New paintings and regular art updates.
She sits and stares
The tabby cat
Contemplating your face
Will you open the treats
Will you give her some biscuits
Can she have a fish?
What will you put in her dish?
Staring, hypnotic, unblinking,
This tabby cat knows what she wants!
My hubby was brought up on farms and remembers the byres and barns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His childhood was spent between going to school and working on farms in the summer holidays. When he was old enough he would even drive tractors. His father was a farm labourer and went from farm to farm following the seasonal work. Sometimes hubby fed cattle, other times he helped plough or harvest crops. They even raised day old chick’s in the attic of their house.
It sounds like a hard life, but an interesting one. He did this drawing of a tractor a few years ago. There are ducks, lambs and yes that’s meant to be a cow. X
My minds a whirl..
Little thoughts track big ones
Trickle through my brain
Like sand in a puzzle
Clogging up the workings
No smooth calmness
Jumping clumps of
Dark matter
Or spaghetti goo
What does that meant
To you?
Nothing, random
Overactive
Spiced with tinges
Of pain
Let me sleep
Not that tune
Again!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was lick. Tried to get a photo of my cat but it took a while in the end I dabbed a bit of cream off the milk on his nose. I think he quite liked it! I used dark blue felt pen and pale metallic green because all my pens are running out. I still have some maroon colour left. A bit of tippex for the whiskers. Plus a very dried up black felt pen and a black liner pen, also running out. And the photo was a bit blurred. I’m tired.
I just found this photo, and my mind is taken back to a Sunday afternoon in Prestatyn, Wales. We were visiting family and decided to call in here to have a coffee and cake. The place was part cafe, part second hand shop. The window ledges were covered in succulents (money plants). I remember a huge Teddybear on one side of the room with a big nose. A teapot sign hung in the window. The cafe was near the railway station.
Taking a sketchbook out helps me remember places, it gives me a reference point, and as it takes time to draw the image its not like a photo, it’s got less information but you can choose how it looks (miss things out, add things).
I don’t always remember my sketch books, but when I do, and I have the time to draw or paint I really enjoy it.
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was shiver…
Frosty leaves
shiver in the breeze,
Silver highlights
Make them bright,
Ice crystals like sugar
Sweeten their pallor.
A bad poem to go with this drawing of frosty leaves for the prompt.
I watched a programme about Andy Warhol last night. Even though its a while since he died it stated his Warholian influence is still widespread. It made me think about when I first found out about him. It was when I was at school. The paintings and screen prints of Campbells soup cans and portraits of Marilyn Monroe were the images I first saw. I was learning about Pop Art at the time. When you have just been learning about renaissance artists such as Michelagelo or Botticelli it’s a bit of a shock to see something different. Like the Roy Lichtenstein paintings such as ‘Whaam!’ using bright colours and screen print effects. I think Warhol and these other artists were what got me interested in being playful with art.
I need to start working on my college project. I’ve given myself time to recover from a bad cold, but I can’t ignore it. I need to produce a portfolio of images and a report to go alongside it. I’ve decided to write about the history of dragons in illustrations. Their images in world history, moving forward in time to medieval art and then the present day including their appearances in literature and film. My portfolio will be illustrations and text for a children’s book exploring colour and pattern alongside an adventure. I hoe it works out.
My standard lamp, the shade was from the Waiting room gallery. It’s not accurate, I don’t have the right colours. But I like the landscape of potbank and houses on it. The leaves are from a Christmas present (yukka?) next to it. #bandofsketchers prompt ‘lamp’
Stand on the North of the Earth and look at the full moon. It seems to be one way up. Stand in the Southern Hemisphere and it will be the other way up. Basically one view is 🙃 upside down compared with the other. In fact if you are near the equator the view will be at right angles to the normal view. I think some people see the moon as a boat crossing the sky when it is waining. ie a young or old moon. When you only live in one Hemisphere you dont realise that other people can have a different perspective. Trying to put yourself in there position can change the way you look at life. I’d love to go south of the equator and see the Southern Cross and the greater and lesser Magellanic clouds (small galaxies near our milky way galaxy) which are not visible in the North.
Mallaband-Brown