New paintings and regular art updates.
And the year turns. I know when we are past the shortest day when there is still light in the sky at after 5pm. It cheers me up.
Daylight
Delights me
Brightens my mood
Makes me smile
Despite the cloud
Banked up
With rain or sleet
Awakens my spirit
Woken from sleep.
If you visit Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent you can find various wire woven fairies dotted around the grounds. Some are easier to spot than others. One flies down to a fountain to fill a watering can, another holds onto a huge dandelion seed head as it is caught in the wind. A warrior queen fairy stands on a plinth by the lake. I liked this one, hanging down from a branch in the trees on a swing. She’s hard to spot as the tree is an evergreen pine. She’s a welcome addition after walking around the lake.
Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley, Stoke-upon-Trent, Fenton, Longton.
Six towns United as one city. Stoke-on-Trent.
I remember seeing this print and taking a photo of it, but I cannot remember where it’s from. So apologies for using the image and if I’m infringing copyright let me know and I will remove it. I like the style of the illustration. It’s almost grecian in style. The Potter is throwing a pot on a foot treadled wheel. The background looks a bit like a Minton tile. I did Google it and found some very similar images.
Pottery is such a wonderful craft. The things you can make out of clay. From tableware to ceramic insulators. Sanitaryware (bathrooms) to delicate ornaments. The Potteries has a great history. It’s fame is world wide. I’m proud to live here.
How our vision changes. This was a mobile of the solar system I bought several years ago. Before the further exploration of the planets and based on images from the Voyager probes that happened in the 70’s and 80’s. I added the Space Shuttle model later. Now the James Webb telescope has been launched to take photos in the infra-red of the earliest ages of the universe. It will replace the Hubble Space telescope which took amazing photos of our solar system as well as galaxies and nebulae. It’s greatest image was the hubble deep feild that was a photo of a small, empty looking piece of sky, which turned out to be full of images of some of the earliest ever galaxies. I love astronomy. I might not know facts and figures, but I love space.
I might sleep till spring
Curled up and snug
Warm in my bed
Like a tidy ladybug
The sheets white like snow
Blue shadowed and dug
Deep into the duvet.
Then come springs light
Warm sun so bright
I’ll yawn and awake
Like blossom burst forth,
But till then I’ll wait
And keep warm.
It was an Oorie day, the sky was full of dark grey, shifting clouds. A cold wind blew from the North East. Hail started to fall, bouncing off roofs and into gutters. The roads and pavements were slippery with the icy white mass of hail. It crunched underfoot. But it was melting quickly and rivulets of ice and water ran down the road into the grids by the pavement.
It’s hard to describe an ‘oorie’ day, even though I’ve just walked home in one. I saw the word on a friends page where she was writing a piece using the word as a prompt. That’s why I looked it up, I’ve never come across it before and doubt I will use it again.
What does a dragon need to stay safe? If you read The Hobbit, Smaug the dragon was killed by an arrow that pierced a soft area in his skin under his arm. Dragons have to have a strong skin..
So what would it look like? I’ve been experimenting with how big the scales would be. I guess they would have to be like an alligator or crocodile skin, rather than a lizard or snake whose scales seem smaller or softer. The dragon would need fire retardant scales to prevent charring or burning either around its mouth when it is fire breathing or on the rest of its body. Maybe male dragons duel in short fights, if they were to attack each others wings they would need to be strong. Dragons wings always look vulnerable. The skin is stretched between bony fingers. Surely that could easily be holed if it were not well maintained. Lots to consider.
This started as a black and white line drawing but then I played with it by playing with the texture then using a flood fill tool to add colour. I finally put it through an Instagram filter to heighten the colours. Just a little abstract pattern.
Our government has told us to open our windows to ventilate the rooms and reduce covid virus. But instead of opening a window in our living room my hubby just told me he’d had our bedroom window open all afternoon! I’ve been sitting here in two jumpers and my coat and thinking the central heating wasn’t working properly! I tried to explain that as we have the radiator on in there and it’s under the window it means we are just heating the outside atmosphere! I feel like turning the heating off and opening all the windows and doors! There’s following instructions and then there’s wasting energy! God knows what our gas bill will be like!
#bandofsketchers… For todays prompt. I took my glasses off to draw this old pair. Then I decided to add the bottom of a small glass as the prompt is ‘glasses’. Then I tried to pick the drawing up because I thought these were my current pair!
Mallaband-Brown