New paintings and regular art updates.
We visited the Middleport pottery a while ago on a rainy day and I took a few photos. I liked the atmospheric lighting, the sheen of water on the cobbles and the model of the pottery that is in the museum. I hope to visit again soon.
Middleport pottery is next to the canal in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. It has a museum, a cafe, a shop where you can buy pottery and various events. There are also studios and workshops which make for an interesting place to visit.
The craft fair was quite quiet to start off with so I did a sketch of one of the other artists. I’m a member of our urban sketchers group and I think this counts as an acceptable image because I have included the brickwork in the hotel we were in and surrounding objects.
This is why I’ve been missing today. I enjoy doing craft fairs but not on a regular basis.
I’ve not done badly today. But it is a lot of messing around and carting stuff about to be able to display your art. There is also the time it takes to get everything out then packed back away at the end of the day. We had some heavy wooden trestle tables, my shoulders are aching now . Anyway that was my day.
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I’ve just finished these two acrylics on canvas (in my living room as you can see by the background) both are 16×12 inches. Acrylic on canvas. Called “Barn owl after a photo by David Tipling” and “Plains Zebra”.
I might try and get a few tiny paintings done too.
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Don’t look at me like that. It’s scary, she said. The screen stared back, green glaring eyes and red scaled skin. Only the slow movement of its pupils indicated life. The screen had been blank up until a few minutes ago. A voice had said humans were under control by the Jranson Collective and if all people worked with them they would be spared destruction.
She scanned her phone. The same image was being sent to it. All computer services are in our power, said the staring eyes. Do not attempt to attack us.
What the devil can we do? She thought. Nothing came to mind, but maybe? She picked up the land-line phone, a steady dialling tone greeted her. Now what’s the Doctors number? she thought.
Etruria Artists logo by Robert Cochrane.
Etruria Artists is on tonight. Starting an hour early at 6pm. If you want to come and have a go at painting, drawing or pottery come to the warehouse by lock 40 (summit lock ) of the trent and mersey canal.
Most art materials are provided or you can bring your own.
I’ve had some good times there creating art. It is an old building though and we do close over the winter as it’s only heated when we are in the building so the water has to be turned off in case it freezes and bursts the pipes. I’ve also helped people with advice for using different paints like Acrylics, Watercolours and Gouache…. I’m not trained as an art teacher but I do have some knowledge.
Another sketchfu challenge drawing I did so many years ago. Pandas have been in decline for years. They are limited by the food they eat (bamboo) and their habitat is disappearing like many places where the pressure of agriculture outweighs the needs of animals.
Panda jaws are very strong to chew bamboo which is why they have a fixed characteristic “smile”.
They are iconic animals and the World wide fund for nature uses a stylised panda as its symbol.
There are breeding programmes but nothing can compare to an animal in the wild, not cooped up in a zoo. Unfortunately poaching is a prolem as with other animals like gorillas.
I loved drawing this. Some challenges were a bit irksome but this was fun.
When you are an artist you get asked to do odd things. Our choir is going on a parade in May and everyone has been given a brolly (umbrella) to decorate. Thus is my idea for it. It’s already black and white so I thought splashes of red. Lips 💋 to symbolise singing and LMW which is the initials of the choir. (Loud Mouth Women). The choir sings all sorts of different songs and languages so the singing mouths are appropriate.
I hope they will be pleased with it.
I’ve had some new business cards. Shiny, new and based on one if my paintings.
My previous set were based on a painting of a spode plate but it’s good to have a change.
Not much else to say really. I’ve decided to just sign my paintings Mallaband-Brown as fitting the Christine or C in takes up a lot of space. These also reflect my love of colour and experiment.
Maybe one day I will be better known, but I’m trying..
Not good photos of these. I’ve been using a black felt pen and them a broad nib cartridge pen. I took the photos of them in bright sunshine so they were overexposed. I’ve used the curves option on my phones photo editor to try and get them less bright but on one of them this caused a blue cast. The drawing of the cup is just a doodle because we were messing about with clay.
Mallaband-Brown