New paintings and regular art updates.
Acrylic on canvas
I keep finding old photos of paintings that I have done over the years. This was called tree spirits and went to a lovely couple who had fallen in love with it. Those that follow my blog know I love pattern and shapes. My favourite shape is the spiral. I don’t know why… But curving round and twisting, leaves shading the faces. I want to do more like this.
X
This the mural I painted at the Leopard of Clarice Cliffs Umbrella design. It is one of several murals I did. They were painted directly onto the walls, but as the original room had several large squares and oblong of flock wallpaper surrounded by wooden framing, the owners stripped the flock paper and covered the patches with lining paper. I then painted on that. For some reason people think the pictures are painted on canvas. They will get a shock if they try and take them down. They would have to remove a layer of plaster probably too…!
I was rummaging around the front bedroom where I’m doing my college work and found a sketchbook that I did when was on my foundation art course.
These are etchings, created on metal plates by painting areas with a varnish and then putting the plates in an acid bath to etch away the surface. Then to get more detail you can cover more of the plate with varnish or a wax resist. Acid bath again, rinsing it off before adding more wax or varnish. You can also use something called aquatint which gives you an interesting background. I’m remembering this from over 40 years ago. So I might not have it right. Eventually you ink up the plates and place them onto paper which you then put in a press and squash them together. These are the result.
This is from a few years ago. I think it was just someone in a cafe or a pub. I don’t remember asking permission to draw him. But this is about twenty years old, so there is no reason why I would. What I like to do is draw carefully. I don’t pick my pencil up to measure, but I do look carefully. I try and get the proportions right. I look at the length of the nose, the width of the lips. The length of the hair and the shape of the person’s face. Portrait drawing and painting can be nerve wracking. But I enjoy doing it. I’m addicted to art.
X
Take a pencil a pen or a paintbrush
Make a mark
See what happens
Feel joy and wonder
Learn your skills
Slowly, patiently,
Or fast
Reach for your imagination.
Be creative.
Create!
I ordered three books through a well known delivery system and they have all arrived safely. Now I have to read them. They are about designers, creatives and illustrators. There is a look into unpublished sketchbooks, an introduction to semiotics and another one about illustration. (OK so I forgot what the third one I ordered was and the text is to small to read off this photo). I shall be reading them tomorrow.
This is the cat statue I showed on this page yesterday, in situ in the garden. I’m afraid the plants have dried out a bit and wilted in this heat. I might put some new pots in front of the cat.
I think the lilies are being munched by lily beetles. They are big and bright red. They don’t have spots like ladybirds. I’m hoping they don’t do to much damage. You are supposed to squash them but I can’t do that.
Anyway, thanks to my friend again for making Esher cat. He is a real friendly face in the garden.
This is the cat sculpture my friend from Sculpted Steel made for me from a sketch I drew. It’s lovely and she just shared her photo for international cat day. It cost quite a bit but it was worth every penny. It now lives in my garden with plants growing through and round it. I am very grateful to my friend for creating it for me. She is a brilliant blacksmith.
X
Todays Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge was ‘metallic.
I decided to draw our zinc watering can that hubby has kindly left in the middle of the living room floor after watering the plants infant of our house.
I decided to draw in my Artrage app as I don’t use it often enough. Its the pro version so you have lots of tools, including pastel, pen, brush, a roller, and lots more. It took a while to get used to it. Because it has metallic colours it meant I could get some interesting effects on the can, and there are also settings so i gave the background surface a canvas look.
Sometimes when you ‘tidy things up’ with photo editors, you lose some of the character of your art work. Yes it may look more interesting in one way but you can lose colours or small details that you might have struggled to get into the image in the first place. I guess it’s a matter of choice. The first photo here has been enhanced slightly with filters in Instagram. That’s because the drawing I did originally is about twenty years old and hangs on our stairs. The inks I used to draw it have faded so i had to try and restore it slightly back to how it was. The second is another one that I’ve adjusted in Photodirector.
It’s down to personal opinion if you like them or not?
X
Mallaband-Brown