New paintings and regular art updates.
I’ve started the poppy and wheat painting. Just primary colours to start. Then I will build it up. I might use some gold paint for the wheat seed heads. I’ve got to add green but the paint is still wet. Not much to see here yet. Lots of work to do on it.
Just got a phone call. I’ve got my barn owl painting into the Brampton Open exhibition. I’m very pleased. I’ve got to pick the other one up but that’s OK, they were completely different styles so it gave me a bit more of a chance depending on what the selectors wanted. It will be up at the Brampton Museum and art gallery in Newcastle under Lyme from 24th September 2022 for a month.
I need to get some paintings done by Friday for a new art venue. I should have gone to choir practice tonight but I’d started painting this and I didn’t want to stop. It’s based on a photo I took at Etruria Industrial Museum yesterday and shows a governor spinning. The two round weights govern the speed of the engines rotation. The faster it goes, the more the weights are pushed outwards, but they are pulled down and inwards by gravity which regulates its speed. I will try and get movement into it.
Etruria Industrial Museum is open this weekend. This is a museum that houses Jessy Shirleys Mill. It houses a steam engine that was used to grind bone and flint to be added to clay to make fine bone china. I want to take some photos so I can do some paintings if the machinery. The mill is ‘steamed’ once a month in the summer. They usually have events running alongside the steaming. I am not sure but they might have classic cars this weekend?
Etruria is a part of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire and is named for Etruscan pottery which copied the Italian style. It was made by Josiah Wedgwood.
I did a bit of work on this long thin poppy painting too. I need to finish it by next week. I do seem to like putting myself under pressure! I imagine this hung on a narrow section of wall. I want to add a lot of detail and make the poppies stand out against the pale blue background. I hope it has an art nouveau appearance.
As I listened to the continuing news of the Queen’s death I decided to recreate a digital drawing a couple of days ago as a painting. It’s not exactly the same, but yet again I’m focusing on pattern and trying out the experimental style that I have been using recently. See what you think?
I’ve wanted to alter this painting for a long time. I had a grey blurred background before but it just merged in to much with the Barn Owl. Now it stands out against the night sky. I also added many tiny stars. I could have flicked splashes of paint but I wanted more control over where they went.
It’s going to be a poppy painting, with poppies scrolling down a long thin canvas. I want to evoke art nouveau, those tiles that were placed on either side of fireplaces. I will have a look at the style of the kind of artwork. When I’ve filled in some of the colours I will show another version. My idea is to make something subtle and beautiful.
Three years ago I painted my hubby ‘my green man’. It came up on my Facebook memories today. He is a green man, gardening does him good, helps him to try and relax. He is a bunging in gardener, there’s no rhyme or reasoning to his planting, and he just plants things where he likes, but he must have green fingers. That’s why I painted him as a green man. Acrylic on canvas.
Ten years ago I painted this beautiful flower. I think it’s a type of poppy called Shirley, I grew some from seeds. What I like is the pale centre instead of the usual dark, or black pattern in the middle. I deliberately used a pale background to compliment the light reflected on the petals. When poppies unfurl from their buds they look papery but they are quite strong, not delicate, its just a shame they don’t last very long and soon fade.
Mallaband-Brown