My mural of Molly Leigh

Posted on August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Back room, Burslem, Closed, Life, molly leigh, Mural, Painting, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, The Leopard Hotel, WitchLeave a comment

Molly Leigh was said to be the Burslem witch. She lived in a small cottage, a photo of which I based this picture on. There are no photos of her so I tried to find a painting of an elderly woman from about that time and chose a picture of a French peasant by Theodore Gericault as an inspiration. The plants in the background are meant to be foxgloves and different herbs in a garden I imagined to be full of things you could use for remedies. I didn’t find much out about her life, except she is meant to be buried in a local church yard with the grave orientated East West, instead of the normal North South way. We went for a walk and ended up in the graveyard, only to get told off by someone from the church who kept getting people messing about round Mollys grave. When we explained we were on a photo walk of Burslem and we didn’t want to do any strange rituals he was OK. The painting is set on a night of the full moon and I tried to make the sky atmospheric and spooky. I’m sorry people won’t be able to see my murals in the Leopard anymore. No doubt they will be painted over or removed.

Sleepy

Posted on August 22, 2020August 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Dreaming, Dreams, Fun, Humour, Life, Sleep, Sleepy, Tired4 Comments

I keep nodding off, falling asleep, almost in mid sentence. Stayed up too late for the last three nights. Going to bed at three or four am. I was trying to get my coursework done, but I’ve fallen into a bad habit of going to bed late and getting up late. I keep having interesting dreams, in them I’m at university walking through rooms and lecture halls, I’m doing a distance learning course, but clearly I want to go there. Can barely keep my eyes open. I keep having to check my grammar and writing. I nod off as I’m typing sometimes. Wake up to gibberish. V V g g kg v”fcggffvb or something like that.

I might try and write something else. But what? What do people want to hear? I don’t know. Brains running on empty….

Flying chimney

Posted on August 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Bricks, Building, Chimney, Clouds, Ideas, Layout app, Patterns, Sky, Thoughts, TilesLeave a comment

Creating strange images. Floating objects. Buildings not held down by gravity. Defying the laws of physics, playful, a rocket, chimney, identified flying object. Old tiles and bricks badly laid. Clouds cracking to let the blue sky through. Can I see faces or animals in them. Your choice.

Sketching tutors

Posted on August 22, 2020August 22, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Blogging, Cross hatching, Drawing, Ink sketches, Life, People, Portraits, Quick sketches, Sketching, Webinar2 Comments

When you are in a webinar and you are listening to people talking, why not sketch them? I don’t get much chance of doing portraits of people at the moment and so I take them when I can. Our webinars require students to have their mic and camera switched off, and only switching the mic on if you want to say something. When you are in a group of up to forty students I guess it makes it easier to hear what’s being said and it’s less distracting. I make notes, but I can’t help wanting to draw…

So if you are ever in a zoom meeting with me… Beware I might do a quick sketch of you too!

Abstract pots

Posted on August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ariel roots, Art, Ceramic, Fun, Funny, Jug, Layout app, Learning, Mirrored, Orchid, Photo, Roots2 Comments

Turn a photo into an abstract by mirroring it in the Layout app run through Instagram and Facebook. If you take a photo that is a bit lopsided then when you multiply the image you get interesting patterns. You can rotate the pictures so you can get a variety of different patterns.

Experiment and see what suits you. If you see odd patterns that can be interesting. Branches enclosing a flower. In this case mirrored handles on the pot makes for an unusual ceramic object when all it is, is a jug. Ariel roots and leaves from my orchid plants frame the resulting pattern.

Bathroom sketch, urban sketchers

Posted on August 21, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Bathroom, Drawing, Five thirty am, Life, Picture, Quick draw, SketchingLeave a comment

Five thirty am Friday. Had a frantic day yesterday getting my stuff submitted to college. Followed by a five mile walk (not walked that far for years), then called in Sawadee Thai taste for a snack so didn’t get home till late. My legs are aching so much it woke me up. Don’t have any pages left in sketchbooks so drew this on a blank card.

Thursdays prompt was bathroom or bedroom for urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge. Well I’m late because it’s Friday. But at least I did something. Note to self buy more sketchbooks.

Blocks

Posted on August 20, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, blocks, College, ConfusedLeave a comment

I just wrote a post about submitting my college work because I have been up till 4 am the last couple of nights.

I typed it all up, the college work, then had to convert a PowerPoint presentation to PDF. I rang the college IT section and they explained how, and thank you “smallpdf” website for helping me merge documents…

But WordPress blocks is harder than that , There are more blocks than an alphabet. I typed up some names of them on my first post, but that disappeared. I cant do it all again, too tired.

Anyway my college work got in before the deadline, so i might be here a bit more, but the pleasure has gone out of it….

42 year old etchings

Posted on August 20, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acid etching, Aquatint, Art, College, Design, Etching, Print makingLeave a comment

I was rummaging around the front bedroom where I’m doing my college work and found a sketchbook that I did when was on my foundation art course.

These are etchings, created on metal plates by painting areas with a varnish and then putting the plates in an acid bath to etch away the surface. Then to get more detail you can cover more of the plate with varnish or a wax resist. Acid bath again, rinsing it off before adding more wax or varnish. You can also use something called aquatint which gives you an interesting background. I’m remembering this from over 40 years ago. So I might not have it right. Eventually you ink up the plates and place them onto paper which you then put in a press and squash them together. These are the result.

Mountain

Posted on August 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Fuji, Mountain, Sea2 Comments

Little Mountain

Soaked with wave

Are you frightened

Are you brave?

Rushing water

Claws at sky

Clutching fingers

White foam

Mount Fuji sturdy

Stands aloft

Life renewed

Finding things to draw.

Posted on August 19, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Cafe, Drawing, Ink drawing, Life, Meeting, Portrait, SketchingLeave a comment

No Urban sketchers challenge today so I drew a friend (we met in a cafe to discuss art today), it’s not a brilliant because I got the eyes and nose too big. You can see the grain of the paper, it’s a handmade sketch book and the paper is thicker than I normally draw on. It’s grey because the day was very overcast. This was taken with a light on, but it didn’t illuminate the photo very well. It was good to draw a person again

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Art