Last challenge with USK Stoke-on-Trent

Posted on August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Blogging, Challenge, Drawing, Kitchen, Life, Picture, Sketching, Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers, TiredLeave a comment

It had to happen, after sketching since March this year we have decided to end posting sketches to the Stoke Urban Sketchers page on Facebook .

The thing is that not everyone that joined in is from Stoke or its surroundings. And not everyone wants to draw the challenges, so our pictures may have cluttered up the page a bit. So now we are opening a new page.. It should be up and running in September. If you like sketching and feel like joining pop over to Facebook. I will get the details and post them here.

In the meantime today’s prompt was ‘kitchen’ I decided to sketch part of the kitchen from the living room. I ache too much from my long walk earlier to stand up and draw the full thing!

Rousseau paintings

Posted on August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Challenge, For August, Henri rousseau, Life, Orme Art group, Painting, WatercolourLeave a comment

We had to chose one or more squares to paint frome a Henri Rousseau painting as part of this months challenge from the Orme Art group. I chose these two. I’ve looked for the painting online but all I can see is one of him riding a tiger with what looks like bird of paradise plants instead of fruits? So I don’t actually know what this is called. I did two small watercolours and had to blot them a bit to take off some if the colours that were running into each other. The top left one was particularly difficult to do as I had to try and get the leaves to overlap. Also the colours I had did not exactly match the picture. Each image has a yellow number on it, in a large font…. So it’s a bit difficult to guess the details under the numbers. I hope to see everyone’s finished work this week when they are amalgamated together.

Quiet rest

Posted on August 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Friendship, Life, Rest, Tired, Tired now, Uphill, Walk, Walking2 Comments

Today I walked 4.3 miles, not far, but part of it was up one of the steepest hills in Stoke-on-Trent. I’m trying to get fitter, and lose a few more pounds in the meantime. We stopped off at a local pub in Hartshill and had half of lime and soda water. The beer garden would have been quiet except for the traffic being heavier today than it has been for ages. I tried to talk to my walking partner, but I’m too slow and I’m also trying to keep to social distancing, so I enede up having to shout a bit, then every time I spoke another car came past so I repeated myself a lot. Well I’m not a great walker, but I did OK. My legs were wobbling by the time we got back. Highlights were seeing five or six bees feeding on Japanese Anemone plants. Sadly no photo unless my friend sends me a copy of hers.

We had blue sky this morning…

Posted on August 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Blue sky, Grey, Humour, Life, Overcast, Poem, Poetry, Rain, WeatherLeave a comment

Made me feel happy, seeing sunshine

Seeing blue-sky

Now it’s grey and overcast

Threatening rain

What a pain…

I’m going for a walk

Long or short?

Depends on the weather…

For ducks?

Potteries

Posted on August 28, 2020August 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Ceramics, City centre, Hanley, History, Plates, pots, Potteries, Pottery, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

The ‘Potteries’ is the name people call the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the North Midlands of England.

Built on the coalfields of the area, with an abundance of water and clay, it was an ideal place to start making pottery in factories during the industrial revolution. Bottle kilns, or ovens (so called because of their shape) were built across the six towns of Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Fenton and Longton. The six towns were bought together as a Federation in the early twentieth century and this created the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

The Potteries Museum and art gallery is crammed with beautiful ceramics and is situated in the Cultural Quarter of the city centre which is in Hanley. Also worth a visit are the Gladstone Pottery museum in Longton and Middleport pottery in Middleport (near Burslem). There are many places to visit here. Hopefully they will all be open again soon.

World, wrapped…

Posted on August 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bad dream, Blogging, Earth, Life, Nightmare, Plastic, Poem, Poetry, Sad, Sadness, Smothered, WrappedLeave a comment

World wrapped… Up

In a plastic bag,

Or bubble wrap….

World wrapped in packaging

In yards or meters of soft, slithering, veils.

Plastic permiates

Plastic stifles

Plastic swallowed

Blocking guts

Strangling

Plastic smothers

It won’t go away.

Like an infinite being

Never-ending nightmare.

Permanent

Plastic…..

More plants

Posted on August 28, 2020August 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Blogging, Bulbs, Gardening, Gazenia, Life, Pelagoniums, Planting, Plants, TulipsLeave a comment

Ivy leaf pelagoniums and a gazenia (not sure of spelling). We saw them for sale at a florists in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme today. I decided to get them as the weather is changing and I want to extend the flowering season in the garden. We also got some cyclamen including normal ones, and some called petticoat cyclamen which are more splayed out than the original type. I picked up a red sedum too.

It’s heading towards autumn now. I noted a tinge of broken or red on some of the trees as we were driving over to Wolstanton. It will be here soon. The nights are drawing in too.

When we got home I popped to the shops. While I was there I was tempted and grabbed a box of mixed tulip bulbs, and another one of various small flower bulbs. Gardening is a wonderful occupation. Try it if you can.

Window

Posted on August 27, 2020August 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Flower spike, Flowers, Gardening, Indoor plants, Orchids, Photo, Plant, Re-pottingLeave a comment

Orchid view. Through the window hubby is fixing the tricycle. The ariel roots from the orchids are spreading out far and wide. Some of the flowers on the large orchid are dropping, but they have been there for months. I’m hoping that is sends out another flower spike soon.

I might try repotting it carefully this time. I repotted another one and I think I over filled it with orchid compost. I think you have to leave the ariel roots some free space.

How big is Earth

Posted on August 27, 2020August 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Anthropocene, Blogging, Circumference, Diameter, Earth, Ecosystem, How big?, Life, Size, Space, Third planet, World4 Comments

How big is Earth’s diameter? Just under 8,000 miles. How big is its circumference? Just under 25,000 miles. That’s not very big really. There are statistics saying how many Earth’s fit into Jupiter, the biggest planet in the Solar System, or even how many Earth’s would fit into the size of the Sun.

What I’m trying to say is, this is the third planet from the Sun, in the habitable region of the system (not too hot or too cold) and we need to look after it. We are using up its resources at an alarming rate, polluting our home world with plastics and toxic waste, killing off the insects including bees with insecticides and heating it up till the North and South polar icecaps are severely effected and melting rapidly. Why are we doing this? Are we, like Covid19, like a virus, impacting on our host, the Earth.

Discuss…….

Drew the box…

Posted on August 27, 2020August 27, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, 6b pencil, A6 drawing pad, Art, Blogging, Challenge, Drawing, Pencil sketch, Sketch, Sketching, Urban Sketchers Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

Today’s #uskstoke challenge was to draw something to do with restrictions. The box is being posted up to Lancashire with a bike frame as we can’t deliver it directly to hubbies brother. So I think this counts? Pencil sketch, 6b, on an A6 cartridge pad. Tried to do the writing on the box as neatly as I could. X

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Blogging