I think I’ve always cared about people. My mom used to say I had a soft heart. I like films that you would class as weepies, ones that bought a tear to your eyes. I’d sit on the sofa with my mom and have a good cry.
So I’m motivated to try and support people. I wonder if that is just a perpetuation of a female role model ? It certainly was pushed when we had our careers guidance. It was suggested I went into nursing, I which didn’t set well. Why not a doctor? Anyway by then my motivation had changed. I wanted to be an artist, and for forty years I’ve pursued that role. Not to be famous. Not to make money, but to create art (and care about people).
Although I was not able to attend the Open day at a spode this weekend, I arranged to have one of my paintings Autumn Spring exhibited alongside other people’s artwork. I think it looks quite good. I was experimenting with an abstract idea in 2019 just before Covid arrived. The idea is a mixture of oblong and squares on the Autumn side, all jumbled and crammed together and is opposed to Spring which is more lyrical and fluid. Representing overwhelming waste and damage, and what we are doing to the Earth, and the renewal and regrowth that the Spring could bring.
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was costume. Here’s Jacob’s coat of many colours sketch using the Artrage app, I just used the oil paint tool. Then I edited it in sketchbook and added the toggles and background etc…
My mural based on a ceramic design called Umbrella by Clarice Cliffe.
Stoke-on-Trent is a city built on Art and crafts. From Wedgwood and Brindley and the industrial revolution.
Ceramics were the main manufactured goods in the city. So much so that it became known as ‘the Potteries’. Different pottery owners experimenting with different materials, trying to make pots that could stand up to the quality of Chinese wares.
Manufacturers had water, clay and coal from the local area. Pots were transported out of the city on the newly built canals that linked it to the rest of England and then on to the world.
Designs were transfer printed onto plates and cups, opening up cheaper wares to the general public. But other work was hand painted and lined with gold and other precious metals.
What was needed to make all the pottery? Workers, making, turning, transfer printing, painting. Numerous jobs including the famous Saggar Makers bottom knocker. (You can Google this). The work couldn’t be completed without skilled labour that could translate designs into reality. Some female paintresses were allowed to sign their names to their work. Like Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliffe.
So much skill in one city. Burslem school of art taught many of the artists that were to work in the ceramic trades. One famous artist, Arthur Berry, became a fine artist and writer and play writer. He was one of my tutors at college. That’s why I love this place.
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was shore. Finger painting digitally using a brush in the Sketchbook app called ‘salty watercolour’. The colours seem to splodge in quite a realistic way. Imagining a view of a Welsh or Devon Coast….
Another #bandofsketchers prompt was plenty. Cornucopia or horn of plenty was a display of fruit and beautiful food presented in a large shell or spiralling horn if I remember correctly. I did a digital sketch and tried to create an abstract image of it.
I play with these drawings to create a double image of two faces. One side has more texture than the other using different apps.
One side is sharper than the other, the left hand side has been processed through photodirector to add texture.
Does it matter what I did or why? Isn’t it more important to create something? I explain what I’ve done, but is there any significance? I see work in exhibitions wherr the piece of art will have a longwinded explanation of what the Art is about. I like to play and explore, I might not have a specific intention, but I hope what I do has some integrity….
Artrage doodle, it started as a background and was possibly going to be a river with fish in it, but when it came to the final image, this strange face snuck in. I am struggling with energy, trying to stay awake because sleeping on an old armchair will do that to you. I’ve made lots of mistakes in the writing on here, I keep on doing it because I’m falling asleep as I draw and write. So it’s a very random drawing. X
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was slime. A drawing using a photo of my hubby, I’d already drawn over it. I tried to add a layer of slimey gloop as if it was a sculpted bust covered in ectoplasm from a ghost in Ghost busters. You hopefully get the idea?!
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
If I could I would open an art shop. But I don’t have the skills. I’d need to be trained in accounting, in design to get things looking peofessional, and more knowledge of pricing. Also I’d need sufficient funds to rent or let a property.
At the moment I’m lucky to have some of my work on sale or display, but the business side of it doesn’t enthrall me. I’d never be an entrepreneur.
I did try when I finished work, I set up a studio and worked at producing new art. But the building us rarely open to the public, and my studio is off down a narrow corridor so I don’t have much contact with people when I’m there. Covid and lock downs stopped me from getting stalls on local craft fairs.. A cheaper way of selling than having a permanent ‘public facing’ shop.
I’ve heard of business plans but never had one perhaps that’s my biggest failing, I just keep getting on with getting on….
Mallaband-Brown 