Remembering

Posted on May 5, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Beech, Bovisand Bay, Devon, From life, Landscape, Painting, Plein air, Poem, Poetry, Sea, Seaside, SummerLeave a comment

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Bovisand Bay, painted from life several years ago. Acrylic on canvas. This is what I remember…

The beach at Bovisand.

Warm sand beneath my feet.

Gritty rock, specks sparkle in the sun.

Water laps my feet.

Feet sink into soft sand…

Cove enclosed by cliffs.

Blue sky and tiny clouds.

Close growing plants are sheltered.

Back of the bay, a valley nestles in the hills.

A golden grass snake basks in the heat.

I remember.

I remember the thunder storm.

Lightening strikes in dark night.

Watching flashes over the sea.

Awesome beauty.

Remembered.

Tulips

Posted on May 5, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Aqualegia, Bluebells, Exercise, Gardening, Layout app, Lesser celandine, Photo, Plants, Russian vine, Tulips, Wild garlicLeave a comment

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This image was something I did last year. We had some pure white tulips in the garden.

This year we have had less tulips. I think because our squirrel has taken to digging them up in the winter. We are going past the tulip season now. Instead we have Spanish and English bluebells, aqualegia starting to flower and wild garlic and lesser celandine adding splashes of colour to the garden.

Today we were pulling out hunks of ivy from the ground and from trees where its thick stems have scrambled up. We will fill our recycling bin completely over a couple of days. I was also pulling more pieces of Russian vine out of the trees at the front of the garden, it’s amazing how quickly it grows.

Tired and achy. But it’s good exercise.

Day 17, artists materials, quick sketch.

Posted on May 5, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Artists materials, Day 17, Drawing, Permanent marker, Quick sketch, Sketching, Tired, Usk challengeLeave a comment

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I’ve run out of steam a bit, so today’s sketch (day 17), is of the artists materials I’m using. Nibb bright coloured permanent markers.

I’ve drawn them with coloured pencils behind them and on my sketchbook. I could have added more of a background but it’s hard sometimes to be inspired. I might go out in the garden later and try and come up with something more interesting.

My energy levels are really down (I feel like my battery is flat) went to bed early last night and slept in. I still feel shattered. Ah well its all part of life.

Argument

Posted on May 4, 2020May 4, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Argument, Blocked, Disagree, Rude, Sharing, Social media, Swearing, Thinking6 Comments

What do you do when someone asks you to share something on social media and you disagree?

So you message back to say you cannot share it, the idea is wrong, it’s based on fake news. You attempt to say no politely, and point out reasons why you can’t agree.

The person messages back and after some patronising thoughts, swears at you.

You come back with more information from a reliable source. Another abusive reply.

I’ve known this person for several years. I have never been spoken to in that way by the person before. My thoughts are they must strongly believe what they are saying. They must care or they wouldn’t share. But what they are asking me to pass on makes no sense. After another exchange where they were rude and patronising again…

I blocked them.

Today’s challenge was clothes

Posted on May 4, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Black, Clothes, Day 16 challenge, Grey, Owls, Red, Selfie, Sketching, Staffordshire, Usk challenge, Usk Stoke-on-Trent2 Comments

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Day 16, USK S-O-T sketching challenge is a self portrait of me wearing my favourite top, covered in red and black owls. It’s funny and quirky.

A few people are still keeping to the challenge, and some say they will catch up later. Some of the subjects are a bit odd, but it’s fun.

I was watching the artist Maggie Hambling on a programme called ‘Grayson Perry’s art club’. It’s a weekly programme on channel four encouraging people to do art while we are in lockdown. Maggie Hambling said draw something every day, and Grayson Perry reiterated that. I think they are right. The drawings I’m doing are my diary of my life at the moment.

Other celebrities were either drawing or making sculpture. Grayson and his wife created ceramic images based on their cat Kevin. Both created wonderful, abstract, exciting sculptures.

After seeing it I decided I shall continue….

Picsart review

Posted on May 4, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Apps, art rage, changing images, Design, Digital drawing, digital sketching, Drawing, Fun, Imagination, Learning, Mosaic, pics art, Sketching6 Comments

Picsart was an app I really liked. I’d used it for a while and you could alter pictures and draw over the top of them if I remember . Now however there are more patterns that you can superimpose over your original art, but it doesn’t seem as interesting.

As you can see from these images I like to mess about with the effects available. On these I used effects to change the colour and hue, distortions, outlining edges and embossing.

This is the original that I drew at ArtRage.

I was trying to get a mosaic effect.

Anyway more later on. Its after 3am!

Pen tops..

Posted on May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colours, Design, Hues, Learning, Negative, Phone apps, Photo editing, PhotosLeave a comment

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Here are the permanent pens I’m using for my sketches.

I just thought I’d post a picture because I liked the bright colours. I’ve actually got another challenge I’ve been given to post black and white photos for seven days, so I could alter this…

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Of course you can use your photo editor to change the hue… _20200504_004437

Or create a negative image…. _20200504_004321

So what am I saying? If you have a smart phone, it’s fun to play with your phones photo software. You might be surprised what you can create.

Colourful, today’s usk challenge.

Posted on May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Colours, Drawing, Fun, Photo, Picture, Staffordshire, Urban sketch day 15, Usk challenge, Usk Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

Today’s challenge was to draw something colourful. My eyes fell on an owl sculpture by a blacksmith who works at a Forge at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent. She’s called Charis Jones and her company is called Sculpted Steel.

Behind the owl is a plate that my hubby painted at the Gladstone pottery museum in Longton.

I started by drawing the outlines in black ink. I then filled in the colours with permanent ink markers and a few coloured pencils.

The colours are not all accurate, but as the brief was colourful I added some to the books and cds in the background while trying not to overdo it.

I’ve included a reference photo to give you an idea of what I was working from.

Primates

Posted on May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Animals, Apes, Art, Black and white, Drawing, Fun, Monkeys, Primates, SketchingLeave a comment

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I’m watching a programme called Primates on BBC TV. Its about all the different primates in the world. I couldn’t draw them because they move so fast.

Anyway this is the best I could do, just the enjoyment of drawing something so interesting and I amazing.

Hello duck!

Posted on May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cost kick a boe, Duck, England, Learning, Midlands dialects, Potteries dialect, Pronunciation, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, UK, Words3 Comments

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This was a sign in a local museum that someone shared on Facebook.

It was strange coming to live here. In my home town people would say hello chick, or love. But Stoke people say ‘duck’. I had no idea of the origins, and the first few times I heard it I literally did duck! I thought someone was warning me! Eventually, though, I got used to the greeting. Together with the phrase ‘cost kick a bow agin a woe an it it wi yer hed til ya bost it?’ I may have misspelt this but it means ‘Can you kick a ball against a wall and hit it with your head until you burst it?’

As you can see, the old dialect and pronunciation is interesting. But as someone with a west Midlands accent. Oim not reealy botheered abowt iyt.

Mallaband-Brown

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