New paintings and regular art updates.
People are like the sea, they come in waves. Five minutes ago the tide was out. No one here. The next the tide is in and people drift past like a shoal of fish. Different shapes and sizes, like around a coral reef, browsing at the stalls and being caught in the tenticles of sea urchins, or feeding from the little pottery stall. ( mixed metaphors or what?) some people drift past my stall, others stop to browse. Occasionally people buy… Its all good, as they say….
I’m a bad person! I try and sell things at a reasonable price, but then I like being nice to people and I often haggle myself down on prices! It’s like I’m at a car boot not a craft fair. Help! But I can’t employ someone. Got to do it for myself…
I think everyone should have the opportunity to have art if they want it, and forget that people have to make a living out of it. I will not be winning business woman of the year…
While I was stall sitting I did a quick sketch of people around a stall across the way from me. There are some lovely things for sale. On the whole I’m enjoying myself.
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Stall set out, three minutes till opening, then we will see what happens. I’ve got more under the table than on it. We are in a hotel, so we’ve got departing guests wandering past. We’ll better go!
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I hope these little pictures will be appreciated tomorrow at the Market48 craft fair at Spode. Can’t stay long. It’s getting late and I’ve got more to do.
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This afternoon, after singing with the curiosity choir, a scratch choir made up of two choirs I’m in and members of the public, I visited a craft fair at Stoke Minster in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.
It’s a beautiful victorian church, it’s basically the main church in the city, where funerals of famous city residents have taken place.
This is not a cathedral, but I think it ought to be. If not on religious grounds, then for the respect of the city.
On a dark grey day the windows lightened my mood. So beautiful and poignant.
A little green man, I think it works quite well. It’s a bit like an illustration and it needs some shading and shaping. Greens used phthalo green and sap green. Then paynes grey, cadmium yellow and white and a metallic mint green. Various tubes and containers of acrylic paints including cryla and Windsor and Newton.
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Moody duplicated photo. Created by taking a photo of the outer branches of a tree so that once mirrored the branches seem to float and create a pattern. Though not black and white there is a monochrome effect because of the silhouettes of the branches and the mainly grey skies. Ancient aliens seem to hovver over the ground.
I’m doing a few more pictures now. The yellow Bee on a yellow flower needs refining, I might make the centre of the flower a bit more orange or gold. The Holly was a bit of an experiment. The background is quite abstract. I might paint a banner across it saying Holly and Ivy, and add some Ivy scrambling up through the Holly plant. Or I might just brighten the Holly berries. Not sure…. More to follow.
Just been up to Burslem to try and see my paintings in the back room of the Leopard Hotel. Unfortunately they were closed. I think they run ghost hunts late in the evening so I had a look through the photos of murals I painted and spookily found this one.
The story I was told that the back room used to be split into small snug areas with wooden panelling. Apparently a woman was found in the back room. She had been Murdered, her throat was cut. I know no more about it but the mural was meant to depict it. I do remember being in the back room and hearing strange noises, it could have been the beer pumps. I would go into the bar to get away from it. I wasn’t exactly scared but felt a bit nervous.
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Winter is beautiful, photos of winter trees are skeletal. When you change the hue to a sepia or negative option you can get spooky results.
The trees also remind me of X Ray’s of blood vessels. Either lungs, or possibly the brain.
I’m sure I could do more but sometimes a simple treatment is better.
Mallaband-Brown