New paintings and regular art updates.
Went for a meal out at Sawadee Thai taste in Stoke tonight. While we were there I decided to sketch us. I had to imagine my self portrait, and they are all a bit scruffy as I just drew on a bit of old card I had in my bag, each sketch took a couple of minutes. Apple is the Thai lady that runs the restaurant.
The food was delicious, we had red curry with sticky rice and some pad Thai noodles. Not expensive and good company.
Twigs and branches
Boughs and trunks
In the winter shaken loose
March winds
Bend and break
Damaging weather
Lost limbs
Moss grows
Lichen too
Fungi found in boles
Hoots in holes.
Tree life.
Oak or Ash
April brings
Soak or splash.
I’m getting used to a new collage app. Learning all the new plot twists (I mean the tools in it). The main irritation are the in app ads. Get used to it, I won’t upgrade and I won’t buy anything. I am app resistant!
This was a photo of the South Pole of Jupiter that I painted and decided to turn into a symmetrical collage. Matching up the pattern was difficult because it wasn’t similar along the edges, but I did my best.
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
I love astronomy, I don’t know enough about it, but I learn what I can. Red dwarfs, white dwarfs, even brown dwarfs? Supernovae, Nova, planetary nebula. Planets. I probably learnt most of it from a TV programme called the Sky at Night, that used to be presented by Sir Patrick Moore. Since he passed away its been presented by Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Chris Lintott. But it seems to have disappeared off the TV recently with no plans to broadcast it at the moment! What? I’ve been watching it for decades.
You can also do citizen science like things on Zooniverse looking at Mars, or planets round other starts, or even looking for radio signals. I do find the whole thing fascinating. It’s worth looking at https://spaceweather.com for instance to find out about auroras, meteor showers, asteroids and Sunspots.
Well not really! When you load perfectly good apps on your phone you expect them to keep working, or at least that you can reload them if you change your device. Unfortunately this phone is too new to support Layout App. I still have it on my PC I think but I don’t really use it, so another learning curve. My head hurts… Now I will try and understand the new app, and try not to be annoyed by in app ads!
Egg doodle using a newer version of Artrage that I’ve downloaded onto my new phone. Glad I’ve got this one, but other older apps I can no longer find. I will keep looking. It’s frustrating that the gallery images that I’d saved on those apps have disappeared, but you learn and transfer skills to other apps. This is meant to be an Easter egg. Can you tell? Lots more tools on this version, no opacity tool though so you can’t reduce the strength of the pen with a slider, and the old choice had a dry pen, and three other style of pens that I can’t remember now? But fun none the less.
Third painting. I used the reference photo less and added leaves on the left hand side that were further towards the centre than was on the original photo. The lady who lent me the photograph told me this was taken at Delamere forest, which I think is in Cheshire.
I tried to emphasise the blues in the background to give it a distant feeling. Then I emphasised the reds and greens to ring them to the fore. The leaf litter was fun to paint trying to shape it and add light shining through the leaves onto the ground. It’s a small acrylic on canvas.
As part of the Art Fair today I completed the three small paintings that I started in our Art group meeting recently. I think these are five or six inches square. One is called Autumn and the other Coast. I enjoyed doing this as it kept me occupied. It was a quiet day, I think there was a big event going on in the town, but I sold three small paintings for a small amount of money, by the time I’d paid for my table it was £10 in total for the day, but at least I enjoyed painting, much better than sitting quietly and getting a bit bored!
What makes you laugh?
Over the years I have had the pleasure of watching British TV comedy shows and I have to share a few titles with you.
Favourite anarchic comedies are The Young Ones about mad student life which were shown in the 1980s onwards, and Red Dwarf, a survivor on a asteroid mining ship woken after 2 million years lives with a cat that has evolved into a humanoid, a hologram of a dead crew mate and a computer called Holly and an android called Kryton, I think this was from the 90’s? But has recently been resurrected. Also Father Ted, an Irish priest living on Craggy Island on the West Coast of Ireland.
Then there’s the Vicar of Dibley starring Dawn French about the first female Vicar of Dibley Village. Absolutely Fabulous, mad fashion designing japes, the Royale family, a strange TV watching family, and so many more.
The thing is these are not rom coms or comedies like Friends or Cheers. They have some very silly and sometimes quite rude ideas. If you find them Enjoy!
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was seclusion. I was secluded for about 20 hours when my phone battery started to overheat. I took it to the phone shop but it was closed, but I went back later and got a replacement. The pattern on this is meant to be a design for a phone case. Just taking something positive out of a difficult day x
Mallaband-Brown