New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m shattered… I’ve been out most of the day in the garden and at a singing event and delivering some leaflets.
Trouble is I start to doze off and then funny gobbledygook starts appearing on my screen such as:
-hhh+h or vvhhgghh or cxdddddjjn
Where my fingertip trails across the screen while I had fallen asleep.
I just did it again but have deleted the scrambled letters .. I need sleep!
Chose the image because it’s bright, cheery, and makes me feel awake.
X
When I have had a long day I enjoy doing something creative. These were done with a couple of apps, sketcher free and picsart. I don’t know why I like swirls and spirals so much.
Anyway here are three iterations. The first was the most complex to create, the second and third led to the first. I started with bright colours and then reduced them by using the curves option, changing each colour to a more muted one and eventually grey.
I think I will just finish here. Today was very busy.
X
I need to paint. I’ve had a break, partly self enforced because I was busy and tired and lost my way in doing other things like blogging, plus it’s been winter and it’s too cold and dark. I was doing lots of things as hobbies too. But I’m nervous of spending too much of dwindling resources. I’m scared of putting a toe back into the world of work. I want to be helping people as well as painting.
The cliff edge is looming and I want to take a step back. Writing here is allowing me to explore ideas and thoughts that I have never been able to do before. It’s all very gentle and kind and I’m afraid I’ve found a cosy space that allows my dreams, but perhaps I have to let go and try harder in the real world. I’m saying I’m an experimenting artist so I need to do that….. Give art a chance.
X
Gallop, race, run, jump.
The horse runs free.
Soar over hedges and fences,
Fly across the hills.
White horse of chalk
Black horse of earth.
Where are your wings?
You fly so high.
Graceful and beautiful
Full of energy
Vibrant with power.
Fleeing from capture
Running from man
Escape to the hills
Straight as an arrow
Sharp as a beam of light,
Disappear into night.
Then the horse becomes the unicorn…
A couple of years ago I went to a calligraphy workshop. As well as doing English Calligraphy we also tried doing Arabic script (I don’t have much memory of it). I do remember we used sticks cut down to make a chiseled edge to write with. Then like children learning the alphabet we wrote each letter over and over again until we started getting the shapes right.
I enjoy drawing patterns so it was really interesting to see how this style of writing worked. The artist who taught us showed us some beautiful calligraphy. Unfortunately I did not take any photos of his work. Calligraphy is clearly an art in its own right. I would love to learn more.
I painted this out in the open air a couple of years ago. It took a couple of hours to paint. As you can see the day was very overcast. This is a small acrylic on canvas. I don’t actually know where it is. I have a feeling that I sold it?
I’ve painted from this position a few times, looking down the lake towards the Italian Gardens at Trentham. The end of the lake at this end is next to Trentham monkey forest where they have two troops of macaque monkeys.
I hope to go back soon and try and draw some of them. They are beautiful animals and they are so cute when they are babies.
In the meantime I’m feeling a bit better so over the next few weeks I will try and get some new paintings done.
X
Did I once have a rocking horse ?
How fast did it go,
Over hills, over fields,
Up mountain paths,
Down into dales and vales.
If I had a rocking horse
Where did it live?
In stables or a farm yard
Or the back bedroom in our house.
What colour was that rocking horse
Was it a bay?
A white maned charger
A gentle, dappled grey?
I once had a rocking horse,
So long ago
I don’t remember anything-
Where did it go?
We saw this amazing peice of ceramics today. It was on top of a cupboard so hard to get a close look, but I think it was over two foot high. Ceramicists will probably know a lot about it? It seems to have red calligraphy on the front, and what is the branching handle supposed to look like? Perhaps like a chopped tree branch.
There are drips of coloured glaze over the body of the pot the handle and the spout, it appears to be some type of lustre ware.
Sitting next to it are some figures on a boat? This plate seems to be a based on Chinese landscape painting.
I love the accessories people choose to decorate places. I know the fashion is to declutter but I think having interesting objects can make the world a more varied place. I would love to give this space in my home.
I started blogging in January 2018. I’d never really written before. I’d done things in a little newsletter years ago and I’d tried to write a children’s book which I called the swimming dragon about a dragon wanting to get back to its family in South America. But I’ve never had that published and I spent hours over it. I even painted illustrations But it never went anywhere because I was too nervous. It’s stuck on a floppy disc and on my old computer somewhere .
So I wasn’t expecting to get into this. It’s been a revelation to me. I know I’m only skimming the surface of blogging but I find myself more and more involved, to the detriment sometimes of painting which is what I intended this blog to be about.
I find myself enjoying writing short stories, sometimes with a little twist in the tale. Other times trying to write poems. I think about science and other subjects. I have stopped watching as much TV. I go out more so I can post photos of places. Most disturbing is that I no longer look at Facebook and Instagram as much.
Life is interesting, whether or not I shall continue at this pace I don’t know. But I’m enjoying things at the moment.
I saw lits of fairies made of wire at a place called Trentham Gardens recently.
I was intrigued by them so when I saw a wire weaving kit to make a small one I decided to get it. I opened the box to find a small mackette of a figure and three thickness of wire together with some pliers.
I’m nervous of even starting! There are apparently YouTube videos to help but I’m not sure what I will end up making. I’m better at painting in two dimensions than creating in three. Wish me luck!
Mallaband-Brown