New paintings and regular art updates.
A little owl on a little canvas. I have several tiny paintings in a box because I’ve basically given up craft fairs. I don’t have the energy or health to do them anymore. I will have to see how I feel later in the year.
You can tell it’s a small canvas because of the size of the weave of the material. It’s an acrylic on canvas. I love painting but I’ve hit an artists block situation. X
From a painting I did of the Chinese willow pattern I did a few years ago. Based on a couple of Spode platters. It took a long time to paint the details. It’s an acrylic on canvas. This is only part of it, concentrating on a temple and pine tree. (I think). I’m sorry it’s so dark, it was copied off my screen saver background and it’s really far too dark. But anyway, I just wanted to post a random piece of my art. I’ll have to try and lighten it.
I worked a bit more on this digital drawing. I used a filter in photodirector to invert the colours, then an eraser that took out some of the dark colours and revealed the underlying colours. I think this looks a little like marble?
A painting I did in the 1980s when we still had our beautiful mainly white cat. She would sit and watch the goldfish in the tank, sometimes raising a paw as if to try and catch them, but the tank had a lid and a pump so they were perfectly safe.
I painted this on a board that used to have a mirror attached to it but that was long gone. I used oil paint I think, it gets absorbed into the wood rather than sitting on the surface like acrylics. It’s about 2 ft long and is hung in the living room above the archway that divides the room in half. I often look up at it and smile at the memories it brings.
Section of a painting I did about 1993. It’s interesting to look at how I painted the pattern on the carpet. It was actually a large rug on a terracotta and black tiled floor. This was in our old rented house which was quite delapidated. The cellar underneath this room was very wet and the mortar was rotting. It was held up by an acroprop and you could see the floor was bowing downward so we didn’t use the room much and I used it as a studio. When you changed a light bulb you needed to take insulation tape with you. The wire was cloth covered and would fall off when you changed the bulb. There’s a lot I could say about that old house, but that’s it for now. It is funny how a painting can evoke so many memories.
One of my murals from the Leopard Hotel in Burslem. Stoke-on-Trent. Sadly lost in a fire. Brindley, Wedgwood, and two other people involved are depicted meeting at the Leopard to plan the work. It’s been several years since I painted it and I can’t remember the other names so if anyone knows please tell me. This was emulsion paint directly onto lining paper on the wall.
I’ve just been told the other two were Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Bentley. Thanks to my friend Greg Stephens for the info.
I started this at art group last November and I hadn’t touched it till today’s art group. That’s about 2 months. I feel guilty that it’s taking so long but with illness and one thing and another it’s taken me this long to get going again. It’s a work in progress and I want to try and get a better feeling of three dimensions to the teapot.
I working the pattern out as I go along and I need to take into account the lighting aswell. It’s been four hours and I didn’t want to stop, but the session only lasts till 2.30pm
One of my photos that I got in a local calendar for this year. There was a photographic competition in the summer. People were asked to submit pictures of our local village of Penkhull for it to raise funds for the village hall.
In the end three of my pictures were chosen, that’s a quarter of the twelve monthly images! There was also a thirteenth one that was chosen for the front of the calendar. I’m so proud to have had my work included for 2025.
Making up faces, good practice if you don’t have anyone to draw. You can work out eye shapes and sizes, how would a long or short nose look? Big or small mouth thin or thick lips? Are the ears visible? How long or wide is the face, what shaped chin.
Drawing is a skill, practice does help. 10,000 hours is meant to make you an expert. Millimeters can change things, hair, makeup, colour, looking in different directions. Up down, sideways, three quarter view.
Please keep working, practicing, enjoy it.
My grandfather carved this ship from wood, probably in the early 20th century. It had no masts so I put the the bamboo sticks into it when I was young and I was going to try and put sails on it. It has thin strips of cardboard nailed on along the sides. I painted it up because it was so shabby.
This was a watercolour sketch I’d done about 4 years ago and I’m mourning the fact that I could still draw and paint neatly.
Mallaband-Brown