New paintings and regular art updates.
Just played with some photos of a single maple or sycamore leaf. I added some lines and patterns and ended up with three different green man ideas. Maybe one day I will turn these into cards? I enjoy tweaking things and making something different.
I went to a Batik workshop about three years ago when I first got my studio at Spode. I’d never done it before, but basically we used hot liquid wax as a resist to dyes. When you paint coloured dyes over the pattern you make, the colours are not absorbed into the cloth or canvas where the wax had been painted. Then you have to het a hot iron and paper and iron the wax out with the paper between the cloth and the iron so the wax gets absorbed into the paper. There is probably a clearer way of explaining, but as I say I only went to one workshop. My friend made this heavy frame for the yin yang cats. There is glass in it to protect the fabric. I was rather pleased with the result.
This is a thing now. I had a sketchy picture of my hubby done on black paper. I’d used pastels to do the drawing back in September, but after playing with nail varnish to draw a landscape view, I decided to use them on the drawing. It certainly had an interesting effect. It’s shiny and the colours change depending on where the light bounces off. I finished it off with adding a few lines with a silver marker pen. It reminds me of oil on water.
Sprig moulded jug? Longport
Hmm, still thinking about painting this. I like the colours and the ellipses. It looks good against the dark green background. The pattern on the plate has colours matching in with the jug and the wall. If I paint it I think I will enlarge the jug slightly, it’s a little small for the composition.
I ddo like creating patterns, so I used the drawing I did earlier to create something different. Bits of it remind me of Tiffany glass or stained glass pieces. If you rotate and twist the images you get something new each time… I will be using up the rest of my nail varnishes to create new images.
The BCB, British Ceramic Biannual, was on in the Spode China Halls last year. Fine China and art pottery cheek by jowl. I do hope it happens again next year. Bringing art into Stoke-upon-Trent and the rest of the city of Stoke-on-Trent and spreading creativity that sadly seems to have been forgotten by government during this pandemic.
Art has just as much a right as any other industry to continue in this world. Creativity and the power of the mind are linked. Science can go hand in hand with art. What we need to do is try and support everyone, not be selective towards the richest and devil take the hind most.
X
I don’t know much about bricks, except that they are fired clay. But I do like to see them when they are used decoratively. The way they are laid is called the ‘bond’ where it depends whether they are laid horizontally across the surface of the wall, or with the short end showing on the face of the wall and the length turned 90° so that the brick is across into the layer behind or allows the wall to turn the corner at the edge of the building.
As you can see from this photo, different coloured bricks are often used to make patterns and shapes in the brickwork or are used to frame tiled areas of text stating when the building was built.
I also know that brick sizes changed over time. That they were smaller in the past and hand made. Then molds were made and the brick sizes became standardised. I don’t know all the history of that sorry.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ceramic. This is my brown ‘Bessie’ or ‘Betty’ tea pot and a couple of mugs of tea. One of which has the Penkhull Flag on it.
The shadow at the bottom was from my head as I stood and drew in the sunny kitchen. It was just going to be ink and pencil, then I thought why not add colour? It’s a sketch rather than a neat drawing. Hope you like.
Seeing the garden in October, looking at the flowers, seeing the leaf shapes. Enjoyment, colours, shapes. Pattern, design, life, waiting for them to wilt, fade, droop. Waiting for their end of days. Taking photos, keeping a record, remembering beauty. Time to grow, time to leave. Time to fall, time to die. Wind chimes and wind sculptures, wild and colourful. Hanging in baskets, pots and fences. Cram packed with joy.
I can see all sorts of things in this, birds, and noses and smiles. Star jumps, an out of focus leaf… Twins with hair in ribbons, giggling at me. Sunglasses. The human mind is strange. Picks up patterns and interprets them into odd things. Life huh?
Mallaband-Brown