Five?

Posted on April 12, 2025 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1906, Education, everyday things, Health, Important, Media, Water2 Comments

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

Are these everyday things? They are to me…

Art Groups I go to regularly. Being creative keeps my mind calm. When I’m painting or drawing I can put other feelings behind me. An art education improves creativity.

Having clean water to drink and use for washing. I realise many places don’t have the luxury of clean water. Even here there is a problem with some water companies, but at least it is clean and delivered by pipes to almost every dwelling.

Media, again the luxury aspect. TV, radio, Internet. We mainly have all these in the UK although some are more hit and miss in more rural areas where mountains and hills can block transmissions. We possibly take it for granted.

Our health service. Free at the point of use. Yes it is overworked and underfunded. But you don’t have to pay unless you go private and no one goes bankrupt paying exorbitant fees. I hope it survives all the problems going on in the country.

Finally Education. We are lucky that most pupils stay on till senior school and beyond to college and degree level. The pandemic had a detrimental effect on attendance and some children are being home schooled. I think that’s a mistake but as long as they get a good widespread education then hopefully they will be OK.

So this post is a bit random but all these things mean a lot to me. Art is my main one though.

Previous spirals

Posted on April 9, 2025 Posted in Fine Art, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, art nouveau, Celtic art, Design, Digital drawing, Life, Memory, Pattern, SpiralsLeave a comment

Just found an old digital drawing I turned into a pattern.

I can’t remember when I did this but it’s certainly a few years ago. I do love spirals….

Fireworks, galaxies, water spinning in a plughole, staircases, tornadoes, cloud formations, patterns in art. Its a, recurring theme in my art and I also love celtic patterns and art nouveau designs….

What is this?

Posted on April 9, 2025 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Abstract, Acrylic on canvas, Art, Bold, Chaos, Colourful, expressive, Fine Art, Life, PaintingLeave a comment

Acrylic on canvas I painted today. I wanted to paint a bold abstract which doesn’t have a name and I spoke to a fellow artist to ask what she thought. I almost called it Migraine!

She put her art therapy head on and felt it could represent emotions wanting to escape, perhaps bottled up anger. Certainly it looks a bit like a Catherine wheel. I think the outer part looks like flames. It’s not calm. It’s expressive, but also chaotic. Felt good to paint it. X

Carving?

Posted on April 7, 2025 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Art, art nouveau, Building, Carving, demolished, Life, Memory, Moving, reclaim, Reuse, SculptureLeave a comment

This is a stone carving I think? It’s on a building in Newcastle under Lyme. The building, a shop, has closed and other buildings around it are partially demolished. I hope this carving will be recovered and reused, maybe it will go to a reclamation yard? I think it’s probably an art nouveau design. I hope the business that was there is successful in its new home (there wee signs saying it had moved elsewhere.

An Artist

Posted on April 2, 2025 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artist, BA, College, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1891, Fine Art, Illustration, life memories, ma, Painting, SketchingLeave a comment

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I must have been about five when I realised I wanted to do art. I would make patterns on graph paper, draw and doodle and sketch. I know my mother started to collect some of my drawings. As I got older I put them on my walls. I even strung them across my bedroom held on by pegs because I didn’t have enough wall space.

When I was in my teens one of my paintings was sent to our twin town in Germany to be exhibited. My headmistress was given a drawing I did of my fellow pupils as a leaving present and I knew I wanted to be an artist as I told my careers teacher, not a nurse as she tried to persuade me. On to Art school to do a degree, and even 40 years later an MA in illustration. Now. I’m struggling. But iooking at different methods and skills. I’m not giving up!

Woof

Posted on March 31, 2025 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Dog, Drawing, Fun, Jumping, Life, Moving, pooch, Portrait, Quick, Sketching, Sweet, YoungLeave a comment

Quick sketch of a Husky called Zorro, he was very lively so I had to try and build up a portrait as he moved around and jumped about. He was only young and will grow bigger. His owner had another one but she’s a lot quieter apparently. I’m going to the same venue tomorrow so I might do some more sketching.

Can you see the wire cat?

Posted on March 30, 2025 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Cay, Fine Art, Friend, Life, Model, Ornaments, Sculpture, Windowsill, wire catLeave a comment

It’s a wire cat my friend made, she’s done fairys and birds and squirrels. But now she’s gone onto making cats. I really like this, it’s about 12 inches tall and 9 inches wide. I’ve got it on my windowsill along with a collection of ornaments and a couple of plants (which I keep forgetting to water). I think its well modelled and quite cute. She certainly put a lot of work into it.

Finished planting pocket

Posted on March 26, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black, Blue, Ceramics, Colours, Glaze, Orange, planting pocket, Plants, Pottery, Slip1 Comment

This is the planting pocket I made at BArts pottery project a few weeks ago. It was made with rolled out terracotta clay and coloured with bright slip. I used plants to impress patterns into it’s surface. It looked OK, but the colours intensified during firing. I think they are almost too bright. I hope when it has soil and a plant in it, it will look nicer. X

Sketch time

Posted on March 25, 2025 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, autobiographical, descriptive, Fiction, Learning, Life, Memory, Sketching, Writing2 Comments

Writing group today, I sat and sketched a couple of the group. Most of the stories and poems are autobiographical, I want to be more fictional. The woman writer was very atmospheric, giving a feeling of ‘place’. Using unusual descriptions to evoke childhood and adult memories of being drawn back to the sea. My poem about love was well received. I’ll keep going.

Patterns

Posted on March 21, 2025 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Apps, Art, carpet, Design, Fun, incollage, knees, Photodirector, Playing, SketchingLeave a comment

These are my knees and a very patterned carpet. It’s been put through various style and texture choices in photodirector and also incollage. I like adding and changing textures in these apps, it makes things more interesting.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Art