
Oh my busy hands and brain!
I really must be insane.
Spending hours transforming
Reeds and rough planting
Into old grey Nog
Bean pole legs and yellow beak
Through the vegetation peeks!
New paintings and regular art updates.

Oh my busy hands and brain!
I really must be insane.
Spending hours transforming
Reeds and rough planting
Into old grey Nog
Bean pole legs and yellow beak
Through the vegetation peeks!

I decided to transform the reeds painting, an abstract picture I thought I had finished yesterday. It was a bit abstract but it didn’t fit in with the other paintings I had been doing. What to do? It needed some more colour and a focus. I added glittery, shimmery paint between the reeds to try and make the water behind the reeds stand out. I was thinking of adding a small bird like a Reed Bunting, or a Coot. But in the end I decided on a Heron. The colours fit in, it’s camouflaged but recognisable. This is still a work in progress.

Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was man-made. What to draw…. Imagined shoes.. Thinking man-made upper….black acrylic wash in my sketchbook, just a vague outline, then finished off with a black ink fine line pen.

Teasel looked like something
from the little shop of horrors!
Laughing at us
As it waved in the breeze.
The spikes were sharp.
So who or what
Took a bite from it?
Who knows?

I have four new paintings up for sale at Etruria Industrial Museum cafe. This is Etruria, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. This Saturday and Sunday there is a steaming weekend at the Flint mill when the Steam engine that was used to provide power to grind bone and flint to be added to clay to make fine bone china. Come along and see the working steam engine and maybe stop for a cup of tea in the café if you happen to be near Stoke on Trent.

After completing three paintings in two days I had some left over paint. I started painting stripes and realised that if I added small leaves the picture would look like an abstract view through reeds. I think it looks quite different to the others but I like it.

Final work in progress for tomorrow. Its a painting of Jessie Shirleys Bone and flint Mill at Etruria Industrial Museum. Using a similar technique to the other three. I have been working hard on them all.
I sometimes get painting fits where I paint for days. This is one of them. I have an idea in my mind and I want to explore it. I also think it’s the influence of my illustration course I just finished. I have realised I can experiment and come up with more ideas when I’m painting.

I’ve been working on another painting today. This one is of a canal view which will have Canada Geese painted on it with their reflections. More muted, but still using the idea of texture and pattern. Mainly purples and greens. Acrylic on canvas.

Finished for now. My painting of Westport. I may do a bit more work on the sky. It needs to settle on me. I mean I need to look at it and decide if it needs tweaking. My closest explanation of this style is that it’s like painting through a pane of swirled glass….

Another in the textured landscapes series I’m creating. After getting the first painting accepted into the three counties open exhibition in Burslem School of art, I now have the opportunity to put some paintings up for sale at the Etruria Industrial Museum cafe. I decided to try and use a similar style to create colourful and striking landscapes. I’m using a different size of pattern, smaller than the Waterfall painting and more intricate. I want to evoke wild flowers in a summer landscape with Westport Lake in the distance.