New paintings and regular art updates.
When I used to draw at Youdraw.com I would do one line drawings. Basically you kept your cursor moving on the drawing area and didn’t lift it until you finished… Thats what I’ve done here … But then duplicated it and flood filled it. Sometimes it’s nice to lose black lines.
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I’m having a makeover on social media. I’m now @mallabandbrown on twitter… I will be using it more to post about paintings and other exploratory art that I’m planning over the next few months .
When we got married we stood on the steps of the local registry office and had a few group photos taken. I have the album somewhere (it was full of photos taken by friends as we didn’t have a photographer).
I decided to do a painting of the occasion. I used two photos, because faces and people were not posed I had to take figures off two photos to make a nice composition. (By the way my sister is that tall!)
I apologise for this photo, it’s not very good. I should really take better ones with lighting etc but I don’t have those resources.
I will say it was a good wedding. We only spent £300 and that was including our clothes, the food and our honeymoon!
How did we do it? Everyone bought food for a buffet at our house. We got a barrel of beer in. Friends made and iced the cake (shaped like a cat with a blue and pink cat on top). We held the reception at home. The honeymoon was two nights in a posh hotel, two in a bed and breakfast and the rest of the week in a caravan!
I have done large paintings in the past. This was painted in oil on canvas. About 4ft by 5ft. Done in 1993. it was before we moved to our current house. I used the room to paint in, I love pattern and regularly wore leggings, the jumper on the figure is made up. It is meant to be me. The cat on the canvas was taken from a book. It amuses me as it looks like its swallowing my arm. The cat in the corner was Gemma, a very intelligent loving cat.
Would I paint something this big again? Yes, I’ve done far bigger when I have painted scenery and murals. It would be great to be commissioned to do something large. You know where I am, get in touch.
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Tig was a handsome cat and very friendly. We loved him very dearly. I did this painting of him in about 2011. It’s just come up on my Facebook timeline.
We had Tig for a couple of years. He came and stole the other cat’s food and gradually moved in with us. The only thing he was scared of was The window cleaner, as soon as he heard him, he was out through the cat flap and away.
He was young and healthy and did mad things. I don’t have the pictures but I drew a series of cartoons of him on a website called Youdraw.com and called them the adventures of Tig.
One Wednesday he ran off as usual when the window cleaner arrived. But he did not come back that afternoon or night. I called and called but there was no sign of him. In the morning my partner went out looking for him while I got ready for work. He found Tigs body in the alleyway. We think he had drunk something, perhaps antifreeze that had poisoned him. There were garages nearby.
I couldn’t go to work that day. My grief was too much. I’m glad I painted him.
What are back stamps??
They are the trademark or manufacturers mark that you find on the bottom of cups, plates and dishes that shows who made them.
This can be useful in identifying the manufacturer, whether they are antique and if they are worth anything. Sometimes they even get forged! People have added things like the Clarice Cliff signature onto modern pots to try and fool people into buying them as originals.
Some pots have simple marks on their base to identify them. Others have complicated patterns and writing.
The people who live in the potteries (Stoke-on-Trent). Have a habit of looking underneath pots to see if they have recognised which pottery made them. I think it’s called the “turn over club” but I may be wrong…..
Last week I painted Edinburgh Castle and the London Eye. Today I finished them off by brightening the colours and adding some fireworks.
Today I painted a couple of bottle ovens which I slightly based on the Gladstone pottery in Longton.
I hope you like them.
Colours, shapes and texture make up this pattern. Using digital apps can create images that would not be easy to create on paper or canvas.
Once you have done that you could use another app to duplicate and twist the images. I love patterns and continue to create images like this.
It’s really not hard to do and it would be good to see more art being created in this way. Be brave! Have a go! You might surprise yourself.
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I’m having a bit of a reorganisation of my social media. My pages are a bit jumbled up and sometimes a bit confusing. If I’m going to try and make a living as an artist I need to try and organise things.
Hopefully this will all be done with the help of a friend. He’s called Mike and he runs a creative art business.
Basically I’ve got a few pages spread around the Internet but they are all slightly different, so when you look for me on Facebook I have 3 or 4 different pages but I only have one page on Instagram but I post anything and everything there.
I’m going to try using the “my story” section on Instagram and manage it so people will see pages like “inspirations” or “wip” (for work in progress) to Clutter things up less. The idea is to be more interconnected and be able to share more in a coherent way.
Wish me luck. X
Clutter or art. I have such a visual brain that I love to see things on my walls. But I know my way is not everyone’s way.
But I would argue that there is some wonderful, arresting, interesting and challenging art out there and as an artist I like to add to it.
So if you would like something painting or drawing get in touch. I would be so happy to create something for you.
These are some of the illustrations I did for my thesis on pre Christian celtic art from the fifteenth century BC to the first AD.
Sorry they are not beautifully photographed but it’s 3.30am and I was excited because I found it and it’s the first time I’ve seen it for about 38 years!
I see now where I get my love of patterns from and that I could do some of these drawings now. I don’t know where I started with some of them…. Oh the confidence of youth.
There are photographs in the thesis but I haven’t included them as they were taken by a friend. They are starting to fade but surprisingly the pen and ink drawings I did seem to have stayed stable. Probably because it’s been stored in a drawer…
Right. Bedtime I think.
Mallaband-Brown