Aunty socials piano keys?

Auntysocial.wordpress.com is asking for a design for her old piano keys, 88 of them, because she’s dismantled her old upright piano. The keys are black and white (over 100 year old ivory). There are photos on her page of what other people have done. I’ve tried to draw something after failing abysmally on a drawing app that let’s you draw circles but not spirals. Anyway this is wonky but I thought some wall art, a square shaped white panel, and with a spiral or two of keys on it, plus some musical notes painted on it. A bit random…. I don’t know.

Cat got out!

Loud rattling at the cat flap! Something trying to get in…. I went to open the door, but there was just darkness. I went back to preparing out evening meal. Then. More rattling. I went to the door and opened it, our boy cat was outside in the dark, trying to get back in. He dashed into the kitchen and proceeded to give me the biggest headbump ever. Just pleased to see me.

Talking to hubby, we decided he must have sneaked out when hubby went out to put some food in the shed for the hedgehogs.

Eye colour

Playing with ArtRage oils, another app I like to use. I haven’t drawn with it for a while. It’s a free app on android (you can get the ro version with lots of other tools for a price). I like the fact that you can turn up the metallic effects from zero to 100%. There are four brush types. A dry brush and everlasting oils are two of the options. You can also change the size of the brush tools. Maybe it can be a bit fiddly to work with but it’s interesting to use and has a different look to most of the other drawing aps out there.

If you know of other apps, let me know. I want to find other options for drawing.

Exhibited three years ago.

I mmust have been feeling cheerful when I did these paintings plus a batik picture of some fish. The first bottle oven painting is an attempt to do a clarice cliff design. If I did it now I would make the building more curved. The batik is sort of a Pices idea. The dragonfly was an interesting compositon and the half bottle oven is meant to be mirrored by blue sky or water in a canal. It is slightly remenicent of a yin yang symbol. The exhibition was held at the warehouse at Etruria industrial museum at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent three years ago. At the moment we cannot use the building because of covid19.

Where have you been?

Monday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
Closed
Thursday
Closed
Friday
Closed
Saturday
Closed
Sunday
Closed

Where the sky

looks like sea

and houses float,

where the light is reflected

and you move by boat,

skulling around

and into the air,

following tides

no one knew was there,

washing the sky

with electric blue,

enjoying the world

with a higher view.

A dream like world,

a better place.

A planet in

a different place.

A brand new universe,

To explore in space.

And no WordPress I don’t want to display opening times why won’t you let me delete my mistake?

Looking at glass

I was talking to a fellow artist about drawing and painting glass. We discussed whether it has a blue tinge like water but I disagreed. I suggested he looked at the reflection on glass. Sometimes glass is tinted slightly, uranium glass for instance is yellowish, I said I thought it depended on what is added to it when it’s manufactured. I think if you were to put a glass and a plastic bottle next to each other as an exercise and draw what you see you would probably notice stronger reflections on the glass. Also look at shadows, glass, though usually transparent, throws a shadow…instead of using blue to define it I said try using a bit of grey. Observation is very important.

Missing Barndances

Next month we would probably have been holding a Barn dance in aid of the Penkhull Mystery play (that didn’t happen in July). We would also have started rehearsals for the Penkhull panto, both events, ( the mystery play and the panto) had big audiences. Now our government has decided to cut the number of people who can live in England down to six both inside and out. No more crowds. Sad….

Wheels

White walls or black walls, old fashioned bike wheels are getting hard to find. Everything has gone over to metric and the 27 inch and 26 inch tyres of yesteryear are hard to find now. That’s a problem for people like me with little legs. I had 26 inch wheels and when I had my bike rebuilt they put in 700c’s which are ever so slightly larger. That resulted in my saddle being slightly too high. I always used to lay my bike on the floor to get over the frame, but once I stand it up I can’t get on the saddle. I want to lower that, but the bolt had seized… Might try finding a shopper bike!