New paintings and regular art updates.
Oh I love pattern and colour,
I love birds, flowers and trees,
Green men, phoenix, mythical beasts.
Who wants bland and boring?
Who wants pale and wan?
Why not get those colours
Under your skin.
Life is so exciting.
Life can be such fun.
If only we embrace it
Under the sun.
Never give me plain things
Always give me jazz
Living in a coloured land
Magic has begun.
A while ago Penkhull residents association decided to have a competition to create a flag for the village. The pictures surrounding the final flag were the 10 designs that had the most overall influence over the final design. I was really pleased to find out that one of them was my design. (the middle top design).
It feels good to have a flag to describe the village. The oval and lines coming in symbolise the village green and the roads coming into and surrounding it. The cockrel is based on the weather vane on top of the church. The colours are vibrant and cheerful. Local people had a choice of 4 designs taken from dozens of entries. The central flag in the photo was the winning design.
Transitions…….
Once I get an idea….these are photos that I have manipulated in layout and instagram. The spectra were caused by a peice of crystal I have hanging in the window.
The transitions are colours, shapes and facial ones.
I took the images further in each one, so they transition from something normal to something more obscure and unusual.
Use of colour makes them more interesting I think. I’m not the kind of artist that likes to write a long description next to their work to explain it so I will leave it at that.
These are works in progress, a Ginger autumn cat and a Catfish, I’m doing quite flat designs on black canvases. The catfish painting looks better in the second photo but I think the Ginger autumn cat isn’t quite right yet.
Yesterday I bought metallic colours that really glint in the light, I think my problem is photographing them as they are a bit over exposed in places. I may add additional colours as the Orange is not as subtle as I would like.
Talking about cats and painting, keeping my cats from drinking my paint water is a challenge. I will try and remember to empty it tonight!
Anyway these are going into my exhibition / art sale at the weekend, so I had better get on with them.
X
I’ve been doing digital drawings for over 10 years now, here are some from then. I can’t remember what platform I was using, but I think it may have been Sketchfu which is now defunct.
I was a moderator there for several years and it could be quite hard work sometimes. Trying to prevent people upsetting each other, banning trolls, and deleting rude or racist comments. I had to be very diplomatic. I was also moderating another site at the time, so it took up a lot of spare time.
Even so I drew thousands of drawings on both sites. I just can’t help drawing, and I’m very interested in all sorts of art styles.
I would like to find another site to draw at, drawing in apps is OK but you can’t spark off what other people are doing. The camaraderie of drawing with other artists, doing drawing challenges, and drawing to a theme is what I was really interested in.
I downloaded a lot if the drawings and if I can access some of them I will post more here.
For years I have drawn a little cat in a hat, useful if you want to talk to someone and they have a fidgety child. I would ask if they would like me to draw them a cat, and then draw this motif, with a pointy hat, and a name tag on its collar so the child could choose the cats name.
I also like decorating pottery so took the opportunity to do so at Trentham Retail village. This is on the A34 near Trentham village, a couple of miles South of Stoke-on-Trent, near the Stoke South junction of the M6 motorway.
There is a shop there selling pottery called the Potters Barn. They have glazes and blank pottery so you can decorate pots yourself. I know it’s usually for children, but I don’t see why adults can’t do it too.
Anyway I painted two cats, so you will see one or the other depending on which hand you hold the mug in. There are various things to paint so I chose a large mug. It cost me £15, but when you think that’s including the firing of the mug, it’s no too bad.
The final result should be bright and cheerful. I added numerous flowers in the background and dots on the rim. I should get it back I a couple of weeks.
Sometimes I can be a bit soft hearted, soppy, I can’t think of the word to explain it. As I was drawing in Artrage oils this little drawing popped out of the screen do I decided to try and write a poem.
Sorry if its not hard hitting or current …maybe its a bit too like a hymn…
Angel flying so high,
You touch the sky…
Angel give me peace,
Sleep as release..
Angel sing sweet songs of love,
Give us comfort from above,
Angel glowing rainbow bright,
You are such a mystic sight.
Angel share with us your grace ,
Show the beauty of your face.
Angel please do hear my prayer.
Keep me safe and free from fear.
Paint is a wonderful thing, a riot of colours, a rainbow of tones.
Acrylic for ease of colour use, oil paint for staying damp to ease blending. Water colours for transparency and simplicity, Gouache for more opaque colours over watercolour. The types of paint are fascinating. Each has its own method and technique. Even paints such as emulsion and gloss can be used in Art, and of course spray cans are used for graffiti.
From millennia ago humans have made marks, on cave walls, on rocks, papyrus and paper. Canvas and screens. The need to make pictures seems to have been with us almost from the cradle. Children learn to draw at an early age. Scribbling, then with improved hand eye coordination comes drawing, painting, even writing. For what is language, it is an abstract representation of what was once pictograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics show the link between art and language.
Paint and art invade our society. Art and colour are used to design every day objects. Architecture is a form of art. We need artists and painters in our visual society. Art is there in video games, special effects, what colour your clothes or car will be next season. What palette you decide to use to decorate weddings and birthdays. The list is almost endless….
Last year
Last year the garden was lovely, full of flowers. This ceramic head I made 20 years or so ago was full of nasturtiums and lobelia. It sits on the wall by the back door, its glazed in st Nicholas glaze if I remember rightly. Greeny grey in colour. It was hand built with a flat back and I used wet hand towels to support the face while it was drying out ready for firing.
The space inside it is not very big, so plants that can survive drought conditions are best planted in it.
We are getting our hanging baskets this week and I will try and plant some pots up with begonias, pelagoniums, bizzie lizzies and fuschias to cheer the walls around them up.
I would like to do some more pottery heads, maybe green men masks to make the yard more interesting.
Meanwhile in the main garden the trees are getting out of control. We had some work done earlier in the year but the remaining trees and shrubs have gone rampant because they now have more light.
Still if it works and we get more birds like a chaffinch and a couple of robins, plus nesting blue tits who’s chicks have now fledged , I guess I don’t mind too much!
Green is the colour of air and growth, oxygen and life.
Without Green we have no breath. Our lungs are starved of 21 percent.
Photosynthesis brings life, gas, food, and clean water. Blue needs Green to make turquoise pools and seas.
The leaves of trees that clean pollution, algae that feed the oceans. Green is life, on hills and valleys, boughs that leap up to the sky.
Green if lost is death to Earth. Green men, green women, green children, without green we are gone. Without it we cannot exist. Hold green tight and keep it safe. or desert will replace us all.
I think this is a bit jumbled up. I dont know whether to use blank verse. I am a bit out if my depth but I want to try. X
Mallaband-Brown