Knitted Jupiter, well not really..

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I wanted to paint Jupiter a couple of years ago, but my technique with acrylics does not quite work. I think I don’t blend colours as well as I could, still I had a go…..to me thus almost looks knitted…

What would Jupiter think if he was an ancient God?

 

You knitted me? That can’t be right,

I am great Jupiter, not a wooly jumper?

In all my days of pomp and might,

I was never treated rougher.

My power is great, my influence strong,

I never wore a cardie…

My orbit is extremely long,

And I am very hardy.

My storms last centuries you know,

They do not soon unravel,

So take your woollen paint and go,

As I through space do travel!

Rudyard lake railway.

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This is a drawing I did last year of the dam, a little station on the Rudyard Lake railway, a miniature railway which runs over a railway bridge above the road going out of Rudyard village towards Macclesfield.

The station for the railway is situated just beyond the bridge on the land alongside it, you can drive up a slope to get into the car park. The miniature railway consists of small steam engines  (I’m not sure of the scale,  maybe a 5th or a 6th of the size of a fully grown one). There are small passenger carriages some with windows and some without that are towed behind the engine.

The line is open at weekends in the summer months to take you along the wooded valley that leads up to the lake.  (Not sure how much it costs sorry). The first stop is at the Dam  (pictured) which is where the lake has been dammed to collect water. That is because Rudyard Lake is a reservoir for the local canal system. The train journey then continues down the length if the lake to the far end of it.

The journey is very scenic, with views over the lake with boats sailing on it and the wooded hills beyond. Sometimes we get out of the train at the dam station so I can do a drawing or painting.

The railway was built by a school several years ago. It’s on the track bed of the Great Central railway which went from Manchester to Birmingham and then London. The track was taken up in the 1950’s  we think. It went through Rushton Spencer and on to Macclesfield then Manchester apparently.

Anyway, I think the lake was named after Rudyard Kipling? But it might be the other way round. His parents used to visit the area, but I don’t know the story about that I’m afraid.

The miniature railway has a snack bar with teas and coffees. Rudyard Lake has a tea room and other facilities. Parking can be difficult by the lake but you can also park at the railway and walk along the track bed which is also a footpath up to the dam where you can walk across to the little area with the tea room. This is where the boat club is based together with a little visitor centre. The footpath continues along the track bed up to the head of the lake and there are also little paths that you can follow to get closer to the lake.

Other access to the lake is along a narrow road which takes you into the Rudyard lake hotel carpark. I’m not sure about the parking there. I don’t remember having to pay but it can get crowded.

Rudyard lake is a couple of miles away from the main road between  Stoke-on-Trent and Leek. You can also get to it from the road between Leek and Macclesfield.

I’m not a travel writer so this may not be totally accurate.

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Shattered

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Perhaps I am getting too old, but although the temperature here has gone down considerably I still feel very hot and tired. Almost on the verge of a cold or something.

Consequently I gave myself a day off today to try and get some energy back. But all I have done is felt grumpy and ended up sitting in a heap of listless thoughts.

I posted this morning about being addicted to blogging, maybe today has shown me how much I am? Sitting still with not much to do. But I do not feel well. I’m not looking for sympathy, just a way out of the apathy!

Tomorrow is only half an hour away, maybe a good night’s sleep will help ease things. But being a woman of a certain age does not help!

Oh well onwards and up the apples and pears to Bedfordshire!

Pastel sea

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I did a pastel workshop a few months ago and I found it quite difficult to get a good likeness of the sea.

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The detail is so hard to reproduce. Especially the soft, spray, and foam areas. The colours are also difficult. As you add pastels to the paper surface it catches in the “tooth” of the paper. The problem is that some of the paper’s are like sand paper, and could take the skin off your fingers! I wonder how to handle the pastels to get a softer effect.

I think I would go back to another workshop to gain more skills. I enjoy trying out new materials and techniques. There will be a charge for it, but it is worth it for the experience.

 

Two faces, two sides

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There are always two sides to a story,

one person’s love is another’s hate..

What comes between is defeat or glory

Which side you are on reveals your fate.

 

Talk to each other and share your troubles,

Never think fighting is better than speech,

Remember without it all anger bubbles.

Give Peace a chance is what we should teach.

 

Never hurt feelings if you can help it.

Hurt will run deep and ruin all love.

Be caring and helpful if you can make it,

Follow the symbol of peace, the dove.

 

I guess I’m an idealist, but in this age of rage between religions, alt right and far left, I still think diplomacy is important. We see more things on tv and the internet now than we could ever have seen in the past, when news from around a country, or across the world might have taken days or even weeks to reach us, and would only be noted if you had the money to buy a paper.

We  go into rages about things, clicking on links and signing petitions. Somehow we all have panic buttons that we constantly press. Our stress levels and hormones are at heightened levels. Like the cold war we are prompted to react to every threat, every thought that might be a challenge to our status.

Instead of wild worries about things we have no control over I do think sitting down and talking things through is a better way of solving things. We all have bogey men, enemies, people that are not our favourites. But to turn them into absolute foes, to become bigoted against them is wrong.

Perhaps we should take the chance of thinking, negotiating, trying to understand the other point of view occasionally instead of being in continuous rivalry.

The world is a smaller place than in the past, resources are finite, humanity’s population is continuing to grow. Somehow we need to grow up and talk like adults instead of squabbling like children?

Decorating pottery

For years I have drawn a little cat in a hat, useful if you want to talk to someone and they have a fidgety child. I would ask if they would like me to draw them a cat, and then draw this motif, with a pointy hat, and a name tag on its collar so the child could choose the cats name.

I also like decorating pottery so took the opportunity to do so at Trentham Retail village. This is on the A34 near Trentham village, a couple of miles South of Stoke-on-Trent, near the Stoke South junction of the M6 motorway.

There is a shop there selling pottery called the Potters Barn. They have glazes and blank pottery so you can decorate pots yourself. I know it’s usually for children, but I don’t see why adults can’t do it too.

Anyway I painted two cats, so you will see one or the other depending on which hand you hold the mug in. There are various things to paint so I chose a large mug. It cost me £15, but when you think that’s including the firing of the mug, it’s no too bad.

The final result should be bright and cheerful. I added numerous flowers in the background and dots on the rim. I should get it back I a couple of weeks.

Paper cutting

I usually do some paper cut snowflakes around Christmas, you can get quite a good snowflake effect if you cut paper up after folding it into six equal pieces like slices of a pie.

But I was bored this morning and had an old sheet of cartridge paper, not too thick, which was a bit dirty on one side. So I got my scissors out, folded it into 8 pieces and started cutting curves.

Then I thought about presenting it. I placed it on to my rag rug to get an interesting background. I also placed it on a brown slatted chair, the draining board, and held it up so it reflected off the glass in our back door.

Duplicating the images was done in Layout, an app that allows you to twist and shape your pictures. The folds in the paper add to the effect with shading and shadows adding to the 3 d effect.  Finally I put the pictures on instagram using a few of the filters on that site. I like the resulting patterns which are very symmetrical .

Portraits

 

I think I’m reasonably good at capturing people’s images when I paint and draw both traditionally and digitally. I also enjoy painting animals, and again I need to be accurate in representing them.

There are lots of books and videos to aid drawing and painting techniques. But the biggest thing that helps me is practice. Like anything else the more you do the better you get.

That said, having the book you are drawing in or canvas you at painting on placed at an upright position, either vertical or slightly sloping, helps with the resulting picture. If you draw on a horizontal surface thee picture can end up elongated or distorted. Similarly if you have a canvas in front of you too low down you can end up with a picture where the head may be to big, and thevlegd too small. It’s all a matter of positioning so you see the image equally.

I don’t tend to draw out first, I’m really terrible for starting with the eyes then working my way out! I guess I think the eyes hold the character. If you look at a face eyes are not always level. Because a face is symmetrical does not mean it completely matches on either side. Edgar Allen Poe was photographed, and when you take the two halves and multiply them into two new faces it could be two different men you are looking at…

Anyway it’s too early in the morning to be doing this…

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P.S. the paintings here are distorted a bit because of the angles they were taken at. I have tried to straighten them up digitally but they are still a bit “off” I will try and get more photos if I can, but some belong to a relative who lives a fair distance away .

Older paintings

Some paintings I did are at my relatives house so I don’t see them very often. The painting I did of Jupiter is there. I do think it looks a bit “knitted”. I would love to do some paintings based on the latest images. I think that it would be very difficult to accurately copy the atmosphere of Jupiter.  Saturn’s rings would be equally difficult to render.

The other paintings are: a picure of our garden before it got madly overgrown. Two paintings of Bovisand, out over Plymouth sound and looking inland at the geology of the rocks. My husband standing under an old arch on the isle of Portland. A watercolour of a place called Jennycliff, which is on the south east side of Plymouth.

And finally a snow scene that I painted in the 1980’s. It was meant to represent the steppes and has Russian style onion domes in the background. I’m not sure where I got my idea from. I was reading Frank Herberts “Dune” trilogy at the time and I had never seen an image of the steppes…. But to me that’s part of what being an artist is about, pictures in your mind that you are trying to represent.

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Experimenting.

I’m experimenting with different ideas. I have gone a bit more abstract. The small green man has already gone to a new home, and I’m trying to make paintings with a slight Celtic influence, like the cat. The horse is taken from an illustration I saw, I think the original had a rider. I just like the strong shapes in it.

Further ideas are more industrial and town landscapes, more celtic/abstract designs, more animals. I might try and do slightly surrealistic pictures, where the perspective is altered. I painted some like that a few years ago. I’m exploring my mind as well as art…

I intend to try and do some ceramics over glass later in the year.

I guess it’s because of doing some mono prints yesterday. I suddenly feel more liberated. I’m not sure if I will ever stick to one style or idea…..