New paintings and regular art updates.
Parquet floor in sunshine
Memory of a life drawing class
So many years ago
In my mind I’m back
Sitting on a donkey?
A wooden bench
Which was also an easle.
Drawing a figure
Bathed in light
Shadows cast
Shining parquet floor
I wish I could
Return to those days.
Wall in Burslem painted with the Burleigh ware pattern that is available on pottery from Middleport pottery just down the road. There was a board below it which explained more but I was in a rush so just took a photo and then had to go. This is visible outside Burslem School of Art on the wall to the right of the front doors. As you probably know I love pattern so this is right up my street. Also this colour of blue is fabulous although the pieces I own are dark red and white.
I went up to Burslem School of Art today and after looking around downstairs we went and had a look at the first floor. There was a lot of work by a local school. There were also these train engine models that had been made of balsa wood.
I don’t know their history but one has a named City of Stoke-on-Trent. If my hubby has been there he would have known what type of engine it was and who originally made it. He’s very good at recognising them.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ‘straight’. The cat went straight up the tree! It was going to be a straight road but when I started drawing I changed my mind. Felt pens white pencil crayon and black ink fine line pen.
Up till a year ago I was regularly walking in the evenings, but then I pulled a calf muscle and was really stuck for a few months. It took ages to heal and it still twinges when I walk uphill. I realise I have made a mistake not getting back into it. I must start again. Slow evening walks, short walks to the shops. I need to get myself sorted out. X
Making anything with symmetry and filters on my phone. Purple and green. Subtle architecture. I can see elven and pixy faces in green in the bottom row of the picture. Yes , there goes my pareidolia again! Pattern and colour. Fun!
I saw a dragon
Hiding in plain sight
Standing by graffiti
Under a street light
But when I looked away
And looked again
I say!
The dragon it was gone
It decided not to stay!
I just wanted a pic
On my phone
But it was too quick!
So sadly all I have
Is its tail- just the tip
And a shower of loose scales
One of many epic fails!
Goodbye dragon
And now you’re gone!
Watercolour and felt pen ‘scales’ digitally manipulated to create a jazzy pattern. To dazzle and bemuse? What kind of creature could stand next to this and be hidden? A chameleon dragon of course? Can you see him? No? Didn’t think so! He’s magic!
😂
Oh I love a good black and white film noir film. Lots of riddles to solve. Not too much actual violence. Tension rising, suspenseful music (we sometimes have the subtitles on for hubby and it will say ‘suspenseful music’, ‘door creaking’ and other remarks). The films often have a moral point that makes it impossible for the victim to make a bad decision, like killing the suspected murderer before they themselves are killed. Usually they seem to have to go through great distress and danger before surviving/escaping their fate.
What I like is, despite being farfetched, they are less violent, less verbally abusive, and more thought provoking. In other words its not like watching a film that is more like a video game. I think I prefer a time of old fashioned films, real Hollywood a listers and less ‘celebrity’.
I wanted to show you a part of the Staffordshire Moorlands that we visited today. Consall Forge once was an industrial landscape and is part of the industrial archaeology of the area. Sitting in an isolated valley it was connected by a narrow gauge railway between Leek and Froghall Wharf. The Consall Forge was about half way along the valley. We have ridden on the preserved railway several times, but I have never found out about its history before. I have seen old lime kilns there but didn’t know their origins. I think the lime was used in the pottery industry and I think there may be a pottery there?
GOOGLE SAYS: Consall Forge kilns. At Consall Forge against the canalised River Churnet stands a bank of four large limekilns. These date from the early nineteenth century and were linked to the North Stafford Railway, a plateway built between 1815 and 1819, running from the Caldon Canal to north of Caverswall.
The valley continues to Froghall Wharf where there is a station for the railway with a good tea room and station shop. The line passes through the ruins of a copper factory which is possibly going to be developed. This makes Froghall much less picturesque than either Cheddleton, where the Churnet Valley Railway starts and Consall Forge which is where we were. The Cauldon canal was used for transporting coal from Froghall Wharf to Uttoxeter but was closed after losing money because of its rural location. It opened in 1811 and closed in 1849.
There is also a nature reserve at Consall. You can get there along narrow country lanes, along the railway or along the canal or its towpath.
Mallaband-Brown