos of my art and keep my thoughts to myself?

What is the point?

Why bother?

What should I do?

What is the point? What is the point…..

Feeling down, but not quite out.

Wet

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Wet, rain, pouring, chucking it down, tipping down, soaking….

That’s what its like today, our canvas covered gazebo is literally on its last legs, the water on the top is making the sides bow. My partner has used a broom to empty it off but I think he will have to do it again soon.

Yesterday’s storm winds have dropped but the rain is torrential. I was coming back in the car from an appointment earlier and a storm drain lid was pushed up in the middle of the road and water was fountaining out of it!

I’m in the warm now but I got soaked. Sopping wet as they say… we are lucky to get rain in this country but the weather comes from all directions, we had a very hot dry summer, but I’m not sure what farmers will think of this. It might spoil their crops.

I was up at our village hall earlier and you could hear the rain drumming on the roof in places. Here you can hear the water overflowing the guttering and loudly falling outside the front door, or dripping and splashing off the window ledges. Hurrying traffic is sloshing water up from the road surfaces, lights shining through the curtains of rain. People rush past, umbrellas tipped to fend off the water. Darkness increases as the clouds lower overhead.

I’m off to make myself a warm drink.

X

 

Weather

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Storms and hooks of cloud.

Hurricanes and tornados, monsoon and typhoon?

The weather worsens and land is submerged.

Subsumed under water, pouring over ground.

The heat is rising, bubbling up.

Jet stream and Gulf stream, stream and steam.

Poor polar bear, starving now the sea is no longer ice.

Ship’s can sale through warm waters,

But is this good? No it cannot be,

The ocean and the sea,

Will rise above our heads if we don’t change.

Carbon dioxide expands, exhaled from life and oil.

Let us hope we can ride out the waves,

Let us survive and make amends.

Love the world, the Earth,

Do not love greed and money.

 

2017

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Ceramic head made in 1980s
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Bridge at Biddulph Grange
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Tree root
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Phone error…….

These photos were all taken in September 2017,

Starting with a ceramic head I made in the 1980s at a pottery class. It has lasted through many years and many plants. This year its just planted up with lobelia, but the fuschia that was in it in 2017 was spectacular.

The second photo is part of a Chinese bridge at Biddulph Grange gardens. A wonderful garden owned by the National Trust at Biddulph, North Staffordshire. The garden is split into different areas including one based on Egyptian architecture, a Swiss cottage, an ancient grotto, and the Chinese pagoda garden. It’s a fascinating and beautiful place to visit.

One of the odd things they have there is in picture number three. This is an upturned tree root that is covered in moss, there is a whole section  of them lining the steps down to the grotto, the trees must have been huge before they were hewn.

The fourth photo is a phone error. Probably because I had too many images on my phone, so two photos of daliahs are grouped with the hedges of the daliah walk at Biddulph. The picture is totally random, and the colours just happened.

So, I hope you like these.

X

Dawn

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The Sun is rising, its light peeking over the horizon, traffic is flowing past the front door…it’s 6.30 am and people are going to work. Can’t hear any birds singing, they don’t seem to as much this time of year. There is a wind buffeting the trees outside, and heavy rain is expected later.

I’m awake again after going to bed at 2am, I enjoy being up early sometimes, it helps me gather my thoughts, I guess I will probably go back to bed though. I don’t have any heating on so it’s quite cool in my living room, not that its been really cold yet, but you can certainly tell the season is changing to autumn.

One thing I must do is bring in my house plants. We put them outside this summer while we had the kitchen and bathroom done.  Trouble is we have no space now for a 6 ft weeping fig plant. Anyone need a huge weeping fig? Free to a good home (I’m not pay in for shipping!)

The cats are both asleep, I’m surprised they are not chasing each other. Seamus has lost his collar with its bell. Gracie could hear him coming before, so it’s become more equal in the game of sneaking up on each other and pouncing!

Well this is an exciting bit of blogging, my life laid bare…. I wonder why humans do this kind of thing. Hardly life shattering, I think I will go back to bed. Its now 6.44 am.

More iterations of transition

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Transitions…….

Once I get an idea….these are photos that I  have manipulated in layout and instagram. The spectra were caused by a peice of crystal I have hanging in the window.

The transitions are colours, shapes and facial ones.

I took the images further in each one, so they transition from something normal to something more obscure and unusual.

Use of colour makes them more interesting I think. I’m not the kind of artist that likes to write a long description next to their work to explain it so I will leave it at that.

Transitions

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We have an art challenge at Spode studios to come up with an art work which follows the theme “transition” or “transitions”.

I would normally come up with a realistic painting but I’m also toying with something more abstract. These are initial digital drawings, working on the transition from grainy to smooth, straight to curvy, and changes of colour.

I might try and turn one of these into a large painting. In a way it’s also making me think about changing my work practice from quite a straightforward way of working into something more involved.

Watch thus space for possible updates….

I might even enter something into the exhibition….

Sleep

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The Sun sets earlier every day now, by 9pm it is dark, the summer sun falls below the horizon, dropping down and bringing shadows.

My head nods with weariness, barely able to keep my eyes open. I long for sleep, ready to rest my weary limbs beneath cool sheets, but sleep sneaks away sometimes, I’m hazy with it one minute then alert and awake the next jerking back into the world with a jump, taken out of sleep by a noise or a pain.

So yes, I do need sleep, but it tends to grab hold of me in the daytime. When I’m not expecting it I fall asleep. Listening to the radio or watching tv. In a meeting. Thankfully never when I am driving. But I could almost fall asleep in a queue in a shop, tonight I was nodding at choir practice… but now at well after midnight, nothing,  no sleep.

Sleep is the soft rest that gently rocks your body into dreams,

Sleep is the midnight air coursing through your veins,

Sleep is looking at your partner as he slumbers,

Sleep hides ills and heals woes,

Sleep shapes wakefulness, giving rest to the weary.

I want sleep in my eyes, sleep in my mind.

I want to be drousy, dreaming of soft down pillows.

I need rest, from fears, from worries.

Give me sleep, now.