New paintings and regular art updates.
Cat next to a box of my minature paintings that I did a few years ago. He’s come in from the cold. He knocked the cat flap door off again (his tummy is too big for it sometimes). He’s not exactly fat, just big, huge, massive! You can see he’s at least as big as the box. He takes up most of a seat on our three seater settee. He is a handsome cat, with golden, yellow eyes. Such a cool character.
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
I’m not sure what is going on, but I’ve had a lot of views on my account. No extra likes or comments than normal. It seems strange. I don’t mind but it’s just odd. Should I be bothered?
Well I think whoever is viewing my blog isn’t that interested in it if its just one person. So that makes me question its content. Maybe I should try and work out if there are any improvements I could make?
I don’t know if I should question things like this. Maybe I’m oversensitive. I know I think too much. What do you think?
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.
A banner for one of our Penkhull Mystery Plays. We hold them most summers and the one this was painted for was about the pottery industry and its history. This banner was based on the willow pattern famous in the potteries. Spode was one of the factories that made plates and pots with this design, but if you Google ‘willow pattern’ you can find lots of images from many manufacturers.
Blue acrylic paint on a canvas cloth. It took me a while to paint. I also painted the local church and methodist Hall as they would have appeared in the late 19th and early 20th century.
And then I paint planets too!
Acrylic on canvas, I’m interested in astronomy and this view of the Earth was taken from a photo. It shows parts of Africa, Greenland, Europe and the Americas. I think you can see the wind directions indicated by the clouds.
I’ve also painted views of the Moon, Jupiter and Mars, together with nebulae and galaxies. It may be something I do again.
In 2016, nine years after the Leopard murals, I was asked to do a series of illustrations for a leaflet about the Trent and Mersey canal and the Cauldon canal. This is of James Brindley taking measurements for the canal navigation. The image was painted in acrylics on water colour paper and was one of several paintings including Middleport pottery and the Kidsgrove canal tunnel. The leaflet was published. I don’t know if they did more than one set.
Another of my murals, four gentlemen meet to discuss the building of the Trent and Mersey canal. They included Josiah Wedgwood and James Brindley. They were said to have met in the back room of the Leopard Hotel in Burslem.
This image was found on a ghost hunter website. I didn’t give my permission for him to use it, but I guess I can’t complain because it means I now have a record of it. I will keep looking for more.
Mallaband-Brown