New paintings and regular art updates.
When you are an artist you get asked to do odd things. Our choir is going on a parade in May and everyone has been given a brolly (umbrella) to decorate. Thus is my idea for it. It’s already black and white so I thought splashes of red. Lips 💋 to symbolise singing and LMW which is the initials of the choir. (Loud Mouth Women). The choir sings all sorts of different songs and languages so the singing mouths are appropriate.
I hope they will be pleased with it.
A model of a waterboatman. They swim upside down on the surface tension of the waters surface. They eat duck weed and algae. Not to be mixed up with great diving beetles or pond skaters. When I saw this I was amazed at its intricate structure.
This model was in a local shopping centre. It was about four foot across. Fascinating
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One of my favourite sayings, even though it comes from a Sci fi series. When I was a child I learnt to do the sign that Spock uses, fingers seperate between middle and ring finger. Spock was my favourite character because of his logic. I also likes Sherlock Holmes for the same reason. I don’t know why logic appeals to me but I do.
Logic and science is denigrated too much these days. Instead of seeing how important it is people turn their backs on it. For instance the turning against vaccination by people and the consequent increase in cases of measles. Or the fake news and lies used to stop people realising that climate change is really happening. Logic tells us that if we see evidence of something we must take account of it. People’s lives are at stake.
Live long and prosper, bur stay safe and care for each other too.
May blossom? It erupts in spring, flowering in masses of tiny flowers. The proverb doesn’t mean that you have to wait till the end of May to wear less clothes but just until the May (hawthorn blossoms) are out.
The building was old. You could tell that by the wooden shutters over the windows, more like prison bars than anything else. Not a scary place to walk past in the daylight, but on the odd occasion that she walked past it at night she made sure she walked fast, just in case.
In case of what? No one knew much about the building, but it was attached to an old windmill and there was a tall wall leading off into the distance where the building ended. Just one gate, made of old and rotting wood, that was half way down the length of the wall..
When she had walked past before she could swear she had heard snuffling like a dog, and something scratching at the gate. As she walked past her clicking heels would speed up to get her past. A rush of adrenalin enough to make her heart pound.
Tonight the alleyway was lit by a dim street lamp at either end. Slipping from behind the clouds a full bright moon gave extra illumination. Tonight the cobbles were wet, with a gleam in the light of small puddles reflecting back the moon.
No choice really, walk along the alley and cross the road to the car park, or walk half a mile round the one way system. At that moment a dreary drizzle started. It was the alleyway tonight. The quicker to get home and get warm. Her feet clicked and splashed as she walked along, she almost twisted her ankle on the cobbles. She passed the old shuttered window and heard, what exactly? Snuffling? Panting? She hurried on. Almost at the gate, just over halfway along the alley, point of no return. A sudden rushing sound, like a dog running, then a howl. She froze, there was the sound of something large hitting the old gate. She pulled off her shoes and ran….. The howl followed her…..
I’ve had some new business cards. Shiny, new and based on one if my paintings.
My previous set were based on a painting of a spode plate but it’s good to have a change.
Not much else to say really. I’ve decided to just sign my paintings Mallaband-Brown as fitting the Christine or C in takes up a lot of space. These also reflect my love of colour and experiment.
Maybe one day I will be better known, but I’m trying..
Not good photos of these. I’ve been using a black felt pen and them a broad nib cartridge pen. I took the photos of them in bright sunshine so they were overexposed. I’ve used the curves option on my phones photo editor to try and get them less bright but on one of them this caused a blue cast. The drawing of the cup is just a doodle because we were messing about with clay.
I’m a bit disappointed with my phones camera. Although this image of an oak green man came out OK three other photos of similar green men didn’t register. I think it’s because I have too many photos saved and as most of them are MB not KB they are too large as files so they take up too much space.
This oak man was for sale at the Dorothy Clive garden near Woore, Staffordshire. It was rammed with people, there was a great plant sale on, but it was crowded with hundreds of people. We struggled to get a seat and had a quick lunch. I usually go there to see the rhododendrons in flower but it’s a couple of weeks before they will be out in the quarry garden. In the meantime they had a massive plant sale with stalls so we came home with about 15 varied and interesting plants. Glad to be home to get a rest.
This was taken in the 1980s when I was at college I remember. I think it was done with a pin hole camera? Take a sheet of photographic paper and put it in a tin with a tiny pin hole in it in a darkened room. Have a flap of paper or card to cover the hole, then you can take a photo by removing the cover over the pin hole. You will need to experiment with exposures because the paper will react to light. You need to know how quickly the paper will darken. Once the picture is taken you cover the pin hole again and develop the picture. As it’s 40 years since I did this I don’t remember what the chemicals are that you need. I do remember that if you are developing film you have to take it off the reel in complete darkness and you end up with a negative which you then project onto photographic paper. With a pin hole camera you use black and white paper and the image comes out as a positive picture.
There are other forms of pin hole images. You can project a live image on a wall using a tiny hole if there is bright sunlight outside. The image cast will be upside down. This is called a camera obscura and may have been used by painters in the renaissance and onward to project accurate images onto their canvases..
A warm evening in March, out at Westport lake. One of my favourite places for a walk. Over the last few years the trees have grown and the management of the lake has been taken over by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. The sun reflects off the water and ripples from the swimming birds make it sparkle. The lake was artificially created from the remains of a marl pit (where they dug out the clay for potteries) and old mine workings. It was created for wildlife in the 1980s I think when Shelton Bar Steel works closed ?
Life spreads and grows. Greenery overtakes the tallest buildings, ivy scrambles, buddlea infiltrates. And beauty comes from waste and destruction.
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