At the boating lake

Posted on July 11, 2020July 11, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Boat house, Broken, Housework, Life, Park, Random, Toy Boat, Walking, Washing machineLeave a comment

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My hubby went out with his remote control boat today. He took it to the boating lake in the park. This park is beautifully tended with floral borders and a restored boat house.

I wish I’d gone, but I was busy sorting things out as we are having to get a new washing machine. The old one has finally given up. The thing works but it keeps coming up with error messages. E8, E9. Don’t know what they mean but it’s stopping it finishing the programmes. I can only get it to work on one, 30 minutes 30 degrees…

But what’s this got to do with parks? Only that I didn’t go on a walk. They did about ten miles. I wish I was fit enough to do it. Humph!

What I see in maps (and other things)

Posted on July 11, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Cat, Drawing, Fun, Humour, Life, Map, Pattern, Seeing faces, Time2 Comments

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I took another look at this post about map reading and suddenly saw a cat. I’ve written about finding things in wallpaper, or ink blots or all sorts of different things including the front and back of cars. Grilles on cars can look like grinning mouths, headlights like eyes. I love seeing animals and faces and objects in clouds. Sometimes it drives me mad when I see something over and over again. Once seen, never forgotten. Life is strange, the mind is stranger.

Pattern play.

Posted on July 11, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Blogging, Colours, Design, Fun, Layout ap, Pattern, Sketcher free, Sketching, SpiralsLeave a comment

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I don’t know when I did this, probably three or four years ago. It’s a combination of three apps, ArtRage oils, sketcher free and layout. I drew the metallic looking pattern first, then added the spirals and finally divided and mirrored the images.

I probably used a photo editor too. I’m not sure.

The feeling I get from making these gives me great pleasure. I can’t explain, but it takes me out of myself.

Three years ago

Posted on July 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blogging, Commissions, Etruria flint mill, Jessie Shirley's bone and flint mill, Landscape, Paintings, Three years ago, TimeLeave a comment

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I was doing a couple of commissions of Etruria flint and bone mill. I had done one painting and a couple of people liked it and wanted copies. This is when I started using long thin canvases. It makes landscapes more interesting I think. Is it like letterbox TV? I don’t know. I’m hoping I can get back to doing things like this when we get back to something like normality.

Park tree

Posted on July 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Blogging, Drawing, Life, Nature, Park tree, Poem, Poetry, Sketching, Tree, Urban sketchLeave a comment

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Strong tree,

tall tree

Sycamore.

Standing proud in the park.

Green tree,

branches waving,

fluttering.

Never still.

Giving shade,

cooling air,

softening the edges.

Buildings round

have pleasant views.

Park trees,

pleasant days

sunshine and showers.

Quick figures

Posted on July 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black ink pen, Blogging, Drawing, Fast, Figures, Fun, Quick sketches, SketchesLeave a comment

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Quick sketches of figures while I sat on a roundabout in the park yesterday. I added a little dog, sitting next to one of them. And an older female figure stooped over. Our project this week at college was to do various things, including drawing a person walking. I must do a better job, but these were a couple of minutes each, max.

They could be neat and tidy, but you can’t nail people down to make them still when you try and draw them.

Patterns

Posted on July 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colours, Design, Digital apps, Digital drawing, Drawing, Fun, Hue, Inspiration, Pattern4 Comments

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Patterned background, created digitally, with a figure of a seated woman added. I like playing with pattern, seeing what I can find hidden in the depths..

I added dark lines then shading and lightened areas to give the figure a bit of definition. I guess it’s a little more abstract than I normally draw. I changed the hue in it a couple of times to. Making it more green and then more red. I enjoy experimenting with art.

Long day

Posted on July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 Posted in Cat, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Busy, Cat, Covid, Lecture, Life, Meeting, Tired, Tree, vetsLeave a comment

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Well that was a busy day. I didn’t sleep because my female cat was having an inoculation this morning and I’d got to get up early. She’s sneaky, she doesn’t like cat carriers so we have a soft big bag that I can put the cats in. I had to hold her by the scuff of the neck while my hubby zipped the bag up. She yowled a lot on the way to the vets, but then settled down as I spoke to her quietly.

All was fine, she was inoculated and I bought her home. She was relieved and so was I!

Later when I went to do some college work she snuck behind me on the chair and went to sleep so I think I was forgiven.

We had an interesting talk about illustration online for a couple of hours. Looking at the use of collage and text in illustrations. Then later I met up with my two friends in the park. I sat and drew a tree and calmed down. I was so tired I could have fallen asleep in the sun. Sitting two meters apart on a roundabout. We gave it a few spins but I’m getting too old for things like that. Dizzy!

Then shopping, home, a bit of tidying and cooking. I have got a few more things to do. Not much of a diary entry. But it was at least busier than normal.

Old map of Lancashire and Morcambe Bay.

Posted on July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 1950's and 1960's, 2 shillings and sixpence, Bartholemews, Blogging, Cloth covered map, Ctc, Cycling map, Height above sea level, Map, Navigation, North Lancashire2 Comments

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An old ctc (Cycle Touring Club) map, 2 inches to the mile. Paper on cloth. Cost 2 shillings and sixpence. Printed to show heights. As it is in ‘old money’ it predates decimalisation. Probably printed in the 1950’s or 1960’s but there is no published date on it.

The area shown is North Lancashire, sheet 5, Bartholemews, coloured. I’m amazed it’s still held together and the edges of each little sheet are only slightly worn. Some of it will be changed now, new or improved roads, villages sunk under reservoirs, that sort of thing.

Nowadays everything is on line, or people use satnav. But having the skill to read maps is useful. Having a compass helps you know what direction you are moving in. When I go places I have a big compass on my dashboard of my car and I use large scale driving atlas. We also use smaller scale walking maps that show more details. If you’ve never used a map buy at least one. You can find more interesting places on a map than you might on an online one.

Tips for drawing or painting faces

Posted on July 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

selfex someone on Facebook was asking for help on how to draw faces. I replied that turning your drawing upside down can change how you perceive it…

I said that when you look at each bit of the drawing (an eye, or the nose perhaps), remember to stand back and look at it as a whole, so you can see everything in relationship to each other. Moving something by as little as a millimeter can make all the difference to how a face looks. Also turn the drawing and the image you are working from upside down. That way you don’t get sucked into thinking it should look this way or that. If a drawing is upside down you concentrate more on the shapes and their relationship to one another. It’s surprising but it works. When you turn it back the right way up you may see a difference…

Mallaband-Brown

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