New paintings and regular art updates.
Just a filtered version of the vintage dress I drew yesterday. Trying to keep my mind off Ukraine 🇺🇦 and what is happening there. Russians fired on a huge nuclear power station and set part of it on fire. It made me think of nuclear chain reactions if it blows up. It could be worse than Chernobyl in 1986. Funny how a pattern can spark ideas. I pray for peace.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was vintage. OK, so I looked up vintage dress on my phone then made up a pattern. I think I’ll call it ‘molecules’. I was aiming at one of those 50’s/60’s patterns I remember from my childhood. The background was just to try and make it stand out.
I can’t find the photo of a finished painting. It had more detail on the wooden supports between the panes of glass. The paint was peeling off and chipped and that’s what attracted me to the image. I’m the final version you can see me and my phone reflected in the surface. It’s an image of the Spode factory site. Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.
Doodle in ArtRage oils free app. I’m so busy drawing with felt pens that I forgot that I have it on my phone. I’m sort of sticking with blue and yellow as my main colours. Why, because Ukraine is on my mind. I guess this isn’t brilliant but finger painting with smudgy drawing tools can be difficult. I don’t know what made me draw this, but it was fun..
Daffs, Narcissi, Daffodils, Daffydowndillys…. Names old and new. The world has so many names for these spring flowers. Some sound almost musical, very flowery. The shapes frilled and fluted. Daffodils tend to be larger, with a conical centre, the narrowed part towards the stem. Then a splay of petals surrounding the centre. The Narcissi such as tet-a-tet are small and sit in clusters on top their stems. All glorious colours from pale cream, to zingy lemons and bright oranges. I’ve filtered the shapes but only lightly.
I love pattern so when I painted this I thought I was happy with it. THEN I decided to put it through a filter and add texture. Now I think I will paint over it and emphasise the curves and patterns. Making the most of the Holly and Ivy leaves and concentrating on the various greens. I could see it as a card or a notelet. I do love green men.
When I was young I used to practice drawing perspective using one or two vanishing points. When our #bandofsketchers prompt came up as construction I thought I would do something along those lines. Then thinking of Ukraine and how it will need rebuilding I decided to colour it blue and yellow.
Sunset, watercolour, February 2021.
I had been for a walk with a good friend and walked a lot further than I thought I could. Oh what a difference a year makes. I couldn’t walk a third of that distance now. Every time I think I’m going to go for a walk something seems to stop me. For instance this weekend was lovely, but I had an upset stomach (too much information?), so I stayed home. I’m getting increasingly frustrated by this. I want to be out there, walking, painting, being back to normal. Instead I’m just burbling away here. Spinning out my old memories into a web of comfort that doesn’t equate to doing things for real.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was destruction. The Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, was destroyed by fire just a few weeks ago. This is a sketch from a photo by Stokie Bloke (I can’t face visiting the Leopard Hotel). Not very accurate. You can see the roof has gone. There were more photos including the room where my murals were. The walls are still standing, but there are just blank ashy grey spaces. So sad.
I went to our Orme Art group today and as I only had limited time I decided to draw from one of my photos from yesterday. It had to be a patch of snowdrops. So evocative of winter. It’s a felt pen sketch. I drew the light areas first then filled in around them. Probably took 90 minute’s.
Mallaband-Brown