Etruria Flint Mill

Posted on January 21, 2022January 21, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Canvas, Engine, Etruria, Fine Art, Landscape, Life, Painting, Steam engine, Stoke-on trent, TimeLeave a comment

I added my easle yesterday. Today I’m showing you my easle two years ago, I did a painting of Etruria Flint Mill. It’s also called Jessie Shirley’s Bone and Flint mill I think? It’s the only working Steam driven Flint mill in the country and the flints and bone were crushed and ground using the power of the steam driven beam engine there.

The buildings are part of Etruria Industrial Museum, a complex of cafe, the museum displays, and the Flint mill on the Trent and Mersey and Cauldon Canals at Etruria, Stoke on Trent. I’m not sure of its opening times. But once a month it used to be fired up and you could watch the fly wheel rotating round and the pans where the flints were ground rumbling as the engine turns them. Its amazing to see the industrial archeology of the potteries in action.

Bug

Posted on January 21, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged anti-mask rhetoric, cold virus, Covid, Dentists, Doctors, dodging virus, Life, Masks, nurses, Scientists, silly ideas, surgeons, thank you NHSLeave a comment

My hubby has caught my cold bug (not Covid) now he feels like I have been feeling all week. He’s been sneezing a lot and apart from coming downstairs for food etc he’s spent the day in bed reading books. I hope he throws it off quickly. He doesn’t usually get ill but because we have been dodging viruses for the last two years I guess our immunity to the common cold has diminished.

Meanwhile I’ve had messages on other social media blaming masks for Covid! I replied that I guessed I’d never agree with the person and pointed out that before the pandemic surgeons, doctors, nurses and dentists wore normal surgical masks. If they don’t stop viruses or bacteria why wear them. Plus the person said CO2 would build up and Oxygen can’t get through a mask! I think O2 is a smaller molecule than CO2 so it’s More likely to get through (and FAR SMALLER than a virus particle). But logic and science does not seem to satisfy these people.

Under the weather

Posted on January 21, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Aches, Cactus, Colds, Cough, Ill, Life, Poem, Poetry, throat, Time, Weather2 Comments

Dry throat

Dry cough

Feeling under the weather

Like a desert

Full of spiky cactus

Stuck in my throat

Cold and tired

Frosty and foggy brained.

Bring back cool showers

And gentle breezes.

Taking time

To recover.

Faces

Posted on January 21, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Lichtenstein, Marilyn, Michelangelo, Painting, playful, Pop art, Renaissance, School, WarholLeave a comment

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.

Painting or photo?

Posted on January 21, 2022January 21, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Layout app, Mirrored, painterly, Photo, Photodirector app, Reflected, Texture, Time2 Comments

By mirroring, changing texture, changing the colour and adding lens flare you can get a whole different, if artificial, landscape. I’m not sure I have made it look natural, I wanted to make it look like I had used a paintbrush and oil paints, but the lens flare is perhaps too sharp. Maybe I should put it through another filter or have I gone far enough.

Back to college

Posted on January 20, 2022January 20, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Chinese, College, Colour, Dragons, Fun, George and the dragon, History, Illustration, Life, Literature, Scales3 Comments

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.

What’s on the easle?

Posted on January 20, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Dragon, Drawing, Easle, Fun, mojo, Painting, Poem, Poetry, Rhyme, ThinkingLeave a comment

They ask

‘what’s on the easle?’.

I say

‘a lot of stuff’

Tissues and a coffee cup

And other sorts of muck

A drawing of a dragon

A pallette and a brush

A green painted canvas

If you really want to look….

I ought to be painting

But there’s been a delay

My minds gone off the boil now

It’s not coming out to play…

One day I’ll get my mojo back

I’ll start to paint again

But till that day my easle

Is a place to rest my brain!

Another cat in a box

Posted on January 20, 2022 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Box, Car, Fun, Life, open box, Playing, Tuxedo cat2 Comments

Grainy, blurry photo of my female cat. I had a printmaking kit delivered and I’ve just taken it out of the box so I left it there for the cats. It’s dark in here as I’m saving electricity and just have a couple of lamps on. I don’t need much light.

She’s a beautiful, delightful cat, mother of at least four kittens that we rehomed. She was pregnant when we took her in as a rescue cat but we got her spayed and she has lots of fun now. Her latest trick now is chasing my dressing gown belt. I’ll be walking through the kitchen and have to stop because she’s caught it with her claws!

Lamp

Posted on January 20, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Fun, Lamp, Life, Light, Prompt, Waiting room gallery, yukka2 Comments

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’

Upside down Moon

Posted on January 20, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Hemisphere, Interest, Life, Magellanic clouds, Moon, Space, Thinking, upside down, ViewLeave a comment

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

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