Penkhull Mystery Plays

Posted on January 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Drama, Music, Play, Penkhull mystery play, Community, Titchy theatre, Performance, Stalls, July 2020Leave a comment

The time to organise this year’s mystery play at penkhull is here. But people need to get involved. After fifteen years of hard work some of the organisers are standing down. We have various deadlines and need to decide by early February whether it’s going ahead. The committee are meeting tonight and hopefully those that were involved and are involved or might want to be involved will attend. It takes a lot of effort from over 400 people to put the day on. The centre of it is usually a Mystery Play although a couple of years ago we had a ‘fallow’ year where there was no play, but the rest of the day went ahead. I guess people are busy, but it would be good to keep it going….

One of those days.

Posted on January 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Campbell Place, Car, Design, Garage, Grey day, January, Life, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, Stoke-upon-Trent, Thinking, Time, Trying to sell artLeave a comment

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Grey and depressing, icy cold, big droplets of rain. Disappointing as well, I keep trying to get the car mended (someone broke my wing mirror, the glass is cracked, and someone must have reversed into my nearside wing, it’s all scraped and dented. But I rang up, and the mechanic, who is trying to find the right mirror rang in sick this morning. I will have to try again tomorrow. Then I collected some paintings from my studio to try and get into a local craft centre. But the owner has been inundated with local artists. He is interested in more work but needs to sell some art first. He has had people in but one comment he got was “is it really That much?” for one if the pieces in there. It’s the usual thing in this area, people don’t have money, or if they do they don’t want to spend it. It’s depressing (oh I’ve already said that)……

Memory 2012

Posted on January 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 2012, Dawn, Description, Early morning, Husband, Life, Life changes, Memories, WorkingLeave a comment

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2012….Another Sunday morning, husband went off about 15 minutes ago, and me and the cat are here waiting for the sun to rise. The sky had gone from coal black to a dark shade of Paynes Grey, in fact in the few minutes since I sat down it has lightened considerably….. The cat is happily lying on the desk next to the computer, turning over to have her tummy tickled, she doesnt like being ignored and keeps trying to sit on my drawing tablet that also acts as my mouse! that knocks the text off so I have to reposition the cursor every couple of minutes…The blackbirds were singing in the garden at 6.30, husband went out to listen and one carried on while the other Pink, pinked its alarm call… the song continues high and beautiful, shapley whistles that vary over different combinations of notes…. I am staying up in case his bus does not arrive. One last look at the sky, only slightly lighter, blue grey, no glimmer of sun yet and overcast with lowish cirrus? clouds…thank goodness for the prospect of a warm bed and a book if he does not come back. (It has happened in the past when the bus driver forgot to get up!)

Tabby cat

Posted on January 29, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Cat, Cat portrait, Design, Poem, Poetry, TabbyLeave a comment

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Cat painting, a small little picture I did a couple of years ago.

Little cat,

Slightly stern,

Not too grumpy,

Staring out.

Where are you from?

Who is your friend?

Tiny cat,

Playful Tiger,

Bright and clever,

Looking out,

Green eyed

Neat.

Layers of a collage.

Posted on January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Collage, Colours, Design, Glue, Landscape, Orme Art group, Paper, Paper cutting, shiny paper, Tissue paperLeave a comment

From two years ago. Turning a drawing into a collage using Christmas wrapping paper, tissue paper and a shiny, metallic party bag.

I layered up the paper using dark urple tissue paper over a pale background to try and give the idea of silhouetted trees. Having stuck the purple colour down I then cut out the metallic paper to simulate the wire mesh fence. When I cut out the tree shape I wanted to give a feeling of the texture of tree bark. Finally I added paper on either side to act as curtains.

This was at an interesting collage workshop with the Orme art group about two years ago. I enjoyed learning a new skill.

Willow pattern

Posted on January 28, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blue and white, Colour, Design, Life, Painting, Spode, Still life, Willow patternLeave a comment

Images of a painting I did of the Willow pattern ceramic design a couple of years ago. The pattern is based on a few images that I saw online and copied, so it’s sort of a generic design. Many pottery companies had their own specific design. There are variations in the positioning of figures, placement of temples and types of vegetation. This was the British attempt to copy Chinese designs.

How to tell the earth is a sphere…

Posted on January 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ancient Greeks, Angles, Earth, Flat earth, Geography, Life, Measurements, Myth, Not flat, Science, Space, Sphere, SunLeave a comment

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So how can you tell the Earth is a sphere? The ancient Greeks worked it out ( I don’t remember the name of the person who did).

The experiment was to put a stick in the sand at or near the equator, so it would have a tiny shadow directly underneath the it at mid day as the Sun was directly overhead.

If you place a stick upright, at 90° to the Eaths surface either North or South of the equator, the stick casts a shadow at mid day. (Look at the hands of a clock the hands move round in the same way). Say the equator is 3pm and the Sun is overhead, you would get no shadow, then as you go further away from the stick at the equator you get increasing angles (see diagram). Eventually at the poles the shadows would be at their longest.

So how can you tell its a sphere? The angles add up. You can calculate the curvature of the planet from these simple experiments. The ancient Greeks got very close to calculating the circumference of the Earth. Their calculations were only a small percentage out on their measurement.

Mallaband-Brown

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