New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was snail. I remember Brian the snail from the Magic Roundabout children’s TV programme, which I watched in the 1970’s. But this is Mike the snail. I decided to write a limerick for him.
“There was a snail called Mike,
Who decided to go for a hike!
He slid cross the table
To see his friend Mable
I saw him and shouted out YIKES!
I just watched a programme about pottery on the TV. It’s set at the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. I like it because people have to do challenges, tonight’s was to create three low relief birds, in a small medium and large sizes. Each one had to represent a real bird. One person did three macaws, another kingfishers, a third falcons. Each contestant made really interesting birds, the standard was very high. One person got Potter of the week, one got eliminated. Its good to see an art based programme with real skills.
The drawing above is a digital finger painting I dis in ArtRage oils a few years ago. It’s meant to be a multicoloured pigeon.
Group of blocks, duplicated in a symmetrical pattern. I think the blues and oranges of the tiles, which are complementary colours add to the composition, as do the strong diagonals created by a bright shaft of sunlight. This was originally a photo taken in the shop at Middleport pottery, I think taken in the autumn.
A combination of objects and their reflections inside and seating and buildings outside. This was three years ago when the place we were visiting was called the Potbank cafe. Now its owned by someone else and called the Quarter. Its based at Eleanora Street on the Spode pottery site in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.
Some of the buildings on the Spode site are due to be demolished and apartments are to possibly be built there instead. If it happens it will be sad to see our industrial heritage destroyed in order to build as many ‘units’ as the developers can cram on the site. The view out of this doorway may change, quickly or slowly, no necessarily for the better.
I think it’s a good idea sometimes to take a different view for an image. In this case my friend sent me a photo from three years ago. I used a mirror on the wall to frame the people in the photo. He also sent me a couple of other photos I’d taken, and completely forgotten about. Those both have photos of windows where the view outside and the objects inside are framed by the window. By the way I think the mirror was framed with wooden sticks?
Tea for who?
Tea for you
With scones and jam
Or sandwich of ham?
Straight from the pot
It’s nice and hot
A fresh dark brew
Don’t let it stew!
Blue and white china
Nothing can be finer
From Stoke-on-Trent
To a friend, sent
A birthday gift
For them to lift
And then to pour
With milk and more.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was cornering. Cat covering a book covering a mat covering our floor…. He likes to keep his paws warm. Funny how they find the warmest places despite having fur! Felt pen and black ink drawing.
Once I start playing with apps I go back and make new patterns. I realised that using the symmetry tool on my sketch app I can offset them so they don’t overlap, and I used various colours from the same part of the spectrum. Then I duplicated and rotated the pattern, creating a lace like design.
Did you ever make paper snowflakes? Fold a piece of paper in two then fold it twice more so you end up with six pieces. Leave it folded and cut through the resultant triangle to cut off the excess paper sticking out so that each shape is the same (it’s so hard to describe!). From there cut out random shapes into each of the long sides, and a random pattern in the short side. When you unfold the paper you will end up with a snowflake (six sided). You can do other things. If you just fold it in half it could be a snowman or a butterfly if you colour in the paper first. If you quarter it you can make flower shapes. It’s fun to experiment and it’s something I used to do as a child. The snowflakes were stuck on our windows as decorations.
I like this particular filter on photodirector. It creates swirls but of a definite size, texturising the felt pen shading, and making a more graphic design. It sort of reorganises my artwork into something more abstract but coherent. Less realism, more illustrative. Drawing and playing with the resultant image is keeping me occupied on a very cold day, with temperatures below freezing in some parts of the country and a sprinkling of snow here, but deep elsewhere. And I dream of going to Bodnant in the spring.
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