Tag: Art

2013 scenery

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Looking on Facebook, memories pop up from years ago. These pictures were taken in July 2013. I’m not sure if I did all of them that year. I may have painted over an old one from a year or two before.

As on other occasions harvest was one of the themes. Also the industrialisation of Stoke on Trent, when canals were dug out and bottle ovens and kilns were built. I even had to paint a public house. (With working door!)

I’m not sure how many years I have done this for and its always a bit of a rush job, or my health hasn’t been good. But I feel so much part if my community that I won’t say no.

I would love to do more, make the flats more intricate, more like murals. But at the end of the day they are only on display for a few hours, one day in a year. Just as long as the scenery helps tell the story…..that’s what they are there for.

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Play Day

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Penkhull Mystery play day was hot and sunny. I missed the music morning in the church, but managed to watch the flag raised on the village green. The flag was chosen from a competition that was whittled down to 4 combined designs. The flag that won had the cockerel from the weather vane on the church on it, then an oval to to represent the roads up to the  green and around it.

Next came Penkhull village brass bands playing popular and beautiful music to the crowd sitting on the green in front of the church.

There was also Morris dancing by Black Dog Molly, and  a Hurdy Gurdy man playing ancient tunes, and a bower of song where anyone could come along and sing or play music.

It was time to get changed and ready for the play. I snapped a shot of the scenery I have been painting, but couldn’t get photo’s of the mystery play as I was in it!  It went well and we had fun singing and dancing for the entertainment of the crowd. In 20 minutes a group of children were transported back in time, became farmers, were involved in Waterloo, were injured. Had a child,  were evicted and had to live in a hole in the ground. Went through the first world war, then became Suffragettes, and eventually returned to the present.

Once the play was over there was time to get changed and listen to the Penkhull ukulele band, and watch the tug of war competition (only two teams entered from the same place as the other teams were too busy watching England play in the world cup.)

Finally I saw some short playlettes written for Harper’s Titchy theatre. This was performed as readings for two or more voices. It was very entertaining  apart from being drowned out by loud musuc from the pub. (Half time at the England game).

It is a great credit to the people of Penkhull to do this so well each year. I heard up to 400 people help organise and volunteer for this community arts event .

It’s no wonder everyone is so busy at this time of year in Penkhull!

This years mystery

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This afternoon (Saturday 7th July) I will be in the Mystery Play. This is the scenery that I have painted for it. The last photo is the two boards joined, the grey bars of cloud is not the finished effect because I decided to change them to flatter clouds. Unfortunately I could not take another picture because my phone went flat.

I have lost the book I was working from so I just tried painting cumulus and stratus clouds.

I think the looming clouds make it feel more oppressive. The play is about war, family, and woman’s equality. I hope it does work on the day.

Our play starts at 2 pm and only runs for 20 minutes, I think it will be good.

Copying a painting

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I’m try in to do a copy of a painting I did recently because it was up in a little exhibition and someone saw it and wanted a copy. My only problem is that I didn’t have a canvas the right size so I’m reusing one I’d started painting . Hence the marks showing through on the copy. But acrylic paint is opaque and they won’t be visible when I finish.

What I do need to do is make sure the face is accurate. I’ve made a start but the nose is wrong and I haven’t recreated the slight smile. Also I think the chin is wrong.

I don’t measure the distances, I judge by eye. I will be making adjustments to shapes, sizes, colours and tones all the way through doing this.

One thing I do like is the colour contrast in theis pictures.  Blue and orange/ochre always spark off each other.

Right, better carry on…..

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Getting better, need to adjust skin tones…

 

 

 

 

I am still here!

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Just busy at the moment. I’m painting some of the scenery for our local mystery play next Saturday. The theme is the Tittensor Evictions by the Duke of Sutherland, and including two wars and the suffragette movement all in twenty minutes.

The scenery is based on a painting by Corot. I think it’s a landscape in the south of France. I’ve added a thatched cottage and there will be figures in the foreground. This is half of the panel (or flat as they call it in the theatre) its 8ft by 4ft. There will be another panel of the same size attached above it which of sky. I’m also going to add the hall where the Duke lived to this panel.

I’m painting with acrylics and emulsion on hard board. This took me about two hours to paint. I also have a sign to do…. so I will be very busy again!

The Mystery play has been happening for over 10 years now at Penkhull. It started out being purely religious but has taken on different themes over recent years, including one about the river Trent. Apparently it’s the largest community arts event in Stoke-on-Trent and there were 400 people participating in putting it on last year.

It’s on 7th July if you feel like coming along…

 

Hotel

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I had a nice surprise this morning. A friend messaged me to say there was an article about the hotel she works at on the Spode site in Stoke on Trent.

When I looked at it I noticed one of my paintings in the photo of one of the bedrooms! I had wondered where it had gone to because it was not downstairs in the Works canteen cafe we go to at the hotel.

I wish it wasn’t such a tiny photo, because its hard to see much detail, but I’m going to be painting a few more pictures that will be for sale in the hotel.

The buildings around Spode are very inspiring because of the industrial architecture and archaelogy on the site.

So, that was good news. Hope to have more soon.

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Paint

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Paint is a wonderful thing,  a riot of colours, a rainbow of tones.

Acrylic for ease of colour use, oil paint for staying damp to ease blending. Water colours for transparency and simplicity, Gouache for more opaque colours over watercolour. The types of paint are fascinating. Each has its own method and technique. Even paints such as emulsion and gloss can be used in Art, and of course spray cans are used for graffiti.

From millennia ago humans have made marks, on cave walls, on rocks, papyrus and paper. Canvas and screens. The need to make pictures seems to have been with us almost from the cradle. Children learn to draw at an early age. Scribbling, then with improved hand eye coordination comes drawing, painting, even writing. For what is language, it is an abstract representation of what was once pictograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics show the link between art and language.

Paint and art invade our society. Art and colour are used to design every day objects. Architecture is a form of art. We need artists and painters in our visual society. Art is there in video games, special effects, what colour your clothes or car will be next season. What palette you decide to use to decorate weddings and birthdays. The list is almost endless….

 

Kirk and Spock

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OK so I’m a trekkie, I’m a sci fi nut. I enjoyed watching the series when I was a child, in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I loved both these characters, in particular Spock. I was amazed that logic was so important and I would often try to think logically like him. I was clearly a strange child.

Two of my favourite authors were Issac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. I watched the film 2001 a Space Oddessy which is based on Arthur C Clarke’s book.  The images of space flight were really incredible. It was good that the flight to the space station was accompanied by music, it really irritates me when they play sounds when space is a vacuum and sound cannot travel in it. (That was one thing that DID irritate me about Star Trek). I also like the film I Robot, although it doesn’t stick to the book like 2001. Asimov 3 laws seemed to chime with Spock’s logic. I think I had most of Asimov’s Robot books and a fair few of his short stories.

Yes I’m more Star Trek than Star Wars. I loved the character’s, Uhura, Bones McCoy and Scottie, Chekov and Sulu. At one stage I had all the Star Trek books that had been written by James Blish. I lost them when I moved to college.

Kirk is great in his own way, he is such a strong character. My favourite scene is where he opens a grain hopper and Tribbles fall out. I still find that hilarious.

These two drawings were done at sketchfu. A drawing website that us now defunct. The little creature on the screen behind Spock is Fu. The drawing site only had 5 sizes of pen, an opacity tool, a colour picker and a pallette of colours. I wish I could have made the flesh tones more smooth and blended. I enjoyed drawing these two portraits….

I like the new series of films with replacement actors, I hope they get the chance to do more.

 

 

Poppies

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There is a whole cluster of poppies in poor soil round the corner from where I live.

These are tall oriental ones. But we also have Welsh poppies which are yellow and orange. We have grown ladybird poppies which are red and black and we once grew a Himalayan poppy, (mecanopsis?) which is bright blue.

So inevitably they get into my photos and paintings…..

Poppy, poppy, I see you flutter, blue sky, red headed beauty

Poppy, poppy, mediaeval sleep enhancer, narcotic, danger.

Poppies, poppy, seeds for flavour, thriving on old building sites.

Poppies, poppies, memories of war, petals fluttering down upon our heads.

Papaver, poppy , horticultural star. Giver of colour and Sun.

Red glasses

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A couple of years ago I did a doodle on the computer of me wearing my old red glasses. The idea was to draw it as if I was using a scraper board …. you know scratching through a black surface to reveal a metallic coloured base layer.

The red really stands out on this drawing (which has been duplicated in layout).

I think artists need to experiment, even if its just  little ideas that get the cogs going in your brain!

Red glasses hide your eyes behind

Thick glass, makes you think?

Makes your thought opaque, hidden,

Eyes glint under the red frame,

Pale thoughts unbidden.

Will they see the real you,

will they feel your thoughts?

Reveal yourself by showing your eyes..

The pain, the fear, the dark.