Memory of a trip to the Southwest of England. We stopped off at a lovely sea cove, and on the cliffs above it there were bright red poppies. These were so cheering, waving in the breeze along with rough stalks of grass. I need to paint a picture of a poppy field, this might be an inspiration to work from.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was night. I decided to draw a moon in the sky at night, but because I don’t have any black felt pens that work (dried up), it became a crepuscular moon, emerging from the darkening gloom of early night.
During lock down last year, members of the Orme Art Group collaborated in recreating this Cezanne still life. We took a square each and copied what we saw in whatever medium we liked. Some of the images were smaller or larger than others so when the picture was put together not everything lined up. Also the colours vary because each artist was working to their own image colour settings. I think the resulting collage is rather good. We did several separate challenges like this over covid.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was town. Well, as I haven’t been out much I decided to imagine a town scape. It’s on a river and is hilly, so the main buildings are on a high street backing on to the river and the smaller buildings and houses are on the sides of the tree lined hills. Fine line pen with felt pen drawing over the top.
WordPress keeps telling me my phone is full. I know! I keep trying to delete photos but it’s almost impossible. There are thousands of them. There’s lots of other things, I am not sure of half of what’s on here….
So I think I will have to buy more memory. Its funny how real memories are subsumed into a digital memory. If you don’t have a photo of it, it didn’t happen? Case in point, the recent death and funeral of the Queen. People have always recorded their lives throughout the ages, for example look at cave paintings. Then art throughout the ages, paintings for people who could pay, or sketches by people who had the means or ability to draw or paint. Then deguerreotypes (not sure of the spelling) became popular, painted portraits turned into slow motion photos that took time to take and heads had to be clamped in place to get a clear image. Box brownies, single lens reflex, eventually digital cameras, then phones which took a few photos. Now, the mobile phone is a hand held computer… But it still gets full.
The human mind can hold more information, but it’s not stored in a logical order. Links from the past suddenly reach out and grab your attention. Clearing a human brain of memory is not a good thing, and unless it happens through illness, age or injury, causing degradation of the brain structure, it is to be hoped that people can build memories (good or bad?), not lose them.
On Saturday 24th September 2022, Art and Minds, a new gallery at unit 3 Harper Street, Middleport, will be opening to the public. It is also going to offer support to service men and women.
I was pleased to be offered some wall space there and have five small paintings that will be on display there including paintings of poppies (for remembrance) and two relating to industrial archaeology.
The gallery is in amongst a group of shop units and the Harper Street entrance is directly opposite the entrance of the Middleport pottery in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. If you are visiting there why not pop across the road and come and look at the new shops there. X
Taking my mind off things. I drew a series of spirals then filled them in with different colours usin metallic and non metallic felt pens. Using the colours in sector’s around the spirals in contrasting colours. It took me an hour, and gave me some relief to how I’m feeling.
#bandofsketchers prompt today is Private, with feelings of sadness. I want to just hide myself away, but there is a chink of light as I peep through the curtains. I will gradually try and get out again, but for now, I want the curtains closed.
#bandofsketchers prompt on Sunday Capital. But it was not a good day, and I don’t think the next days will be good either. But I decided to draw capital letters instead of choosing London or New York or something similar. I just wanted to use art to take my mind off things. X