New paintings and regular art updates.
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was Ice..
Ice was a challenge! I could have drawn our freezer that keeps freezing up and is very frosty but I decided to try and re-imagine frost ‘feathers’ on my windscreen last winter. No reference, from memory. I tried with and without black fine liner pen.
I’ve got some of my glass pendants for sale at Etruria Industrial Museum cafe. I also have some cards and prints. It feels good to have work accepted by them, I don’t have many outlets available in the area. I need to find some more places and try my hand at craft fairs again, but I want to work towards more fine art.
I like doing craft fairs but if you don’t sell enough and you have to provide your own table, or even gazebo, it’s hard to make enough to cover the costs of the fees, plus I am not capable of putting up a gazebo on my own… Possibly a Sun Umbrella, but that might not be suitable!
I post my own art and photos here, but they do take up a lot of space on my WordPress account. Today I tried loading a photo only to be told I didn’t have sufficient space. I had got to 100%! I have had to go in and delete some of my photos to get to 99.4%…just enough to squeeze a few more photos in. I shall try posting my pictures from my media. It does mean that some of my posts now have no images to go with them, but I can’t afford a more expensive plan, so there it is.
This is where my new paintings are hanging. The mill is really interesting and the steam engine only gets steamed up once a month in the summer. Its a fascinating place to visit. If you do go don’t forget the forge. The blacksmith demonstrations are great.
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.
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.
Mallaband-Brown