New paintings and regular art updates.
Mona Lisa I painted for a raffle prize for Penkhull Mystery plays May Madness event. I did a lot of it live over an hour and forty minutes. But it needed finishing. This took about another three hours, trying to get the smooth blending done. I’m sure there are mistakes but I’m calling it done.
I’ve been invited by my friend and fellow artist Eve Travis to join a group of local artists at The Rigger Venue in Newcastle-under-Lyme on the 19th and 20th of June 2021. The idea is to get the art out of galleries and move it into the community. My vision will be images based on the idea of green men and women. Better get some works done.
I like painting bottle ovens on long thin canvases and I tend to use the shape of the side to make almost a yin yang curve. I might add some stars to the swirling sky. I’ve used mainly reds browns and oranges for the brickwork on the kiln. I need to go over the dark mortar and add some shading to the kiln to give it more shape. Acrylic on canvas.
Poppy, acrylic on canvas, painted in 2013. One of my favourite paintings. I wish I could grow poppies as colourful as this.
Looking in through the door to the left side of the studio. I’ve got a lot of work that has been exhibited, I just need to sell some of it! I woukd like to find a good art site to sell my work for a reasonable amount (not an on line auction, or on the other hand, an expensive and exclusive site). I just want these to go to good homes.
Have been offered a space in an exhibition for local artists in June. That will be fun! It’s been a whole year since I’ve dealt with the public face to face. I feel quite nervous about it.
I managed to do a bit more on this work in progress today. It feels a bit closer to the original. Getting the colours to blend into each other is hard and although I’m using thin glazes the acrylic paint goes off very quickly. The eyes are a little better, but the mouth might be slightly too smiley. I just need to scumble the paint a bit more to soften the tones into one another.
Well, I’ve finally got back to my studio at spode! I started a small painting of a bottle oven, I think it’s going to have a Van Gogh style sky. I need to start getting some work done for a possible exhibition later in the year. I want to do work about the area, but with a bit of a twist. This is a canvas about two foot by eight inches? It will be acrylic on canvas once I’ve painted in the mortar for the brick work I will add colourful bricks. The sky will swirl with clouds and stars and there may be vegitation or a bit of foliage.
We visited again today to see how things are going at the Waiting room gallery. Things are happening, there are new people helping to organise the gallery spaces and it looks like they are going to have a sales /shop area and seperate exhibition space both downstairs and upstairs. The Gallery is still linked with the work going on at Longport Station to restore it. I hope that it all happens soon and without delays to their plans. I will write more as I find out what is happening.
Longport Station isn’t open to the public at the moment but it is a small station between Stoke and Manchester. It was once part of the LMS line (London Manchester and Scottish line).
A friend died a while ago and I didn’t know that a memorial plaque had been attached to the weeping willow in the Spode Rose Garden.
The plaque is screened by the trees foliage, so when I saw a pale disc on the trunk, I assumed it was a branch that had been cut off, but no, it was a memorial. I was saddened because I hadn’t remembered him with everything that had happened over the last year. He was a lovely person and a brilliant artist. Farewell.
Tonight I painted Mona for the Penkhull Mystery play, Mystery May Madness event which was a Zoom meeting with an audience watching flower arrangement, songs, memoirs, jokes, me painting this live, plus a raffle… All in 1hr 40mins! Acrylic on canvas, after Leonardo DaVinci. Needs a bit more work. X
Mallaband-Brown