He’s asleep

Posted on January 25, 2019January 26, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Digital art, Digital sketch, Drawing, Sleep, Tired2 Comments

We both are tired out. I have a cold and I think he’s caught it off me. I decided to try and draw him in a simple drawing app. It’s more fun than sitting watching TV. I guess I must be starting to feel a bit better.

I must start going back to life drawing. I was doing it last year, then the nights got dark and cold and I stopped. I realise I’ve stopped doing a few things over the last couple of months. I don’t know if it’s the lack of sunlight or depression, but I feel a bit housebound. Trying to snuggle up and be safe. Life gets like that sometimes.

Here’s hoping…

Posted on January 25, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Internet, Life, Photos, Reflections, WordPress, WorkLeave a comment

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I haven’t been able to use WordPress as I used to for the last few days because I’ve been having some work done on my social media. It seems to be working now on my tablet but not on my mobile phone?

I think I altered something and it has thrown everything out of kilter, so this is another test to see if the post and its accompanying picture go to my Facebook page.

Fingers crossed. X

Shadows and light

Posted on January 25, 2019January 25, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Blue, Fun, Learning, Painting, Painting with acrylics, ShadowsLeave a comment

Sorry about the quality of the picture. But this was a painting I did a couple of years ago at the Orme Art group.

It was a still life set up by members of the group which we all worked on. Shadows were cast in two or three directions so it was a challenge to work out how to depict them.

Also the glass vase threw a coloured blue shadow with the ripples shimmering on the wall.

I’m not sure if I got the scale of each object right. The vase must have been really big or the teapot very small?

One problem with looking closely is that you can look at each object and not always the whole. That’d why it’s important to literally and metaphorically take a step back to check.

House sparrows

Posted on January 25, 2019January 25, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Birds, Blogging, Design, Digital art, House sparrows, Stained glass2 Comments

We saw some house sparrows in a hedge today “little brown jobbies” as I heard someone call them.

They were perched above us as I pulled the car into a car park. I wanted to get my phone to take a picture but its was on the back seat and the handle was caught in the rear door.

I carefully got out of the car, quietly shut my door and dragged my bag out. I got the phone, it was switched off! Help I had to switch it on and wait for it to warm up. Then a quick look. Four of the sparrows were still there…..

Camera on, click, click, click, (I took three incase of camera shake). Used the zoom option which pixelated them a bit but it was better than trying to creep towards them.

So when I got home I checked what I got. Not bad. I liked all the twigs and branches criss crossing and protecting the birds.

I decided to use the rainbow flood fill option in sketcher to make the sky more interesting. Like stained glass.

In the meantime I have a bad sore throat and feel rough.

I might not be around for a few days.

Illustrations

Posted on January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on watercolour paper, Acrylics, Art, Illustrations, Kidsgrove, Leek, StaffordshireLeave a comment

One thing I really enjoyed doing a while ago were illustrations for a leaflet for the canal and rivers Trust. I’ve probably already mentioned. My friend provided the images to work from and I painted with Acrylics on watercolour paper. I did that to get the depth of colours without having to paint thin layers and I could paint over any mistakes I made.

I was really pleased with the results. I only remembered them because they popped up on my Facebook memories. I wonder what else will appear there?

The top picture was an amalgamation of the two harecastle tunnels at Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, a work in progress. And the second was a mill at Leek in Staffordshire.

Work in progress… Painting Jupiter is hard!

Posted on January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Juno probe, Jupiter, Jupiter pole, Painting, Spode site, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, Work in progress2 Comments

I’ve been doing some more work on this painting. I want to get it finished this week. It’s a painting of one of the poles of Jupiter. In the photo it has a bluish tinge but I’m trying to make it bluer as the exhibition title is “an Exhibition of Blue” on in Spode exhibition space at Acava Studios, Spode Site, Eleanor Street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent. From 2nd February 2019.

Eyes

Posted on January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Digital drawings, Eyes, Humour, Poem, PoetryLeave a comment

Here’s looking at you kid,

The eyes seemed to say,

Like a surreal spider

With multiple eyes.

Don’t fear me

I seem to hear them

You will understand

one day.

I smell a surprise

Sniffed out I see

By my old eyes

And a new view.

Tiny paintings

Posted on January 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Bewildered, mini art, Tiny paintingsLeave a comment

I’m going to do some more tiny paintings soon, once I finally finish the painting of Jupiter that I’m doing for an Exhibition of Blue that is on at Spode artists studios exhibition space from 2nd February.

I like doing really small paintings, it’s a challenge to get enough details.

At the moment I’m having a few problems with WordPress. My fault. I tried to change something and I’ve ended up not being able to use the main pages but am trying to publish this locally…. I’ve even managed to add categories and tags…

We live and learn….

Bit of a makeover

Posted on January 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blog, Blogging, Change, Changes, Computer, Design, Facebook, Fun, Instagram, Learning, Life, Painting, Reflections, Social media, Twitter2 Comments

Things are changing on planet Mallaband-Brown so you might notice a few tweaks here and there thanks to my friend Mike from @staffsdesign.

I wanted to update my social media and make it easier for people to follow me. Being an artist has made me a lot happier and nows the time to try and make it work.

I didn’t realise amalgamating all my Web pages and sites would be so complicated and I’m so pleased to have had someone to sort everything out.

This is also a test to see whether it posts to my new Facebook page.

You should be able to follow me on the Internet at @mallabandbrown !

Wacom bamboo tablet

Posted on January 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Digital art, Digital drawing, Photoshop, Quantel paintbox, Wacom tabletLeave a comment

These are a set of drawings I found in my memories section on Facebook.

They were some of the first drawings I did on my Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I was drawing in photoshop.

I was trying different filters and tones (I only know because it was on captions underneath). This shows my enjoyment of morphing drawings. I like experimenting.

I was watching a programme about an Australian artist last night. (I can’t remember his name). He was recognised as one of their foremost abstract artists. At the end of his life he embraced digital art and there is a short section of film of him working with a technician who was using a quantel paintbox. This was the predecessor of photoshop. As I watched it I remembered using the same thing at a radiography conference. I was utterly amazed that it existed (this was in the early 1990’s.) I was enthralled by what you could draw. I guess that’s why I’m still drawing digitally now.