New paintings and regular art updates.
I can’t remember when I did this but it’s certainly a few years ago. I do love spirals….
Fireworks, galaxies, water spinning in a plughole, staircases, tornadoes, cloud formations, patterns in art. Its a, recurring theme in my art and I also love celtic patterns and art nouveau designs….
This is a stone carving I think? It’s on a building in Newcastle under Lyme. The building, a shop, has closed and other buildings around it are partially demolished. I hope this carving will be recovered and reused, maybe it will go to a reclamation yard? I think it’s probably an art nouveau design. I hope the business that was there is successful in its new home (there wee signs saying it had moved elsewhere.
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.
I decided to make a drawing of a tree shape then played with it in various apps to change its colour and shape.
I love old fashioned Art Nouveau and Rennie Mackintosh designs from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Also the Arts and Crafts movement. We have become so interested in glossy and sleek, modern, monochrome that we don’t seem to recognise that patterns can be exciting and interesting. You can do anything you want really.
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I’ve duplicated this image multiplying it by four to extend the pattern. It’s another older painting. I think I was channelling Georgia O’keefe when I painted it. It is acrylic on canvas. 
I was given a book about her art as a birthday present. Sadly the book was damaged when I spilt a mug of coffee over it. It’s only a small, square paperback and now some of the images are stuck together.
O’keefe was controversial as an artist. Some of her art was seen as erotic even though she was painting flowers. I am more interested in her use of colour and blending techniques. Her work is beautiful and striking.
My painting of lilies is also slightly based on images from the start if the twentieth century. I do like art nouveau. I was also trying to use fresh colours rather than a more realistic background.
This is a digital drawing based on an old tile. I won’t bore you with the app I used it’s on my tablet and I haven’t been able to use it for a while as it needs fixing.
I drew it in 2016 and I don’t think I’ve shared it here before. It just popped up on my Facebook memories, and why not share it? It will just disappear into the aether again if I don’t.
I did try and create a glossy shine on it, but the chin is too big!
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I had the pleasure of being invited to a behind the scenes visit to our city archive today. I had been asked if I wanted to go along by a friend who is doing an art project about the pottery manufacturer.
We went up to the third floor of the city library and were shown round the back of the reception desk into the staff only section. There the city archivist showed us some of the fading pages in the ledgers. They were images of pots that various pot banks made in the history of Stoke-on-Trent.
There were pattern books for tableware and tiles ledgers with the cost of making the ware and details of workers. The old pottery firms did not collect a lot of details and a lot was thrown out when they closed down. But once we had been in the air conditioned archives we were allowed to sit and (very carefully) look at selected pattern books including prints of tiles to surround hearths, doorways and floors. Some were mundane but others were breathtaking. Art nouveau and art deco masterpieces.
I’m very pleased I was invited.
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Mallaband-Brown