New paintings and regular art updates.
My friend Kate has made this mask for the mystery play. I’ve got to paint it up to look like my hubby.
It was about 30 degrees centigrade this afternoon when we were rehearsing. I think it must have been really hot and uncomfortable in the mask. Hopefully the weather will be fine and mild when we do the play in a fortnight.
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I was playing around with a photo of the stained glass windows in the church and came up with this. I sort of like it although I’m not sure the church would. When you use flood fill it causes a loss of details so you can’t see the faces on the image. I chose a rainbow flood fill so could create circles on top of the image.
Circles
curves and angels
winged with colour
flying high.
Art with rainbows
Black reflections,
illuminating and obscuring.
Circular arguments,
simple shapes
scriptural thoughts
saints and sinners,
seperated by glass.
Today I got some photos of Minton tiles in St Thomas’s Church penkhull. I’ve got to paint some for the Mystery play so I needed to see the genuine article. I’m hoping I can get a realistic look to them. They are in a scene where they have to be sold to raise money.
What I like are the simple colours, browns, pale ochres, blues and white. The interesting geometric patterns and curves. I may struggle to replicate them. But you have to try!
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I’m doing some backdrops for the Penkhull mystery play. I have calico to paint on, rather than static flat paintings that I usually do. This years backdrops are going to be rolled up and dropped down for the appropriate scenes.
Today apart from painting two willow pattern birds on papier mache I painted an eight foot by four foot backdrop of the church.
The problem was seeing the church through the trees. These mature lime trees have grown tall in the intervening years since the Church was built in the 1840’s. The backdrop is minus the trees. There was apparently a quarry and marl pit at the top of the hill which eventually filled with water and was a duck pond before it was filled in. There was a school on the land before the church was built and it was rebuilt at the top of Trent Valley Road (now the village hall). At the alter end of the church on the outside there were pigsties. I think these must predate the church.
More information about the village of penkhull can be found in books by the local author Richard Talbot.
More painting news will follow when I paint more.
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A minton tile design turned into 3d by Bret Shah
Penkhull Mystery play is on again this year. This is the 15th year that we have held it up at Penkhull Church Yard and I’ve been asked to publicise it.
Penkhull Mystery Play is being held on Saturday 13th July. The play starts about 2pm.
The play is based on a book about the children of the Potteries and how a family’s life changes from working in pot banks, being forced into the workhouse to the building of the first school at Penkhull in the 1840’s.
There will also be Harpers Titchy Theatre with stories written by locals, stalls, a circus skills workshop, a tug of war competition, a tower of music, a music morning in the church and lots of other activities. This is one if the largest community based art events in Stoke-on-Trent.
It would be great if you can come along.
An explosion of colour makes me feel joyous, excited, satisfied, sainted with brilliance. I would love to turn this into a tee shirt, a throw for a sofa or a bed. It’s a bit bright for a painting on a wall.
This was a quick drawing in ArtRage oils, then I used a rainbow flood fill in the gaps and then a smudge tool. Finally I used the layout app to duplicate and rotate the drawing.
I know they are only simple tools but you can create some interesting things with them.
I saw this gorgeous large bowl for sale today. The diameter was about 2 foot. The colours and pattern were right up my street. But…..
£200! Beautiful but too expensive for my tastes.
It was one if many bowls and pots for sale, including a tapas dish. It’s nice to look at things like that, but you don’t have to buy.
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I was going to get up early today and going on a community walk along the local canal, but I got up late. I also considered going to an Urban Sketchers event at the Chatterley Whitfield nature reserve. But again I was too late. In the end we went to the Villas which is just down the road. There was an event called art at the Villas. The show was almost at the top of the road on the right hand side. The road is unadopted so go carefully driving up there. We parked at the bottom and walked.
The house we went in and its garden were full of interesting art. There were prints, original tee shirts, paintings, ceramics and a warm welcome. They were also accepting donations for charity. If you feel like visiting its in the Villas up the hill on the right off London Road, Oakhill , Stoke-on-Trent.
Since I was there and had missed other sketching opportunities I did a quick drawing of the garden and summerhouse in the distance.
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One thing I have got to do is paint some images of minton tiles. These were made in their millions over many years and can often be found in the hallways of town houses especially in Stoke-on-Trent. People are enthusiastic about them even now and get excited about them when they find them in old houses.
There were apparently 12 original designs which are documented in a little book called touching history by Hans van Lemmen and Bret Shah. This is available through StokeYourGratitude.org.uk #StokeYourGratitude
Today was all about making and painting things for the Penkhull Mystery Play this year. I reused two boxes from previous plays. I was asked to paint them black and then to use gold and yellow paint for the decoration.
The idea was to create boxes which would look like they had been decorated with Chinese lacquer. I didn’t know whether the idea would work, but it seemed OK.
Other work to do include sticking paper plates together to make them strong enough to be passed between 50school children and painting two large papier machè birds that represent the birds on the willow pattern plate.
One box has a landscape on the top of it, the other has a circular coin like shape on the top.
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