New paintings and regular art updates.
this is a self portrait I started last year, but haven’t finished. So where best to start when you have been a bit blocked, than to work on something like this.
I want to do a series of ‘green’ portraits. The idea being that I can make a different image that is striking and interesting. Although there is a basic structure done on this I may make a lot of changes. Its definitely a work in progress.
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I like to try and sketch things when I’m visiting places, and this is my attempt at a steam engine when we were visiting. Middleport pottery in August 2018.i don’t know why I thought it was bad, it doesn’t look too awful now in hindsight. I can be too critical of myself sometimes. It’s a bit wonky but when you are trying to draw a moving bit of machinery it’s not easy. Anyway I’m publishing it, so I’ve forgiven myself for my mistakes.
Black ink pen on cartridge paper, it’s probably in one of my numerous sketchbooks, somewhere in the pile of drawings and sketches I have built up over the years.
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Me at 18.
I have no idea where there paintings are now, but thus was me at 18. My work was part of a group exhibition for my foundation course in Art. Why did I have curly hair?
I think the picture I was holding was in watercolour or black quink ink? The top picture is my mirrored image, with desks in the background. I don’t have the article any more, it’s got lost in the mists of time. I posted this somewhere on line and kept a copy of it. I can’t say the exact date it was taken… How I wish I could go back to those days!
Colour and shape and hopefully humour. Digital drawing, playing, having fun…. Little fat birdie. Feathers flying, bird, not quite, of paradise? Little heart shape in its eye, only just noticed it, a gleam there. Primary and secondary colours. Swirls and twirls…. I think I need to sleep, I’m dreaming of baby canaries!
This is a couple of years old and about two inches by one inch. I’m thinking of doing a few more of these for a craft fair, and to cheer myself up! I have a small commission to do and I can’t drag myself out of my current low mood. In any case I’m OK really, just need to get myself sorted out. Painting helps me feel better, calmer, or excited and happy.
Paint ain’t a bad thing
gets your mind working.
Paint is a pleasure
and a little bit frightening.
Creating your ideas,
putting them down
on paper and canvas.
Drawing out my mind
with colour and texture.
Life can suck,
but paint can pull you back,
giving a solution and reason to be.
I was talking to a friend earlier about her valentine experiences and remembered an incident from about thirty years ago…
It was a cold, clear Valentines day morning. I’d got up to go to work, and as I stepped outside I found a red rose on my doorstep. It wasn’t wrapped in cellophane or paper. It was a long stemmed rose. Deep scarlet. Beautiful, slightly starting to wilt. I looked up and down the street, no one around. We were in a terraced house, so the door opened down a step straight onto the pavement. Anyone could have left it there.
I went inside and asked my then boyfriend, later to be hubby, if he had put it on the step. But he said no. I quizzed him, but no it was not him. To be honest it wasn’t his style, he rarely knows when it’s valentines day and usually only gets me a card if I get him one. He was as surprised as I was but said I should take it as a compliment!
So I had this beautiful rose. I cut the stem at an angle and it in a pint glass while I went out to do my shift at work.
But I couldn’t concentrate. All morning I thought about who could have left it? It might have been a neighbour. It might have been a friend, but I had no idea that anyone had romantic thoughts about me. My inner Miss Marple told me that it couldn’t have been there long and that it must have been bought from the nearby florists as no roses were in flower at that time of year. There are roses growing on the factory opposite our house, but they were bare stems.
Who? That was my thought. Whoever it was must have known I was in a long term relationship? Why? Did they think I was looking for someone new? The answer to that was no….
Eventually I decided that the rose must have been for someone else. Perhaps the anonymous person had mistaken my doorstep for someone else’s?
I will never know. It never happened again. The next year I felt disappointed. Since then I have rarely remembered it. Only today’s chat reawakened the memory for me.
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Panto rehearsal again tonight… Oops, the body DIDN’T line up on the back of the flattened policeman. But I can sort it out. The rock for the cave scene works fine… The washing mashing machine looks OK too I think…. Anyway its all kicking off next week… Four performances over three days.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday next week are going to be very busy.
I’ll try not to break a leg!
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I’m really pleased that I’ve got some of my glass necklaces in the new art shop in Campbell Place, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent. It’s called Serendiparty and it’s run by a really kind person called Phil.
He has lots of artists work on display as well as his own as he is an artist himself. He does art that is created from plastic, and he is working against plastic pollution in the world.
Stoke has various creative people working in the town, including BArts, Acava Studios at Spode, Market@48 and Majestic studios. It’s good to welcome more creativity into the town. He’s going to be holding creative workshops at Serendiparty. With Staffordshire University having Fine Art and creative courses, I think this is a good add to the mix.
Looking forward to seeing what goes on there.
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(ps on WordPress reader there is a picture of some food on this post, I hit the wrong button and somehow its showing the wrong image)
I did this mural of Mr Incredible about nine or ten years ago for someone’s son. The paint is acrylic because it’s easy to apply and dries within hours. I think it’s also quite stable. I used clear matt varnish over it and left about a centimeter margin of varnish all around the figure so the paint would not lift off. I’ve recently done a new mural for the family in their new house. I found out recently that my original murals (there were three others, Batman, Spiderman, and Superman) were painted over. Sad I know, but at least I gave some fun to the family while they were there.
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Photo my friend took on February 2018, I think it was up until 2019. Its also been exhibited at the Waiting Room Gallery. I liked doing these pottery ‘portraits’, but they are imagined, using pottery patterns and marrying them up with teapots or plates or bowls etc. It’s also about creating imagined backgrounds.
Acrylic on canvas, created, 2018, for sale…
Mallaband-Brown