The Owl and the Pussycat

Posted on March 20, 2023March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, bookcase, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Memory, nonsense poetry, Objects, Owl, pussycat, the owl and the pussycatLeave a comment

Went to sea, in a beautiful pea green boat…

They took some money and plenty of honey, wrapped up in a five pound note….

A nonsense poem by Edward Lear, who also wrote the Dong with the luminous nose and the Yonghie Bonghie Bo. There used to be a TV show in the seventies that included these characters, but the animation was very weird and too colourful if that’s possible with the poems set to odd music, and I’m afraid it actually put me off reading them!

I also get Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll ( who wrote Alice in Wonderland etc) mixed up.

I realised this morning that I have the iconic animals sitting on my bookcase in the bedroom. They are a tiny cat made by an artist friend and an owl I made of clay pressed into a mold. I hadn’t put two and two together before. I guess that anything can spark a chain of memories, there’s a phrase for it in semiotics, about signs and signifiers, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it!

Reflected

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Building, catkins, horizontal symmetry, Photo, Playing, Roof, Sky, Spring, TreeLeave a comment

I still like this photo that I made into a mirrored image, the tree is just putting out catkins as Spring comes closer. But my favourite bit is the roof on the right. It sort of looks like a fish or a strange bomb? or a plane?

Sour

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, apples, Art, Autumn, Colours, Drawing, Felt pens, Green, Life, Sketching, Sour2 Comments

Slightly late for Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt sour. My sour is really gentle, crab apples. You can add lots of sugar to calm them down and make crab apple jelly. Felt pen drawing, tried to make it a bit impressionistic.

Waiting for coffee

Posted on March 19, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Cafe, Coffee, Drawing, Fun, Hubby, Life, Middleport pottery, Sketching, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

Hubby yesterday, we had gone over to Middleport pottery so I could draw with the Stoke on Trent Urban Sketchers group. We decided to grab a cup of coffee but the cafe was very crowded and I’ve just got over a cold and didn’t want to catch another or worse. I decided to sit at one of the big round tables outside and so took the opportunity to draw my hubby and the canal and view behind him. The pointy thing about a third of the way in on the right is a church steeple but my ink brush wasn’t thin enough to get a point on it! Anyway I was pleased with the results.

Middleport pottery urban sketch

Posted on March 18, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #urbansketchersstoke, Art, Drawing, Felt pens, Life, Middleport pottery, Sketching, Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers4 Comments

The felt pens came out today for a drawing of the chimney at Middleport pottery. Stoke-on-Trent Urban Sketchers were out at various places around the factory grounds and across the other side of the Trent and Mersey canal.

It was a warm morning, and there were some brief glimpses of blue sky through the bold grey clouds. I could have drawn Middleports iconic bottle oven, but I wanted to sit down on a bench so I drew the chimney and the roofs instead.

I liked using layers of felt pen, I started with a pale blue pen to outline the buildings but then used black to indicate bricks and worked dark to light, with horizontal and little vertical lines to indicate the brickwork. I even used some silver pan for the sky because my grey pan has dried up. A lovely couple of hours spent in good company.

Imagined sky

Posted on March 17, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Clouds, Fun, Jupiter, Life, Mars, not real, Photo, Poem, Poetry, SkyLeave a comment

Those clouds aren’t real!

Not cirrus or cumulus

Not lenticular or mackerel

You played with the photo

Didn’t you?

Messing about with the sky

Those clouds up high

Could be on Jupiter

Or Mars!

But not here!

Get that clear!

World map

Posted on March 17, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Colours, Contours, Design, Digital art, Fun, Map, Sketching, Textures, World2 Comments

Digital map, playing with textures. I think it looks a bit woven. I won’t explain how I did it, I spent ages colouring it in. It could look like an old TV screen, but it wouldn’t be in colour! I tried to add continental shelves which is why the colours are shaded in contours. Anyway hope you like it.

Happy St Patrick’s day

Posted on March 17, 2023March 18, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Digital manipulation, Drawing, Ireland, Layout app, Photodirector, saints day, Sketching, Snakes, St Patrick's dayLeave a comment

Here’s a little green abstract to wish you a happy St Patrick’s day.

I once found a four leaf 🍀clover, so it feels like a lucky day. St Patrick was supposed to have cast all the snakes out of Ireland 🇮🇪 and to this day there are non there. I guess it could be that Ireland is an Island?

St Patrick’s day is celebrated in Ireland and in the USA where they have been known to colour rivers green. Its not unusual to have parades of marching bands and floats. The predominant colour is green, even green coloured drinks! The symbol is an Irish man with red hair and a beard wearing green clothes and sporting a shamrock ☘ (which I think is similar to clover, but a perennial plant). Much fun and hilarity is enjoyed by the population on St Patrick’s day.

We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s day as much in most of the UK, I think because Ireland is a mainly Catholic country and mark saints days more than we do.

The green abstract was drawn with felt pens then filtered through photodirector to add texture, and an app called layout to add symmetry.

Drawing and painting

Posted on March 17, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1877, Drawing, Flow, hours, Illness, Life, Sketching, ThinkingLeave a comment

What activities do you lose yourself in?

I have always drawn and painted. Hours can disappear and I don’t notice them. I think that’s called ‘flow’, I’m immersed in it. Even now when my left arm shakes I can’t stop. I end up with shake lines or I have to put things on an easle to stop it. I now have golfers elbow in the same arm and gout and trigger finger in my right hand. But I keep being creative. I really think its my reason for living. When I stop drawing that will be the end of me. Even if I can’t hold a pen or paintbrush I can doodle on my phone and finger paint as in the digital drawing above.

A few years ago I was in hospital. I made my hubby bring me a sketchpad and pencils, I think that was proof I was getting better!

Clown puppet

Posted on March 17, 2023March 17, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Clown, Design, Drawing, Funny, Idea, Odd, Puppet, SketchingLeave a comment

Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was puppet. Clown puppet idea. I didn’t want to copy another photo so I made my own design. I know clowns paint their faces on eggs to register their pattern, no doubt this is someone’s design?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Art