Tag: Art

I like morphing drawings

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You want to doodle, create, make mark’s? Then maybe a free app like ArtRage oils is for you.

Four pens, and a rainbow of colours which can be plain or metallic allows you to play and express yourself.

The colours do tend to smudge, like working with wet in wet paint, but you do get some interesting effects. Sometimes it can look like oil paint put on with a palette knife, or brushed thickly over a canvas.

I have tried quite a few apps, but this is one I keep coming back to. I guess because it is simple to use, and can be altered by building up layers.

You have to save the painting, then click share option, and export, which allows you to save the file to a sharable format. I’m not a computer expert but I have found if I don’t choose the share option I can’t find them on my tablet picture files!

 

You can see a series of drawings that I have done, gradually changing them. I ended up adding the horse’s head because of the two circles at the top left hand side of the next to last drawing.

Anyway enough blogging for tonight!

Big painting!

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  • Finally finished,
these pictures run from todays picture of the finished painting, backwards to the original start. Its about A1 in size.IMG_20180219_142219_731More done, including more shadow.
May change the curve at the top, its too much. Needs flattening.IMG_20180218_185303_881And so it continues….
This has had more detail added to the pot, and I have worked on the background more. This is the third picture. The green one was the second and the one with the red background was the first.IMG_20180217_013137_299

Continue reading “Big painting!” →

Today’s Life studies.

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It’s Wednesday again, and so have just finished Life class.

Tonight we had a musician called Mark sitting for us. He is an accomplished singer and accordion player, and we had the pleasure of drawing and painting him while he played and sang.

Two hours of hearing music such as the Stoke hornpipe and cajun tunes ensued.

It did make drawing him difficult but that was part of the challenge.  I did a couple of sketches and a close up drawing and a small acrylic on canvas portrait .

Good way of spending an evening.

 

Spode Photos

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The industrial heritage of Stoke on Trent is amazing. Its history at the centre of the ceramics industry for centuries has earned it the title “the Potteries”.

Built up over years where there was a supply of water, clay, coal and other natural resources, the six towns of Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Longton, Fenton and Stoke-upon-Trent became a federation and the city of Stoke-on-Trent was born.

Many famous potter’s lived and worked in the city, including Josiah Wedgwood, and of course Josiah Spode. The city was also served by the Trent and Mersey canal, built by James Brindley.

The Spode factory closed several years ago as ceramic manufacture was outsourced to other countries. This eventually brought about the closure of the Spode works in the town of Stoke-upon-Trent (or Stoke as it is usually called).

Where the factory once was busy with activity and trade, the buildings have started to decay. The old bottle kiln base is all that is left after it collapsed. The place covers a large area of the town, and must have had a very large work force in its heyday.

But the future for the site is brighter than it could have been. An arts organisation has moved in to part if the buildings and if you walk up a yellow staircase you enter a series of artists studios. Cold in the winter, they still offer a place for creative people to work.

Other things are happening too. A cafe has opened, attached to part of the building, and a hotel us due to open.

The old visitor centre is being refurbished and Art exhibitions are being planned.

Over the last few years the factory has hosted the BCB or British Ceramics Biennial. This has attracted artists and potters from around the world.

These are some photos that I took around the site today. They were only taken on an old Android phone but I hope they give a feeling of the atmosphere of the site. I may be using some if them as a basis for some paintings.

Using Sketcher Free and Layout Apps

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I use a few apps and thought I would show you a progression using them. Initially I chose a turquoise background in Sketcher Free, and using the ribbon pen and white then black colours I drew a unicorn but made it into what I called a Zebracorn, (or unizeb!)

I then changed it using a different pen to form wings, but went back to the ribbon pen to finish them off and try and lose the unicorns horn. I suppose you could call it pegazeb?

Another app you can use on Samsung galaxy tablets is Layout. It allows you to duplicate images, rotate them up or down or side to side..left to right etc. There are various options and some if them are shown below. Doubling, quadrupling or even making multiples of them.

Of course then it’s good to display them on line, so I put a lot of drawings on Instagram. That gives you the opportunity to use filters more – which is seen in the final picture, changing from turquoise to green.

So basically you can go from a finger painting to something much more complex using a couple of apps.

One word to describe my Art? “Eclectic”

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Some artists have a theme they keep to, they will always paint birds or sculpt bodies, or even unmake beds.

I cannot do that, my mind jumps all over the place.  I usually paint in acrylics, but have also painted scenery, made props for plays, made pottery. I take reasonable photographs.  I recently crocheted blue squares and circles for a friends installation. I have painted murals, drawn in the sand on beaches, done digital art… I am eclectic.

Give me something to make a mark and something sparks in my brain, like a fire, and it won’t easily go out. The more I do the more I feel I can and should do better.

Isn’t it mad how a grey lump of stuff in your head can make you create?  Some people write, others make music. Something in my mind is very visual. I wish I knew more about how the mind works to explain mine. It must be something to do with memory and hand eye co-ordination. I started drawing at about 4 and I haven’t really stopped since.

So I have posted a few more pictures,  not all good, but its hard to search through so many images to find representative work.

If you want to draw, paint or create art, don’t hesitate, do it. The more you do the better you get. Practice helps, you can learn new techniques. Just don’t be afraid to try!

If its Wednesday its life drawing.

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I have been going to Life drawing classes for a few months now after a break of several years. Drawing skills need practice, and you can lose them if you don’t.

I first did life drawing almost 40 years ago at college after drawing portraits of fellow pupils at school. I remember the person I first drew was a very interesting and always wore horn rimmed glasses and had her toes bandaged!

Later I did life drawing with the same group that I am in now but at Burslem School of Art (Arthur Berry was a student there). I only went for a couple of months and stopped due to ill health. But now I’m drawing again.

So what can you learn if you draw? The proportions and anatomy of a person. Working out how large feet are in relation to legs, arms etc. Recently I did a nice drawing, but when I stood back from it I could see the head was too large and the legs and arms too short. I think that’s a problem due to my eyesight. I tend to peer through my glasses then look over the top of them to see the sketch pad.  Looking very closely means you are not always checking the bigger picture.

I guess I should measure with a pencil, but to be honest I’m too busy drawing to remember half the time.

I think life drawing should be taught as a skill at college. I have heard that a lot of classes have stopped. Art and creativity are so important, keep drawing!

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Doodles in apps

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A few years ago I started drawing on my computer. I used a Wacom tablet and went on various web sites to draw. I remember names like wet canvas, floating ginko, 2draw , but my favourite was a site called Youdraw where you could only use two black pens and two white pens. They aimed to collect 500000 drawings. And I contributed several thousand!

The drawings at the bottom of the page are mostly from Youdraw. I manipulated colours and patterns in Photoshop, and enjoyed the results.

There are many more of these drawings on my old computer…but its upstairs and covered in dust at the moment. I need to get it into my head to get it repaired.

Along came another site called sketchfu. It was fun to use as it had simple colour palettes and no need to create layers.  The drawing of a sphere broken up into sections was done there….

But then…I got a tablet a couple of years ago for Christmas. …

It doesn’t have many apps, or much memory. After adding an SD card I discovered it had enough memory to download some free apps.

I’m currently using sketcher for galaxy (the nude and picture of two women), then ArtRage oils which is another free app (pigeon) and sketcher free (dancing figure).

Each has its own characteristics, so it’s good to do different things on different ones. I found using a stylus helped with lines, but have lost it and need to get a new one.

I also manipulate images in a couple if other free apps…picsart which allows you to edit and filter pictures, and layout which is linked to instagram.

if anyone can recommend other interesting apps that are free and don’t take up too much memory let me know.

 

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Illustrating cards

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My friend asked me to illustrate a few cards for her because she wanted to give them to some friends who have helped her out.

I took photos of various objects in her house, then used washes of acrylic paint and black marker pen to  finish them off. I also used a photo of a train in a book as she had specifically asked for a locomotive.

The results are quite sketchy and free, I hope she likes them…

Etruria Artists are opening up again tonight

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FB_IMG_1517207844064Now that we are through the worst if the winter weather  (hopefully) Etruria Artists are opening up the warehouse at Etruria Locks in Stoke on Trent again.

Situated in an old warehouse on the Trent and Mersey canal in Stoke on Trent, it is near to the Etruria Industrial museum, which sits on the junction of the Canal with the Caldon branch of it.

The sessions run from 7 to 9 pm on a Thursday evening and should run regularly except when people are on holiday. Situated along the canal towpath from the museum. Walk past the forge and a few yards further on the warehouse stands next to the summit lock (lock 40).  It can be quite dark along the path so its an idea to bring a torch. The warehouse should be lit up when you arrive. Come on in.

The idea is that you can come in and get into doing art. There us a pottery wheel and you can throw pots or hand build ceramics. There is usually paper and paints and pencils available with people from the group happy to help you create your own work.

A small charge of £5 a session is made to cover costs. So why not come along and enjoy a stress busting session at the warehouse?

EDIT: we are not meeting this week, 12.4.18 …but should be opening next week again….