New paintings and regular art updates.
Saw this bright and breezy tablecloth in a cafe today. I don’t know who designed it so apologies for using it. I really like sign writing and shaded letters so this appealed to me. It’s neat and tidy and eye poppingly colourful, with primary yellows and orangey reds. The dark and light blues add contrast, and the whites tie it all together. Is this surface pattern or graphics, or a mixture of both.
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Illustration by me. I keep forgetting to say that the illustrations in this blog are generally mine. If I use anything else it is free webart, but that doesn’t happen very often.
This drawing looks back at the old year and forward to the future. It’s done in a sketcher app I downloaded off the Internet. One face is lined. Cracks are appearing in her face. Full of colour and interest. Of memories and thoughts. Of worry and relief. The other is young and pale. The flowers of spring surround her. She is looking out to the future but without expression. The old face knows what has happened, the new does not know what to expect yet.
The world turns….
My hand painted jug. I chose to paint it with a tortoise shell cat (black white and ginger). With added daisy type flowers. I gave it as a Christmas gift last year. I like keeping my hand in by decorating pottery. I don’t get the chance to do this very often. It came up on my Facebook memories page. I think I did it on a visit to the Emma Bridgewater factory in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.
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I can’t remember how I did this. 
It’s a few years old and I’ve used various drawing apps, so I can’t remember exactly what I used to get these effects. Does it matter? I guess if I want to replicate it. I feel my brain fizzing as I look at it, what was I thinking when I drew it? Some thoughts about illustration, about science, come to mind. I like it!
Zing, pow, wow, words
Colour, fields, world
Splashing, crashing, dashing
Down new ways and old.
Bold, hidden, subtle, explosions.
Harsh or soft.
Voom va voo.
Give me 54321…..
Lift off!
Colour or color
don’t care how you spell it..
Just share it!
I had already hollowed this head out a bit but I was able to carve out more today. I came across several bubbles so at least it’s less likely to explode if it does get fired. The grey pile is the scraped out clay. X
cheered myself up with this digital doodle, ArtRage oils app followed by work in a sketcher app. The ArtRage one allows you to smear colour across the image, then using a drawing tool in the sketcher to draw lines over it and then a glitter pen to give it a bit of sparkle….
Photo from the Gladstone pottery museum which we visited earlier in the year. The fashion these days is for white ceramic sinks and toilets, but look at the colours that used to be made. There is a rainbow of colours on the shelf above the full sized examples. Style changes as times change. Perhaps the world will go back to bright colours, humans are strange creatures!
Found a digital drawing I did in 2016 on my Facebook memories. This was drawn on ArtRage free app. Black cats are not that popular, robably because of the myth that they are witches familiars. I just like how they look, like mini panthers or jaguars.
Black cats are proud creatures, mainly short-haired although I have seen long-haired ones. They can cause some allergies because their dandruff seems to trigger things. But I don’t think that’s a problem.
Black cats crossing your path are considered good luck in Britain, but unlucky in the USA. It’s funny how things can be so opposite in these countries. As they say America and Britain are two countries seperated by the same language. Anyway I still like black cats.
Two paintings I did for a leaflet a couple of years ago. The first was of Middleport pottery, a split image of two areas of the pottery, done to fit the images onto the page. The second, a view of the Trent and Mersey canal showing a lock that barges travel through where the water level changes. Opening the gates allows water to flow through and boats to go up and down the canal.
Acrylic paint on watercolour paper. Used by the canal and river trust on their leaflet.
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Mallaband-Brown