Tag: Art

Side window view of neighbourhood

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You know when you just want to do something different? My view out the side window. Including pink orchids. Started out with white chalk on a black background and nail varnishes I don’t wear anymore. Then felt pens, metallic marker pens and more nail varnish including a clear coat…. Messy but fun! Next one might be painted…. Neighbourhood (1). Bit whiffy, I can smell the nail varnish from the other side of the room. As long as it doesn’t crack it should be OK. I think it’s absorbed into the paper. I shall use it on a few more abstract pictures, I used to wear mad colours to work but my nails went manky!

More flowers

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Well since all my photos are in my October file it does mean I can find ones that I took last year and I’m also putting them together in blocks so that I might be able to delete some of the individual ones.

I think these were taken out at the Dorothy Clive Garden in Staffordshire (?) , England, last year. Either it was a showery day, or partly overcast because some have shadows and some not. But they were all grouped together which is why I think they were taken around the same time. Other than that they are random and mostly on the hotter side of the spectrum. A lot of them are daisy types, but I’m in love with the poppy too.

No recognition.

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Its aa little thing, but my painting of the Burslem Riot is on the back of a friends book. She’s in the newspaper today and you can clearly see my image on the back of her book. The problem is the article is about the local dialect which she writes about, not about my painting. So I guess I can’t complain. But my images do crop up and I don’t get recognition. I should have put something up where they are on display (in the now closed Leopard Hotel in Burslem), but I didn’t think about it, and then I didn’t organise it, and now it’s all locked up. Thinking if putting a letter through the front door infroducing myself as the artist who painted them. I hope they don’t get ripped out!

Remembering the BCB

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The BCB, British Ceramic Biannual, was on in the Spode China Halls last year. Fine China and art pottery cheek by jowl. I do hope it happens again next year. Bringing art into Stoke-upon-Trent and the rest of the city of Stoke-on-Trent and spreading creativity that sadly seems to have been forgotten by government during this pandemic.

Art has just as much a right as any other industry to continue in this world. Creativity and the power of the mind are linked. Science can go hand in hand with art. What we need to do is try and support everyone, not be selective towards the richest and devil take the hind most.

X

Beautiful brickwork

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I don’t know much about bricks, except that they are fired clay. But I do like to see them when they are used decoratively. The way they are laid is called the ‘bond’ where it depends whether they are laid horizontally across the surface of the wall, or with the short end showing on the face of the wall and the length turned 90° so that the brick is across into the layer behind or allows the wall to turn the corner at the edge of the building.

As you can see from this photo, different coloured bricks are often used to make patterns and shapes in the brickwork or are used to frame tiled areas of text stating when the building was built.

I also know that brick sizes changed over time. That they were smaller in the past and hand made. Then molds were made and the brick sizes became standardised. I don’t know all the history of that sorry.

Today’s sketching prompt ‘ceramic’

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Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ceramic. This is my brown ‘Bessie’ or ‘Betty’ tea pot and a couple of mugs of tea. One of which has the Penkhull Flag on it.

The shadow at the bottom was from my head as I stood and drew in the sunny kitchen. It was just going to be ink and pencil, then I thought why not add colour? It’s a sketch rather than a neat drawing. Hope you like.

Garden colours

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Seeing the garden in October, looking at the flowers, seeing the leaf shapes. Enjoyment, colours, shapes. Pattern, design, life, waiting for them to wilt, fade, droop. Waiting for their end of days. Taking photos, keeping a record, remembering beauty. Time to grow, time to leave. Time to fall, time to die. Wind chimes and wind sculptures, wild and colourful. Hanging in baskets, pots and fences. Cram packed with joy.

Cat box

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I painted the leather seat if this stool/box about thirty years ago. It used to hold all my old oil paints but they dried out years ago. I unearthed it recently. One of the problems with being an artist I have found, is collecting art materials. I have stuff that goes back years. I tend to think one day things will come in handy. Is anyone else here an artist? Are you the same? Materials cost so much its almost a sin to throw things away.

This is a cat on a mat on a parquet floor. As you can see even then I loved patterns. It’s varnished, but you can see where I must have left a thinners can on the surface that left paint rings…