Yellow sky.

Posted on January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cold, Sky, Sleet, Snow, Warmth, WeatherLeave a comment

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I was looking out of the window and the sky was so yellow I knew it was going to snow. I don’t know why I know that but there is a certain tinge it takes on when the snow is coming.

I looked out later and indeed big white flakes of feathery snow were falling, mixed in with a cold rain.

The cats are curled up and warm and I’ve got an extra heater on and I’m sitting here with my hot water bottle (for my bad back). I’m huddling, watching the sleet and wondering if I should go out shopping. Life goes on.

Looking at backstamps

Posted on January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Antique, Art, Back stamps, Industrial heritage, Life, Potteries, Pottery, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent9 Comments

What are back stamps??

They are the trademark or manufacturers mark that you find on the bottom of cups, plates and dishes that shows who made them.

This can be useful in identifying the manufacturer, whether they are antique and if they are worth anything. Sometimes they even get forged! People have added things like the Clarice Cliff signature onto modern pots to try and fool people into buying them as originals.

Some pots have simple marks on their base to identify them. Others have complicated patterns and writing.

The people who live in the potteries (Stoke-on-Trent). Have a habit of looking underneath pots to see if they have recognised which pottery made them. I think it’s called the “turn over club” but I may be wrong…..

Amaryllis

Posted on January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Amaryllis, Blogging, Bulbs, Colour, Flowers, Fun, House plants, Life, WateringLeave a comment

I have 4 Amaryllis flowers growing this year. The bulb sends out a long shoot after it starts to grow leaves. This flower spike will grow rapidly as long as it gets plenty of water. There can usually be 1 to 4 flower buds. All my Amaryllis plants have deep red flowers but they do come in other colours.

We got another plant in a deep glass vase which was in flower. Now the flower stem has gone over (died back) but its putting out leaves. I have two more plants that I have kept for years. One still has a long leaf on it from last year. Both are responding to being watered by starting to come into leaf again.

A tip, Amaryllis go dormant for a while from autumn. You need to start watering again mid winter to get them to start to grow. If you need to repot them only go up one size. They like to be quite tight in their pots. Use a good house compost, maybe a bit sandy to stop them getting waterlogged. Then sit back and enjoy the amazing flowers.

Stats have changed?

Posted on January 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Days, Information, Insights, Months, Stats, Weeks, Years2 Comments

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What is happening here? My stats pages have changed. Perhaps they have tried to simplify them but now you are directly sent to the insights page and then you can choose whether you see stats for days, weeks, months and years. But it’s not the same. The bar charts look different and I’m not sure how they relate to the old ones.

I wish I knew where we get information from to tell us what is happening Is there a page which you can look at to tell you what is coming up at WordPress?

It seems to happen everywhere. Facebook is constantly tweaked as is Instagram. You just have to try and pick up what is going on. I don’t think things should stay the same but it would be handy to have some information before hand.

Windows…

Posted on January 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Clay, Dust, Industry, Pottery, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Windows4 Comments

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No not the trade marked version. But old windows at Spode. Dusty and dirty and empty of footsteps, no faces staring out of them, no lights behind them, no shapes of pottery stacked. Life is quiet for the factory, silent. The place is shunned, surplus to requirements. How can it still exist?

Time passes, new movement as people take up spaces. Shift of light, shift of direction. Art and theater, people sleep on site now in the hotel. The chance to regenerate like a time lord. The site has age and power behind it. The ghosts look on, seeing the lights, wondering what will happen next. Will they be evicted from the deep soft clay dust that coats their footprints and hides their breath.

Today’s artwork

Posted on January 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on board, Art, Gladstone Pottery, Painting, Pantomime, Pottery, Scenery6 Comments

Last week I painted Edinburgh Castle and the London Eye. Today I finished them off by brightening the colours and adding some fireworks.

Today I painted a couple of bottle ovens which I slightly based on the Gladstone pottery in Longton.

I hope you like them.

Sun pillar

Posted on January 17, 2019January 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beach, Clouds, Devon, Ice, Photography, Possible painting, Sun pillar, Sunset, Weather2 Comments

It was about 5 years ago when we were on holiday in Devon. We had arrived at the camp site late in the evening after a leisurely drive down from the Midlands.

As the Sun started to set we walked down through the dunes to the beach. My eye was taken by a pillar of sunlight shining from below the horizon where the Sun had just set. I have seen sundogs before (reflections off clouds on either side of and above the Sun that look like tiny parts of rainbows). But I did not know what this was. Luckily I had my camera with me and snapped these shots.

I later found out this was a sun pillar, caused by the sun reflecting off high icy clouds. I’ve never seen another one.

Pattern

Posted on January 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Design, Digital art, Digital drawings, Drawing apps, Pattern, PatternsLeave a comment

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Colours, shapes and texture make up this pattern. Using digital apps can create images that would not be easy to create on paper or canvas. img_20190117_002155

Once you have done that you could use another app to duplicate and twist the images. I love patterns and continue to create images like this.

It’s really not hard to do and it would be good to see more art being created in this way. Be brave! Have a go! You might surprise yourself.

Finding poetry

Posted on January 16, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Digital poem, Found poem, Fun, Humour, Playing, PoemLeave a comment

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Up until a couple of years ago I didn’t write poems. Then I came here and decided to have ago.

One way of generating words is to write a short sentence then hit the middle key of the suggested words in the spellchecker. Occasionally you have to try a few times if it comes up with a symbol or something completely unusable. Sometimes you get interesting results:

A found poem on my tablet,

what do I think,

So why was it fished?

if feathers cut

So why add sound?

So if typing

I’m The drawing

The quality commission,

The drawing was created

this was very sad

So what happens in the fridge?

I know this completely bonkers but I enjoy the surreality of it. X

Changing things

Posted on January 16, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Facebook, Instagram, Life, New logo, New pages, PatternLeave a comment

I’m having a bit of a reorganisation of my social media. My pages are a bit jumbled up and sometimes a bit confusing. If I’m going to try and make a living as an artist I need to try and organise things.

Hopefully this will all be done with the help of a friend. He’s called Mike and he runs a creative art business.

Basically I’ve got a few pages spread around the Internet but they are all slightly different, so when you look for me on Facebook I have 3 or 4 different pages but I only have one page on Instagram but I post anything and everything there.

I’m going to try using the “my story” section on Instagram and manage it so people will see pages like “inspirations” or “wip” (for work in progress) to Clutter things up less. The idea is to be more interconnected and be able to share more in a coherent way.

Wish me luck. X

Mallaband-Brown

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