Slightly late for Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt sour. My sour is really gentle, crab apples. You can add lots of sugar to calm them down and make crab apple jelly. Felt pen drawing, tried to make it a bit impressionistic.
Sour
Tag: Drawing
Waiting for coffee
Hubby yesterday, we had gone over to Middleport pottery so I could draw with the Stoke on Trent Urban Sketchers group. We decided to grab a cup of coffee but the cafe was very crowded and I’ve just got over a cold and didn’t want to catch another or worse. I decided to sit at one of the big round tables outside and so took the opportunity to draw my hubby and the canal and view behind him. The pointy thing about a third of the way in on the right is a church steeple but my ink brush wasn’t thin enough to get a point on it! Anyway I was pleased with the results.
Middleport pottery urban sketch
The felt pens came out today for a drawing of the chimney at Middleport pottery. Stoke-on-Trent Urban Sketchers were out at various places around the factory grounds and across the other side of the Trent and Mersey canal.
It was a warm morning, and there were some brief glimpses of blue sky through the bold grey clouds. I could have drawn Middleports iconic bottle oven, but I wanted to sit down on a bench so I drew the chimney and the roofs instead.
I liked using layers of felt pen, I started with a pale blue pen to outline the buildings but then used black to indicate bricks and worked dark to light, with horizontal and little vertical lines to indicate the brickwork. I even used some silver pan for the sky because my grey pan has dried up. A lovely couple of hours spent in good company.
Happy St Patrick’s day
Here’s a little green abstract to wish you a happy St Patrick’s day.
I once found a four leaf 🍀clover, so it feels like a lucky day. St Patrick was supposed to have cast all the snakes out of Ireland 🇮🇪 and to this day there are non there. I guess it could be that Ireland is an Island?
St Patrick’s day is celebrated in Ireland and in the USA where they have been known to colour rivers green. Its not unusual to have parades of marching bands and floats. The predominant colour is green, even green coloured drinks! The symbol is an Irish man with red hair and a beard wearing green clothes and sporting a shamrock ☘ (which I think is similar to clover, but a perennial plant). Much fun and hilarity is enjoyed by the population on St Patrick’s day.
We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s day as much in most of the UK, I think because Ireland is a mainly Catholic country and mark saints days more than we do.
The green abstract was drawn with felt pens then filtered through photodirector to add texture, and an app called layout to add symmetry.
Drawing and painting
What activities do you lose yourself in?
I have always drawn and painted. Hours can disappear and I don’t notice them. I think that’s called ‘flow’, I’m immersed in it. Even now when my left arm shakes I can’t stop. I end up with shake lines or I have to put things on an easle to stop it. I now have golfers elbow in the same arm and gout and trigger finger in my right hand. But I keep being creative. I really think its my reason for living. When I stop drawing that will be the end of me. Even if I can’t hold a pen or paintbrush I can doodle on my phone and finger paint as in the digital drawing above.
A few years ago I was in hospital. I made my hubby bring me a sketchpad and pencils, I think that was proof I was getting better!
Clown puppet
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was puppet. Clown puppet idea. I didn’t want to copy another photo so I made my own design. I know clowns paint their faces on eggs to register their pattern, no doubt this is someone’s design?
Mushrooms
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was mushrooms. I drew Shaggy ink caps. Very recognisable. They look like drumsticks as they grow, the cap is tall rather than flat like a parasol. They have scales and they turn black at the base which gradually moves up the cap and makes them seem to melt back into the ground.
Fairy Wren
PNCO posted about the Australian Fairy Wren a few days ago and I decided to use the photo they posted as the subject for Sundays prompt pretty. I finally got round to doing this today. Sunday seems a long time ago. Still got to catch up on Tuesdays and today’s prompts. Felt pen drawing.
Six months…
Six months since I lost you
Six months of sorrow
I don’t remember every day
But milestones on the way
Remind me of a voice lost
A physical presence gone.
When I feel down the loss is greater
I dispare that your life is over.
I still pray for you at night
And I wish with all my might
That you were still here
Even if you were not near
Sister, twin, friend
My love to you
I send.
An art and book shop
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
Down to the Arts and Book shop. I’d buy lots of acrylic paints, some watercolours, gouache, oil paints, felt pens, pastels, charcoal, conte crayons, pencils. Then I’d get canvases, large and small in white and black. Cartridge paper, watercolour paper, sketch pads. Glitter, metallic paper, ink, lino to cut for printing.
Science and technology books, sci-fi books, novels, biographies, autobiographical books, historic books, books about galleries, about the renaissance, about astronomy.
Then I would donate half of it to a local school or college, because I would not have space for it all, or time to use it.
Mallaband-Brown 