Paintings delivered

Posted on April 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Canal, Etruria Industrial museum, Gardening, Litter, Paintings, Poppies, Wildflowers2 Comments

I’ve previously exhibited these at Arts and Minds in Harper Street, Middleport and I’m having a swap round. So I’ve taken these to Etruria Industrial museum today. (I have more work up at Harper Street.) The lower two photos are my painting of the governor on the Princess beam engine at Etruria. The poppies and wildflowers represent the summer and poppies are hopefully going to grow there as the museum has initiated a wild flower garden to support bees and other pollenating insects. The idea is to stop mowing the grass lawns around the site and reintroduce more of a natural habitat.

One thing that upset me was seeing litter and rubbish in the grounds and in the canal which the museum volunteers deal with by litter picking. They have a long pole with a net and one of the volunteers fished a plastic cup and other litter out of the canal while we watched.

The museum is part of Stoke on Trents heritage and I’m pleased to have my art displayed there. X

Etruria Industrial museum.

Posted on April 21, 2023April 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged beam engine, Etruria, Etruria Industrial museum, Jessie Shirley's bone and flint mill, Staffordshire, Steam engine, Stoke-on trent2 Comments

Etruria Inustrial museum today, the museum is open on Fridays now and their first big event is in June. We visited today to drop off some paintings at the cafe there and to have a look round the Princess beam engine that was designed by James Watt I think. It’s a combination of steam and vacuum that was used to power a belt that is attached to flint grinding pans. This was where flint and bone was ground to a wet slurry that was dried to powder to be added to clay to make fine bone China. The mill is next to a canal to draw water in for the steam engine, which was also discharged back into the canal and to transport it’s ground flint and bone along to potteries in Stoke on Trent and beyond.

The original mill was called Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill and the painted name of it still partly remains on the building.

Photos are of the engine and boiler house including the governor on the beam engine which is used to regulate the amount of steam produced and the speed the Princess engine rotates.

Directions

Posted on April 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged A to Z, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1912, Directions, Driving, Lost, Map, Memories, Positive, stranger, Time2 Comments

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

I was visiting friends at their new house about 40 miles away and I got lost. My hubby doesn’t like asking for directions so we struggled. I could not find where the place was and I’d forgotten to bring the A to Z map, (before satnav which I still don’t have). After a couple of miles of confusion I pulled over to ask a random stranger. I had moved up from that county years ago and I remembered how helpful they are.

Oh yes dear, said the old man, I know where it is. You go down the road past the speedway track (that’s where I met my wife you know), turn left onto the main road past the church (oh we got married there). Right at the roundabout (where I took my driving test), left at the football ground (my team, I’ve supported them for years). Then it’s second on the left (you can’t miss it, the trees are in blossom down there), and you’re at the street…..

After that long conversation we found my friends house easily. I was happy we had stopped. It reminded me of the type of people in that area, always friendly and talkative, engaging and funny. It was a positive encounter.

Green

Posted on April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Change, Coins, Colourful, Copper, Drawing, Green, pennies, Sketching, Time, VerdigrisLeave a comment

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt green. I did two versions of this, one a drawing, the other filtered through photodirector. I was going to draw vegetation but then I saw a bright green patch of verdigris on a two pence piece. The colour was amazing compared with the old dull coppers.

I had just done a post about coppering up. Finding loose change to spend, which is why I happened to look in the tub of coins so I used them as my inspiration.

Leaving work

Posted on April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Change, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1911, History, Life, no regrets, Past, redundant, Time, WorkLeave a comment

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

Things happen and suddenly you have to decide what to do. Your life can carry on the same old way or you can adjust it. Mostly though that happens when you get a little older. That’s what happened to me.

I knew I would be OK as I was taking a calculated step, but what I didn’t bank on was Brexit (why?), then the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, and health issues.

So would I do it again? Yes of course. I know I’m not probably as well off and secure as I would have been, but I know I’m happier. I won’t describe why I left, but I wasn’t happy. Things changed and I could explain, but it’s in the past now. All I know is that I feel more confident, it has definitely helped me grow as a person.

What’s next? I’ll keep trying to make things work. I have to. I wish anyone else who has made a similar decision all the best and good luck.

Coppering up…

Posted on April 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bronze, cash, Coins, Copper, coppering up, Life, Photo, pound coins, silver, Verdigris3 Comments

Has anyone else got a box of old coins that they have collected over the years? Sometimes it’s because prices are £9.99 so you get a penny change…

Then other bits and pieces of detritus arrive in the box. This is hubbys main doing. Elastic bands, bits of wire, his allergy tablets.

When we are short of cash we copper up. Digging out any silver coins or pound coins. So in a way it should be silver up? Making discoveries of literally lots of five pence coins! Today we uncoppered about ten pounds in change. Hard to take shopping, but there is a coin exchange machine in the supermarket which gives shopping vouchers to the value of your change.

The best thing about this photo? the verdigris on one of the coins.

Shoes and sandals

Posted on April 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Black ink, Drawing, Felt pens, Fine line pen, Sandals, Shoes, Sketching1 Comment

Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was shoes, I drew some of our shoes and sandals, you can see which are my hubbys as I only have small feet. I added the patterned carpet background to jazz it up a bit. Felt pen and fine black ink pen.

Question

Posted on April 19, 2023April 19, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, cost of living, Design, economy, inflation, Learning, Life, Music, Painting, Question, World4 Comments

Is the cost of living crisis affecting whether you buy or collect art?

As a small time seller of art I’m interested in how the rises in inflation and reduction in pay rises is affecting the Art economy. I’m sure decisions are being made that people either put off buying, or don’t buy art at all.

Art is everywhere, in designs of clothes, furniture, architecture, advertising, maps, car design, and even the Art in people’s walls. The Art economy is worth Billions to the economy as a whole, but I think it is under recognised. We like to be surrounded by visual and auditory stimulation, but do people even notice it’s there. Do you notice a painting on a restaurant wall? Or classical music played in a supermarket. I wonder how things will work out?

Four horses

Posted on April 19, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged AI, Art, Collage, Digital drawing, Digitally manipulated, four horses, Horses, machine learning4 Comments

I am feeling a bit uncreative so I decided to collage my horse drawing from a few days ago. If you can create digitally it allows you the freedom to make something new.

Recently a photographer entered a competition with a piece called something like ‘the electrician’? It was a black and white photo of two women, one behind the other, one had hands on the others shoulders. The photo looked old fashioned and a little bit weird. The photographer refused the prize because the image had been created by an AI, the faces were not real people but had been built up from features by the AI a bit like an identikit photo. It’s called machine learning.

On a similar vein an image of ex president Trump appeared recently apparently marching at the head of a massive crowd of people in New York but if you zoom in the people behind are ‘constructed’ by an AI and their faces are very distorted.

What I’m trying to say is that digital art created by humans is not the same as AI. The difference is hard to pin down. But if a person has control of it does that count as art. I’m sure there is much controversy to come? In the meantime I will continue to digitally draw and manipulate with human control.

Pond yatch?

Posted on April 19, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Boat, Box, Brother, Hubby, huge, Life, Package, pond yatch, Postage, Settee, Silly, small, titanic, wrappingLeave a comment

This arrived today! It’s almost the length and width of our settee. My hubbys brother has sent it in the post. Why? It’s meant to be a pond yatch. But our pond is smaller than the box!

I don’t need more stuff in the house. I don’t know how much wrapping is inside the box, I just told my hubby I’ve now got something to put him in when he has passed away.

Hubby and brother used to make toy boats as children, they had a small lake near their childhood home where they built ships and then reinacted naval battles and set fire to the ships (I don’t have to say what I want to do with it do I?)

Oh well, another start to another weird day. Household peace may resume. But I’m not sure when! I just wish he’d open the box, but he seems happy just to look at it!