After twenty four hours and over 13000 votes Penkhull’s flag finally won out over Tiree in Scotland by 51.5% to 48.5%. So very very close. I couldn’t resist going on twitter every few minutes to check what was happening, through most of the night! It’s silly but I’m very proud of our little village in the city.
The flag institute who ran the poll was amazed at the number of votes that were cast. The lead swapped backwards and forwards between us and Tiree. A wonderful feeling to have actually won!
I live in Stoke-on-Trent and the village at the top of our hill is called Penkhull. It was mentioned in the Domesday book and was a Royal Manor from 1086 to the time of Edward the Second. It is a village in a city and people like it so much that they had a competition to design a flag.
The flag has a golden Cockerel symbolising the weather vane on top of the church steeple. It stands on a blue ground which is for the blue of Spode, the old pottery firm in nearby Stoke-upon-Trent that manufactured ceramic products including the willow pattern pots that became synonymous with the factory.
The yellow oval and lines radiating out are for the road around the village green and the four roads each leading downhill from the village.
The green is to show that is a green place in the middle of a city. The whole design was approved by vexillologists (no I didn’t know that word before the competition) from a charity called the flag institute.
So why am I up? Penkhull is taking part in a competition being run by @theflaginstitute on Twitter. It is in the #WorldSeriesOfFlags and is up against the golden rays of barley from #tiree in Scotland. This is the final. I have not been able to sleep since I saw that Tiree had got ahead of us in the final they are on about 51.8% and we are on 48.2%? Something like that. Its very even between the two places.
Don’t know if I can get back to sleep…. The vote on Twitter ends at 11am. I think I’m in for a long night.
Fushias in the garden, like little ballerinas, skirts whirling, pale pink over dark pink petals. Stamens hanging down, like little legs pirouetting in a dance on thin air…
The colours thrill. Pinks, browns greens and purples. The background blurs into fluid texture, waiting for your quiet death as cool ice freezes you in withered majesty.
Playing with ArtRage oils, another app I like to use. I haven’t drawn with it for a while. It’s a free app on android (you can get the ro version with lots of other tools for a price). I like the fact that you can turn up the metallic effects from zero to 100%. There are four brush types. A dry brush and everlasting oils are two of the options. You can also change the size of the brush tools. Maybe it can be a bit fiddly to work with but it’s interesting to use and has a different look to most of the other drawing aps out there.
If you know of other apps, let me know. I want to find other options for drawing.
I mmust have been feeling cheerful when I did these paintings plus a batik picture of some fish. The first bottle oven painting is an attempt to do a clarice cliff design. If I did it now I would make the building more curved. The batik is sort of a Pices idea. The dragonfly was an interesting compositon and the half bottle oven is meant to be mirrored by blue sky or water in a canal. It is slightly remenicent of a yin yang symbol. The exhibition was held at the warehouse at Etruria industrial museum at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent three years ago. At the moment we cannot use the building because of covid19.
I played with this photo as the Huchera leaves look like copper sheets. The little sprigs of green in the centre look like tiny green people. I would really like a macro lens so I could take some very close shots of animals including insects, and also plants, together with things like lichen. Whatever I do, I find I want to do more. I deliberately take off centre pictures to make interesting compositions. I like trying to make patterns out of trees and clouds too…..
and why not…? If you’ve got a dragon, why not go all unicorn… I tend to draw dragon heads a bit like horses heads. Unlike the dragon in ‘how to train your dragon’ where toothless the dragon reminds me of a black cat.. I digress. The app I used to create this is called something like free sketch? The trouble is I use so many of them that I don’t always remember which one I’ve used!
On this sketch I tried using a fountain pen, but for some reason it won’t make marks? This is why I say experimenting is so important. Learning how to use a tool in an app so that you can understand what it does.
Bone China tea set my friend is getting rid of. I’m going to try and find someone who wants it. I think another friend will have it.
Bone China was manufactured by potters who wanted to find a substitute for porcelain that came from China. It took several years to find a formula that produced thin, strong, translucent pots. It contained clay from the China clay quarries in Cornwall, calcined bone and flint (heated and ground to break them down into a fine powder). The bone gives off phosphorus which adds to the strength of the bone china. You end up with a material half way between pottery and glass. This fine white china was then beautifully decorated with hand painted flowers, fruit and landscapes.
I’m sure there is far more to say on this subject. But that’s enough for now.
Fish drawing in permanent inks. Patterns in the water, scale patterns on the fish. I left the edges blank but I think it might look better if I add more or crop the image closer in. I do know I have a style of drawing. When you move your hands it follows a certain pattern, I sometimes try and fight the way I do things, but if I imagine something it usually comes out similar each time. Faces generally look left, three quarter faces look towards the right. Horses heads look left. I think it’s because I’m right handed? Maybe it is because I draw left to right, the same as writing?
Mallaband-Brown 