Mushrooms

Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was mushrooms. I drew Shaggy ink caps. Very recognisable. They look like drumsticks as they grow, the cap is  tall rather than flat like a parasol. They have scales and they turn black at the base which gradually moves up the cap and makes them seem to melt back into the ground.

Need to catch up

#bandofsketchers?

What’s happened? I’ve been ill again and I haven’t had the energy or will to draw. I’m behind on these prompts. I have ideas but the sketchpad is across the room and I can’t make myself go and pick it up. I think I’m a bit overwhelmed. I don’t think the cold, wet, grey weather we have been having has helped. Shivering and shaking is not conducive to drawing and sketching. Oh I must not moan, but sometimes you just get stuck. Bad mood and memories don’t help, I guess I’m a bit blocked in my creativity. Sunshine might help.

X

Six months…

Six months since I lost you

Six months of sorrow

I don’t remember every day

But milestones on the way

Remind me of a voice lost

A physical presence gone.

When I feel down the loss is greater

I dispare that your life is over.

I still pray for you at night

And I wish with all my might

That you were still here

Even if you were not near

Sister, twin, friend

My love to you

I send.

Seven years

Seven years ago I created this. I can’t remember exactly how. But it just popped up on my Facebook memories. It’s definitely my style, pattern and colours. I do love the idea of creating something like this, completely abstract using some elements from nature. I don’t know if there are enough pixels to make it work as a print. I’m not sure how many dpi it is.

Mill

Small ‘Mill’ painting sold.

It was very good to hear that my small painting of Etruria Flint Mill had sold to a friend yesterday. It was another in a new style I am experimenting with. I’m using more lines and textures to emphasise  the patterns in the bricks and sky and trees. The image is based on a photo of the Mill and Industrial Museum, but I added more white to give a feeling of when it was in use, and the site was dusted with the crushed bones and flints that went into Stoke-on-Trents bone China, their attempt to replicate Porcelain. The canal is brown with rusty water. If you visit Kidsgrove which is to the North of Stoke you can see the canal there is often very orange. The Trent and Mersey canal runs through the Harecastle Tunnel which is another interesting part of our industrial heritage.

I have other work for sale at Arts and Minds Gallery at Harper Street in Middleport opposite Middleport Pottery, Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

An art and book shop

Where would you go on a shopping spree?

Down to the Arts and Book shop. I’d buy lots of acrylic paints, some watercolours, gouache, oil paints, felt pens, pastels, charcoal, conte crayons, pencils. Then I’d get canvases, large and small in white and black. Cartridge paper, watercolour paper, sketch pads. Glitter, metallic paper, ink, lino to cut for printing.

Science and technology books, sci-fi books, novels, biographies, autobiographical books, historic books, books about galleries, about the renaissance, about astronomy.

Then I would donate half of it to a local school or college, because I would not have space for it all, or time to use it.

Reflected snow

A symmetrical photo created by flipping a photo upside down. The main mass of leaves is a holly bush we have grown in the garden. It’s a bit like a parasol as we have cut off a lot of the lower branches. I like how the resulting photo looks like an insect on its side. I have a brain that likes pareidolia (when you see creatures or faces in shapes). If I was to turn the photo through 90° it might look like a moth?

#motion

One of the art groups I’m part of put a prompt of #motion on their Facebook page today. I thought of this painting. Acrylic on canvas called Georges from a few years ago. A painting from memory of when I jumped in the sea fully clothed and swam out to a wild dolphin at Challaborough? In Devon. There were people on the beach and people in wetsuits further out. Georges kept swimming past me because I was somewhere in the middle. He’d got lots of scars along his body. I found out from a poster the next day telling people not to swim with him as he was too friendly and had been cut by boat propellers. You can also catch illnesses like pneumonia from breathing the air from their blowhole.

Snowdonia sketch

Drawing from 2021. I was watching Sky Landscape Artist of the year and I decided to do a drawing of Snowdonia in North Wales. This took half an hour. I have relatives that live near to Snowdon so it’s a place I love. The landscape near where I live is more rolling hills, certainly no mountains nearby.

One of the things about the UK is that there are so many variations in the landscape. Flat, hilly, mountainous, green, forested, heathland, waterlogged, dry, arable, coastal. You can see why people fall in love with it.