New paintings and regular art updates.
Strange lunch, orange flavoured Hot Cross buns with chocolate chips. We were having a big meal for our dinner and we had a big breakfast so I just wanted a simple, small meal to eat. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Sunday Lunch so I did a quick sketch of these. They were tasty, but I think I prefer the original flavour. Less sweet and with Cinnamon. Also its very early in the year for Hot Cross buns. X
How do I draw from imagination? I talk and think my way through things, by describing how they should look in my mind or verbally helps to make me think more about details of the image I’m drawing.
For example, this drawing was based on a memory of my walks in a local park as a child. There were trees that seemed to have faced in them. They were probably Ash trees, they seemed to have long spidery branches with tipped up ends like fingers. The path wandered around past stone walls that I used to balance on. Behind me was a play area with a slide, swings and a roundabout and seesaw. This is a memory drawing so it isn’t exactly accurate and things have probably changed a lot. I haven’t been back for years. But the face in the tree gives me a bit of a feeling of nervousness I used to get as a child.
She sits and stares
The tabby cat
Contemplating your face
Will you open the treats
Will you give her some biscuits
Can she have a fish?
What will you put in her dish?
Staring, hypnotic, unblinking,
This tabby cat knows what she wants!
My hubby was brought up on farms and remembers the byres and barns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His childhood was spent between going to school and working on farms in the summer holidays. When he was old enough he would even drive tractors. His father was a farm labourer and went from farm to farm following the seasonal work. Sometimes hubby fed cattle, other times he helped plough or harvest crops. They even raised day old chick’s in the attic of their house.
It sounds like a hard life, but an interesting one. He did this drawing of a tractor a few years ago. There are ducks, lambs and yes that’s meant to be a cow. X
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was lick. Tried to get a photo of my cat but it took a while in the end I dabbed a bit of cream off the milk on his nose. I think he quite liked it! I used dark blue felt pen and pale metallic green because all my pens are running out. I still have some maroon colour left. A bit of tippex for the whiskers. Plus a very dried up black felt pen and a black liner pen, also running out. And the photo was a bit blurred. I’m tired.
They ask
‘what’s on the easle?’.
I say
‘a lot of stuff’
Tissues and a coffee cup
And other sorts of muck
A drawing of a dragon
A pallette and a brush
A green painted canvas
If you really want to look….
I ought to be painting
But there’s been a delay
My minds gone off the boil now
It’s not coming out to play…
One day I’ll get my mojo back
I’ll start to paint again
But till that day my easle
Is a place to rest my brain!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was fluid. I tried to draw a beach scene from above. I used an image off the Internet to give me an idea. I watched an animated film called ‘love Vincent’ about the life of Vincent Van Gogh last night so I’ve also done this with texture. (see second photo).
I tried drawing a sort of Mediaeval image of how I imagined a dragon would look in an old book or manuscript. This was more to try and evoke the style than to copy a real drawing. I tried to think how I would draw a dragon if I was a monk adding illustrations or illuminations to an old bible or bestiary. I should probably have looked at images of George and the Dragon. But I wanted to draw a sinuous curve. I could also have mirrored the image so it would look like the letter S… I might try that. Anyway I’m not well so drawing is occupying my mind and distracting me. X
A dragon 🐲 in the Chinese style. Head and tail are large. The body thin and snake or worm like with a sinuous shape. Four legs, clawed feet. Apparently Imperial dragons had five claws and normal dragons had four.
I once made a dragon bowl in pottery class. I’d made the bowl in a mold and I carved a dragon like this inside. I gave it five claws and toes on each foot and it was carved to show the scales. I had it biscuit fired and it survived the heat. No cracks or blemishes. Then I glazed it. I can’t remember what colours, but I looked forward to seeing the result after the Christmas break (about thirty years ago). Unfortunately when we came back it was missing! The consensus was it must have been stolen! Soon after that I left the pottery class because I was so disappointed.
Drawn from my imagination. Half a dragons head drawn in tippex correction fluid on black cartridge paper. Mirrored in a photo edit, then stitched together as a whole head. My first Dragon of 2022. I’m just wondering when the Chinese year of the dragon is. Their images are amazing. I need to find out about their history x
Mallaband-Brown