New paintings and regular art updates.
My friends at #uskstoke know my love of pattern so today’s prompt was for me! It took me a while because its been busy. I drew my cat in front of the sofa which has a bright throw over it. I didn’t get the pattern perfect and I had to rely on a quick photo to catch the cats face. Anyway I enjoyed doing this.
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Colour is my friend,
It holds my hand
Shines from my eyes
Visits my dreams.
Colours tickle my taste buds,
Get up my nose,
Flirts with my senses.
Colours touch my heart,
Play with my mind,
Cures my blues.
Colours are in me
Around me
Through me.
Are me!
Looking great now they have been well watered. The hot weather is really hard on them. If you look at them they wilt. But it’s worth the effort. Lots of colour and different plants. There are lobelia, petunias, begonias, pelargonium and other flowers in them.
It’s spectacular at this time of year.
Back yard colours. The Usk Stoke-on-Trent challenge today was ‘hanging’ so I got my new permanent markers out. I tried not to do any black outlines to make the colours jump more!
The picture includes our hanging baskets and a dream catcher that hangs in our back living room window. There is a little glass angel hanging in the dream catcher. When I asked my hubby what he thought he said it was a bit amateurish!
The only problem with permanent markers is that they dry up quickly. You can be half way through shading something and they run out. More in a couple of days.
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When I think about my vision I am so happy that I can see with the full spectrum of visible light (colour) . I know different animals can only see certain colours, sometimes just black and white and but others like snakes and insects can even see into the infra red and ultra violet.
Then there is colour blindness, where some cells in a person’s eye are not properly developed or can be missing. Then they have colours missing from their vision. For instance red green colour blindness. Apparently males suffer from this more than females. As I say I feel lucky to have good colour vision. X
The yard is now so full of flowers you have to walk sideways down it to see all the plants and water them. There is a great variation in leaf size. I noticed my hubby has snuck in a couple of oOak trees and an Ash tree. I keep telling him we don’t need anymore. I have a friend with a large field. She has offered to take our walnut saplings and I think she will take these as well.
As the season continues more mad things appear! Hubby has put irises in hanging baskets and sunflowers to bring more colour into the yard. Morning glory seedlings will go out this week if the weather picks up a bit. Some of them have started to throw out tendrils that are clinging to the ferns in the bathroom.
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A few weeks ago, we had so many plants in the boot of the car we had to fit a hanging basket on the back seat. They are all doing well but it’s rained so much since that I haven’t been able to set them up as I would like. I also pulled a shoulder muscle picking them up so I can’t lift my left arm up above my head. It’s frustrating me. It meant my hubby had to reach up to pick the cherry crop while I pulled the branches down. I’m hoping we get some breaks in the weather. Then I can get the stepladders out. Even if I don’t climb them, I can direct where they should go.
The baskets are beautiful, I was told about a farm a few years ago that do baskets for half the price of garden centres. You order in advance and they make up whatever size you want. I chose colourful plants. Sometimes they last into the winter. I even have fushia plants that have over wintered in the yard and are growing again now. And are in full flower! I think our small back yard must have its own microclimate. I have courgette flowers growing there at the moment.
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Home made coleslaw (cabbage, carrot, red onion) with reduced calorie mayonnaise. A small piece of brown seeded bread with a bit of pate, a couple of chopped up tomatoes, half an avocado pear and some de-stoned red cherries. Also a few cheese and onion potato crisps. On a Portmeirion plate. Why? Because I liked the colours mainly. I watched a programme about still life last night and the interest that images of food created was fascinating. At one stage still life was seen as the lowest form of art, but the innovations of artists gradually made it more accessible and acceptable. Artists like Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso bought new definitions of what still life meant. Art is fascinating. It’s funny the ideas you can get by staring at a plate of food. X
Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge today, Light. I had got some new permanent markers so decided to do something colourful. I did use a fine liner pen and a 6b pencil. Also used an almost dried up pale blue felt pen to add some shading to the window frame. The standard lamp has a lampshade covered in sequins. (speckles on the drawing). There will be another challenge in a couple of days. I wonder what it will be….
What to do with our art group? The other one I’m part of is doing a Cezanne project based on a still life. Each of us chooses a square (1 of 9) So I wondered if we could do the same in the other group? But we have decided to do hexagons and include our own ideas inside them. I’m looking forward to what people create. Then I will have to stitch them together, maybe in photoshop.
Doing art in lockdown has ket my mind on track. Being in groups of artists challenges me to do different things. It helps my practice, and helps me learn.
Mallaband-Brown