Lion

A photo of a lion at Saltaire by my friend Timothy Hargreaves.

I think I remember him telling me that the lions at Trafalgar square in London were made by the same sculptor. There are on the hill going down to the entrance of Salts Mill in Saltaire, Yorkshire, and they look extremely magnificent in the Spring sunshine. I wish we had sculptures like this nearby. It’s very impressive and I think Victorian?

Art

What are you good at?

Paintings on display yesterday.

If I had to say what I was good at number one would be painting and art. Fourth years ago I went to college to do Fine Art, then I recently completed a course in illustration.

Art makes me happy. I love to paint acrylics on canvas and also watercolours. To me art is manipulating liquids or solids on a flat or shaped surfaces. I am good at using paint, pastels, ink, wax, pencils, felt pens. I also enjoy creating images digitally. I’m lucky to have good hand eye coordination. So I can copy most things, I’m also fairly good at creating abstract images. I am very lucky to have art training. There are lots of skills that I have been privileged to learn.

Whatever I do I will always create art. It is part of my DNA I think!

Orme Art at the Whitfield centre.

There is free entry to the Orme Art Group Exhibition. It’s on tomorrow at the Whitfield centre on Whitfield Avenue in Newcastle under Lyme. 11am till 4pm. The bottom photo is my table of small paintings. And the photo above it shows two boards with some of my larger paintings exhibited at the same time. I have finished five little paintings today, adding extra colour to one, a cat to another, and generally tidying them up. Then I put the paintings up on the boards, people seemed to like them. X

Textured sunset

I put a sunset photo through the photodirector app (styles) and liked this result. The effect seems to be like oil on water, fluid but blocky. The colours are subtly concentrated in patches and the line edges are more curved.

There are about seven options for textures so I went through them all to choose the one I liked best. Some of them are more smudged than others.

Mom’s wedding ring

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

My wedding ring holds mom’s in place. Her hands must have been bigger than mine, hers would fall off without it. My ring is cheap, soft gold. I bought it myself for £27 from a jewellery store when we were getting married. Mom’s wedding ring is heavier and I’m sure higher quality. It’s slowly wearing mine away as they have rubbed against each other for about ten years. It was her bequest to me when she died, and every time I look at it I am reminded of the strong supportive woman she was. She allowed me to go to college when she could have insisted that I found a job. She helped me with my spelling when I was younger (I was in a low stream at school because I couldn’t see properly). They tested my eyes and I got glasses, mom helped me catch up by helping me with spelling. 100 words at a time! I got put up into the top stream at school. Mom encouraged my artistic endeavours. She would even show people my drawings.

She raised me and my siblings after our father died and went out and did two jobs to support us. She learnt to drive so she could transport us to places. She even took us out to Chinese meals and taught us how to use chopsticks. So many good and odd memories! She raised us to be polite and thoughtful. I am forever in her debt.

Too many!

A green stone

Do you have any collections?

Stones, rocks and crystals. Glass paperweights. Books. Plants (mainly Christmas cactuses). Cat ornaments. My paintings and art.

One small terraced house. Two bedrooms, one living room. Cluttered. I’m trying to declutter a bit, but it’s hard when you collect (or is it hoard?) things.

I tried counting the books once, but when I got to 1000 I gave up. I collected Terry Pratchettand and Ann McCaffrey books, also Ellis Peters (Brother Cadviael books). I might have spelt it wrong. I like science and biography, novels and history, too many…

Cat ornaments range from sculptures to small home made clay objects. I have most of them in the living room, sitting on the mantlepiece.

I also collect too much art supplies. I have lots of felt pens, brushes, paints, canvases. Yes it’s cluttered. So I need to organise everything. Have a spring clean. Dust off the glass paperweights, the cats, my paintings. If something happens to us goodness knows what my relatives will think!