New paintings and regular art updates.
@creaderart showed me how to do a cyanotype today. It is made using light sensitive paper that is exposed to light then washed in water to wash away the coating. The bird stencil was hers. If you can see a vague cat shape that’s my drawing which I added a few minutes later. Looking slightly like a reflection in a window. It’s oddly like an xray?
One of the problems with the little canvases, the weave is too bumpy so it’s hard to get a smooth surface, I could put a thick layer of paint on first but it might not stick properly? Anyway it’s fun exploring different images.
Weird little green face, red hair or scarf. I’m just playing with complementary colours on a little canvas. I don’t know if I will elaborate on it. Maybe I should add extra details? What do you think?
Some mini paintings including abstracts, I’m trying to get some work done for a small stall at Etruria Industrial museum in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire this weekend. It’s the last steaming of the princess engine this year. I haven’t done anything for months but I finally got some miniature canvases so decided to have a go.
I’m shattered. I went to an art group that supports mental health this morning and was given some help with something I’m trying to deal with. Then a friend rang and I tried to give her advice, but I wasn’t up to going and seeing her. Sometimes it’s hard to take on others problems when you have enough of your own. Finally I went to choir practice in the city centre. I got a lift there and back, but got soaked to the skin as I tried to get the few yards between the car door and the front door. I’ve just dried out!
I drew this in the 1980s I have it on the stairs and it’s badly faded. I might use filters to try and restore how it looks? It’s sad when you have created something but the sun destroys it over time. I don’t know if you can buy ink that is resistant to sunlight? Maybe?
Still obsessed by not seeing the main auroras so I tried to imagine them and their spectacular colours. When you look at the incredible photos people have taken my rendition isn’t very exciting but I would have liked to see more than I did. Auroras are charged particles that follow the Earth’s magnetic field down to the poles. Without that magnetic shield we would be exposed to the radiation of space that would slowly deplete our atmosphere. Our magnetism is caused by Earth’s rotating molten core. Life on Earth is protected by it. Mars, a smaller planet has no magnetism and has lost its atmosphere because of this .
My hanging baskets are surviving cold conditions. I thought I would play with a photo to make an interesting pattern. I didn’t realise it would end up so complex.
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.
I would have to be 40 years younger, have the education to be able to train for the length of time required. I guess it would also be good to come from a well off family. If those things had been my reality I might have liked to be a doctor. I enjoy helping people and trying to solve their problems. That’s why I like these prompts, it means I can think of alternative career paths, or different outcomes.
But to be honest I’m quite happy with my life as it has panned out. I’ve always been an artist, whatever job I’ve had. I’ve painted and created, used my imagination. I might not be famous but a lot of people have bought my work and also commissioned me to paint things for them. I’m just glad I’ve had the freedom to do that.
Lucky to get my painting “mend him” into the Brampton open exhibition in the Brampton museum and art gallery, in Newcastle under Lyme. Staffordshire. It’s on from 14th October I think. The painting is a portrait of my hubby I started last year and finally finished a couple of months after he passed away. I miss him. This is my in memoriam tribute to him.
I had decided to enter it as “not for sale” but the gallery wanted all images to be up for sale so I put a large (very large) price on it to virtually guarantee it won’t be sold. It’s very personal to me, but I wanted people to see it.
It’s acrylic on canvas and I started it in my Studio in Spode Site, Stoke. I finished painting it there after I decided to leave due to not being able to afford the studio rent any longer. It means this is the last painting I completed there.
Mallaband-Brown