New paintings and regular art updates.
I realised I haven’t doodled much lately. I guess I’ve been too busy and distracted. So today I drew this cat in the Artrage app on my phone. It’s meant to be a tabby cat with grey black and white fur. I didn’t use the metallic option at all so the paler colours show up better than they would if I had. It’s like everything else, you learn what works for you.
Have I mentioned that I have an exhibition at Spode, it can be viewed this Friday between 6.30 and 8.30. It’s at Acava Studios, up the yellow stairs, at Spode Works, Elanora street, Stoke upon Trent, ST4 1QD (I think).
If you are in the area and would like to come along you are very welcome.
It’s eclectic and interesting, with one work from 1982 that is an oil painting on an old cupboard door because I couldn’t afford a canvas. There are several portraits of my hubby from over our life together.
I’ve also included landscapes and portraits, abstract paintings, views of Spode works, and views of a nebula and Jupiter and Mars. There are also watercolours and batik prints. I’m interested in a lot of things and I hope this exhibition will show my explorative fine art practice.
What are three objects you couldn’t live without?
I tell a lie,
I could live
But would life be worth it?
Colours swirl and fade,
Brushstrokes create
Patterned surfaces
Canvas grabs paint
Textures grow
Light seems to flow.
No, without my creative things
A life of sadness it brings.
Give me my paints,
I will build mountains
Canvas for landscape
Or face?
Who knows.
Brushes manipulate
Joy it creates.
A collage I’m playing with
Gold foil and acrylic
Fiery and fierce
Flaming colours
Spiral out
Blowing out smoke
Of the dragons snout!
I went to a palette knife workshop today. The subject was a painting of rocks amid heather on local moorland.
This is my piece, I just want to add some shadows to the white cotton grass at the bottom. We started with a lime green acrylic wash to knock back the white of the canvas board, then we had to outline the rocks. We painted the top part softly with a brush and added in pink tones at the top and pale green grass with hedges painted in gently,
Then we started with the palette knives. The small pallet knife to shape and layer the rocks and then a bigger palette knife for the grass and finally blacks purple, red and pink for the heather. You have to use the sides or flat of the knife to get various textures.
It was a really enjoyable workshop with a teacher called Jo Watson. The workshop was with the Orme Art Group.
#bandofsketchers prompt was experience. I had the experience of doing this. I think the painting we worked from might have been Derbyshire or Staffs moorlands?
Smallest house in Great Britain, in Wales, is it in Caernarfon? (I’ve just been told its actually in Conway) If I remember it’s one up one down. If you spread your arms out it’s only just a bit wider than them (it’s smaller on the inside). I remember there was a woman called Carole dressed in Welsh traditional costume standing outside. We went in (squeezed in) and were amazed at how small it is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some flats in big cities are actually smaller than this, although I don’t remember seeing a bathroom in it. It’s on the seafront between the castle and a bigger building than it if I remember correctly. It might be worth Googling it if you are interested. I didn’t realise how long ago it was that we visited it, hence the hazy memories.
Flowers are coming
So is the green
Hoping I’m grinning
When they are seen
Multicoloured blooms
Loom out of the gloom!
Daisies and daffodils
And snowdrops too
Reflecting a sky
Of brilliant blue!
Oh I am forgetful! is this Cate Blanchett? I think she played the lady Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings films. I drew this about the time the films came out and it’s another sketchfu digital drawing. It’s not perfect but I am quite pleased with it and have good memories of the site.
I do like a pattern, abstract, curves
Colours and shapes
All in a swirl
Like a pine cone
Or succulent
Fibonacci shaped
Helical twisting
Rainbow
Or window
Sweet.
Digital drawing I did of David Duchovny about 10 or 15 years ago (when the X files was on TV?).
It’s another one of my drawings at Sketchfu before the website closed. I had a great deal of fun drawing there and it seems so strange not to be able to draw there anymore. I loved doing portraits on the site.
Mallaband-Brown