New paintings and regular art updates.
It’s hot, I’m tired, I can’t sleep. I got a bit burned in the sun yesterday while I was drawing at Westport lake. These are just quick biro sketches on a Crawford and Black A4 130gsm cartridge paper sketch pad. Excuse the setting I don’t have many bright areas in the house that are shadow free so I ended up propping them up on the gas oven. Ah the joys of photography at 3am! Night all!
An explosion of colour makes me feel joyous, excited, satisfied, sainted with brilliance. I would love to turn this into a tee shirt, a throw for a sofa or a bed. It’s a bit bright for a painting on a wall.
This was a quick drawing in ArtRage oils, then I used a rainbow flood fill in the gaps and then a smudge tool. Finally I used the layout app to duplicate and rotate the drawing.
I know they are only simple tools but you can create some interesting things with them.
I was going to get up early today and going on a community walk along the local canal, but I got up late. I also considered going to an Urban Sketchers event at the Chatterley Whitfield nature reserve. But again I was too late. In the end we went to the Villas which is just down the road. There was an event called art at the Villas. The show was almost at the top of the road on the right hand side. The road is unadopted so go carefully driving up there. We parked at the bottom and walked.
The house we went in and its garden were full of interesting art. There were prints, original tee shirts, paintings, ceramics and a warm welcome. They were also accepting donations for charity. If you feel like visiting its in the Villas up the hill on the right off London Road, Oakhill , Stoke-on-Trent.
Since I was there and had missed other sketching opportunities I did a quick drawing of the garden and summerhouse in the distance.
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Drawn while waiting for a friend, the cake stands are bright pink and full of sugary delights that I avoided. I had strawberries and cream and a fruit smoothie which was made of smooshed frozen berries and very cold! This was a 20 minute drawing so didn’t go for any details. The woman walked along to the till as I was drawing so fitted her in at that end. Since urban sketchers last weekend I’m doing more of this kind of thing.
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Some sketches from our short break. Including two doodles when it was to wet and dark and the TV was on the blink. My hubby reading, a sketch inside the cabin, a drawing of Fountains Abbey in the rain, the view out of the window, and finally trees which I coloured in.
Sketching keeps me occupied and gives me something to do when I want to be artistic.
It doesn’t cost much to draw, you can use a biro and the back of an envelope. You have to try and stay dry but it’s good to get out and about.
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Who knew so many people would get together and draw for three days in mostly very wet conditions. Here are a few more photos of the event on Sunday in Hanley.
Art is important, it is creative, it shows us new things, new ideas, new ways of looking at things. It helps understanding of the complex as well as the simple.
I think it should be compulsory to do some sort of art at school (well I would), but nowadays the core curriculum seems to have shrunk without the breadth of knowledge of the past. In the meantime dumbing down seems to be the norm.
Ah life, so strange. Thank goodness for art.
This weekend was the first time Stoke-on-Trent urban sketchers had hosted the National Urban Sketchers event.
Over Friday, Saturday and today visitors to the city and local sketchers joined up at four venues. Stoke minster and its surroundings, Burslem school of art and places like the wedgewood institute in Burslem. Longport at the waiting room gallery and the cherished chimneys shop, and also the local canal, and finally today we were based up in Hanley looking at the inside and outside of the Potteries museum and art gallery.
There were a lot of attendees. From various parts of the country. I think they enjoyed it despite very wet conditions.
Can’t wait for next year. I don’t know where its planned to be held but I can’t wait to hear.
Just a few, sketched while at the Etruria festival. There was a giant chess board which I drew with a black sharpie, a few people were playing the game, but it seemed mainly young children walking across the board.
I was trying to draw the trees round the back of the museum. The trouble was there were too many leaves. One of the drawings is of the flint mill chimney and part of my husbands head. The other is of a couple sitting and drinking tea. I didn’t want them to know so I kept having to look away when they looked towards me.
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I needed a break today from painting, so I went out with Stoke Urban Sketchers for a couple of hours this afternoon. I’m still a bit in and croaky so I couldn’t manage more than that. Thanks to Danny, Andy (hope I’ve got his name right) and Richard from Winkhill Mill for letting us have access to the building. If you wonder what the machine is I think it’s a dust press for making tiles.
I went to the Mill a few weeks ago to see an exhibition there and I drew one of the tiles, the Fox and the Crow.
Stoke has lots of hidden museums. It’s open on a Friday and I think Saturdays?
This is a portrait of Cyril I did in 2000. I hadn’t seen it since then.
But then we went to an exhibition by Cyril Tilston a few weeks ago at Centre Space in the Spode heritage visitor centre. Cyril had a photography show and we got chatting.
He took one of my cards and then contacted me over the weekend. He had found this drawing. We had met 19 years ago at another exhibition. We had got discussed art and I had invited him to a drawing group we used to hold in a local pub. So I must have drawn him at the group.
So interesting to look at my drawing style then. I think my eyesight was better then, my hand less shaky. The lines I drew stronger than now. But I’m glad I still draw and paint. Maybe I will have the chance of drawing him again.
Mallaband-Brown