New paintings and regular art updates.
Oh dear, I must be a bit more interesting, my monthly stats seem to be descending… But like everyone else I’m a bit limited in where I can go. And do you really want to read about face masks and social distancing.
So what can I talk about? My hair is growing, it seems to be evolving!
It’s turned frizzy and white (not overnight, and not from fright). I did mess it up a bit on this photo!
So if you don’t mind me, I will keep posting bits and bobs here.
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The kittens were starting to grow, getting ready to pack their bags and move in with their new parents.
I came across this photo today. They were so mischevious. The one with the black mask is still called Bandit, the new owners changed the other ones name.
I sometimes see photos of the two girl kittens, but I’ve lost track of how the boys are doing. Their mum and uncle are still here safe with us.
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I have at least eight egg cups!
More than one a day. I’m particularly pleased with a couple I hand painted. I even have a Margaret Thatcher one, although I didn’t like the woman. And a plastic smarties one (the British firm of m and m’s. There’s one with a hate chasing round the cup and another with thorns and flowers, from a ceramics firm that has sadly closed down.
There’s one from Portmeirion. One that is too big except for duck eggs.
I had a glass hen shaped one, and one like a tigers head, but they may be broken or lost….
Other collections? Paintings, cat ornaments, books, hats….
The oak tree in the kitchen… Hubby planted an acorn in with a Christmas cactus plant on the kitchen windowsill. The cat in the drawing is a big doorstop that we have put on the window sill.. Must find somewhere to plant the tree before it gets too big…. I have a friend who owns some land in the countryside. When this is all over I’m going to give her this little sapling together with some baby walnut trees.
This was for day 12 of the Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers new challenge. Lots more to go!
I wanted to send a friend a card… 
I found a tin with a slight dent in the rim so I could push a candle holder into it. Then I added a tiny birthday cake candle and lit it and took the photo.
Added the text later in a sketch app.
I sent this to my friend with her name edited onto it. What is it they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention ‘?
I shone a bright torch on our disco ball (yes I’ve got one) took a photo, then another one with the torch on a lower power. Duplicated the photos, and ended up with a couple of interesting pictures that are quite abstract…..
Playing with shapes and light is fun.
Experimental things teach you
How to make new things.
If you don’t try,
You never learn….
I was playing with a similar face to the previous one, and wanted a change of style and mark making. More patterned, lines, dots and dashes. Trying to get a feeling of age. The grey areas were done by wetting a brush and running it over the papers surface. Spreading the black ink gently into the shadows.
Age seemed an appropriate title.
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Last night I was watching a programme about the European renaissance. You know, one of those ones where you get a glimpse of paintings for a few seconds, before they are on to the next face or body. Impossible to draw a face from there.
One revelation was that the Greek and Roman statues would have had painted patterns and faces coloured when they were first carved. As the centuries between then and the renaissance passed, the colours would have faded or washed away. The response of sculptors like Michaelangelo was to carve their figures out of bright white carrera marble. Because what they were seeing coming out of the ground was sculptures that had lost their paint.
That is why I drew patterns and shade on this drawing, it’s an imagined figure. If I had some good colouring pencils I might colour it in… I will look.
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I drew this today. Its part of the urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge day eleven. I think most people drew their cars outside their houses. Few are moving anywhere. Batteries will be going flat. Spark plugs are dry, oil has settled in the bottom of the engine.
The tree shaped marks on the drawing are the pattern on my net curtains. Well you can’t have people walking past and looking in, can you?
We have bookcases, but the books from them are on the floor, on tables, on footstools, in flurries and drifts. So I asked him. Why won’t you put the books back? I will do, he snapped back. He is the one who puts them there, often opened and left unread.
When I change the bedsheets his side of the bed is six inches deep in books. I have to force my way through a tidal wave of them…
I plot now. I think about what to do. I want one of those camouflaged book cases, where you tilt a book back and a door opens. I would like that.
Open the door, fill it with books, or push him in and throw away the key. Oh don’t get me wrong, food would be delivered three times a day. There would be a laundry chute and a bathroom. A comfy chair and a bed. A secret trap door would be there to pass in things, or hook things out when he’s asleep. He would be happy, I would be able to tidy up….
Life goes on in lockdown. Ideas spring to mind. They are not serious.
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