Little Oak tree
Not great yet.
Just middle aged
Not ancient
Will you survive
Into your centenary?
Have your acorns grown,
Have you got galls?
Surviving a winters day
With a squirrels dray.
Category: Uncategorized
Memory. Captain Scarlet
We had to discuss limited and free colour palettes today. I chose this red car from the children’s TV series Captain Scarlet. It was one of my favourite series when I was growing up. Sometimes a bit frightening. It was about the Mysterons from Mars who were trying to invade the Earth.
Red was my favourite colour when I was little. Not pink, never blue, just red. I don’t know why…..
I found the car in a charity shop and had to have it. I like the limited colours of red, black and silver. I had to have it.
Another black and white cat?
If you do a line drawing of your cat and you want to fill it in with colour, you don’t have to use black. I’ve used green and red as complementary colours. It’s a very quick sketch and it’s meant to capture the cat without over working it. I think even a little experiment like this can send you off in a new direction.
Observational drawing
Coffee or tea mug, pencil sketch with watercolours on top. Plain and metallic. Trying to get accurate ellipses. I usually make the mistake of having stronger curves at the top than the bottom, when actually it’s the other way round!
Small amount of snow..
Snow between bricks and cobble stones #bandofsketchers Tuesday 9.2.21 prompt ‘Winter’ . Watercolour on cartridge paper.
My old cat Jinx
A rescue cat. Another photo from forty years ago. This was our old cat. He was due to be put down because he wasn’t wanted so we took him in. He lived another year and died of old age and kidney problems. I did a painting of this photo on an old wooden cupboard door as I didn’t have the money to afford any canvases while I was on holiday from college. The painting was exhibited and sold to someone at Stoke Garden Festival I think? And I did love him, even though it was for a limited time.
Fuzzy photo
photo across the ages from forty years ago when I first went to college. Why? The sky was dirtier, there was dust and smoke in the air from places like the Michelin Tyre Factory. I don’t know if that’s a chimney in the distance or a crane.
Why keep blurry old photos? They link you to memories of a time long gone, of a changed world. Where there was some interest in pollution and ozone holes, but not enough pressure to improve things.
Maybe I should just delete this, but this was a prompt I wanted to use.
Sea of sleep
Storm tossed in my duvet
Slipping beneath waves of sleep,
Sometimes floating
Or clawing back to the surface.
Submerged in dreams
And in my galleon
Surrounded by dolphins
I finally wake
In the safe port
In the harbour,
Of bed…
Stoke clouds
Snow clouds, but not much snow, just little bobbles like polystyrene bits, or tiny fuzzy flakes. Apparently the east of the country is badly hit with thick drifts of snow, we just have the freezing winds at the mo!
Big City Dreams
I keep seeing this stencil around our city. I think it’s a work by a local artist called ‘stokesy’? Whoever it is they are emulating Banksy.
I like these, it feels like they care about the city. There is a neatness and confidence about them. They are representative of the creative spirit of the city of the Potteries. The home of Clarice Cliff and Suzie Cooper, Emma Bridgewater, Wedgewood, and all the potteries and makers in the area. I ❤️ this city, I ♥️ Stoke-on-Trent.
Mallaband-Brown 