New paintings and regular art updates.
Look closely and you should be able to see a tiny brown speckled butterfly on the ivy. I don’t know what species it is but it’s good to see it fluttering around.
It means that spring is really here and that our garden is working. It might look like shrub land but it’s all organic, it’s meant to be a wildlife garden. We even had a hedgehog in autumn. Anyway must get on.
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Chimney from a pottery kiln. The rest of the building was demolished but thus was left. Like the remains of a rocket due to fly to the moon, or a set dressing for a Sci-fi.
Outside the artists studios at Spode Site, Eleanora Street, Stoke-on-Trent. Staffordshire.
Glass cabochons with wire weave surrounds. These will be for sale at the Spring Makers Market at the potbank Hotel, Spode site, Eleanora st, Stoke-on-Trent. I will also be selling small and medium size paintings..
It’s been quite a dry and cold April so far so the cherry blossom in the garden has been a bit late coming out but as the weather is due to warm up over the next few days hopefully it will be ok. We are also clearing some of the ivy off the house. We are being careful but the tendrils had got under the weather boarding round the roof and was starting to pull it away.
Meanwhile there is blossom on a couple of self seeded plum trees. We need to cut back an old willow that is snagging on the roof of a neighbours garage and I’d like a limb cutting off from a laurel bush which is overshadowing the garden. The other straighter limb will stay and leave it as a dense tree because all the lower branches were cut off a few years ago.
The tomato and courgette seedlings are still inside because of the cold nights. I want to get them planted outside soon. Also we have a few sweet pea seedlings and morning glory plants.
I will post photos once plants are in
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Tearing down the walls,
pulling at the gutter
Growing through the roof.
The ivy strangles our house
Squeezing the mortar
Heaving up tiles
Tangling the phone wires
Pulling at my heart strings,
I’m excited! One of the little citrus plants my partner bought a few weeks ago has produced flowers. We knew it could generate fruit as it has already got some. But I wasn’t expecting it to flower. As soon as I can I want to put it outside in the sun, we are getting a summerhouse so it can go in there and stay walm. At the moment it’s next to a sunny windowledge but I want the flowers to be pollenated.
Does anyone have any knowledge about keeping citrus? We did grow a plant from a pip once. It grew to 2 foot high but only ever had leaves and eventually died. Thanks in advance for any info.
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Random photos of trains and train parts (not the propeller), from 2017.
Foxfield Railway is out in the countryside off the A50 between Caverswall and Blythe Bridge. Its an old coal/mineral line which used to haul coal up a steep slope from a mine then down a less steep incline into the outskirts of Blythe Bridge. The main railway line runs nearby.
Foxfield is worth a visit over the summer months when it is open to visitors mainly at weekends. You can take a trip on a train, visit the engine shed where most of these photos were taken. Visit the cafe for a simple menus of hot and cold food, or visit ” the one legged shunter , the bar selling real ales. The bar is named after the dangerous job of shunting. Men would sometimes get trapped between train waggons, losing legs or sometimes worse!
I’m thinking of painting something like this. It’s a window in one of the buildings at spode. Goodness knows what the paint is made of. It is just so old. The wood looks dry and decaying. The putty holding the glass in is probably made with lead. Surprisingly the window looks quite clean and the building opposite is reflected in it. Capturing the detail will be a challenge.
I’ve done some more to this acrylic on canvas. I have added more definition around the leaves but tried to leave some of the subtlety of colour in other places. It has some sparkle in the paints to give it a slightly frosted appearance as if leaves have piled up, but the face of the druid is emerging from it.
About 16″ by 12″ this is one of my more abstract pieces based on the green man theme.
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Today I started a painting for the first time in months. I saw an image by photographer David Tipling of a Barn Owl from a Staffordshire Wildlife Trust bookmark and just had to paint it.
Why the owl? The photographer has captured it in flight beautifully The sinuous curve of its wings seems to scythe through the air. Its face is both impassive and intent.
I hope the photographer does not mind me painting his image.
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