Egg cups

Posted on April 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Collection, Colourful, Egg cups, Eggs, Fun, Hand decorated, Hand painted, Photo, portmeirion, Smarties, Thatcher7 Comments

I have at least eight egg cups!

More than one a day. I’m particularly pleased with a couple I hand painted. I even have a Margaret Thatcher one, although I didn’t like the woman. And a plastic smarties one (the British firm of m and m’s. There’s one with a hate chasing round the cup and another with thorns and flowers, from a ceramics firm that has sadly closed down.

There’s one from Portmeirion. One that is too big except for duck eggs.

I had a glass hen shaped one, and one like a tigers head, but they may be broken or lost….

Other collections? Paintings, cat ornaments, books, hats….

The oak tree in the kitchen.

Posted on April 30, 2020April 30, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Fun, Gardening, Greens, Kitchen, Oak tree, Plane, Sketching, Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers2 Comments

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The oak tree in the kitchen… Hubby planted an acorn in with a Christmas cactus plant on the kitchen windowsill. The cat in the drawing is a big doorstop that we have put on the window sill.. Must find somewhere to plant the tree before it gets too big…. I have a friend who owns some land in the countryside. When this is all over I’m going to give her this little sapling together with some baby walnut trees.

This was for day 12 of the Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers new challenge. Lots more to go!

Disco ball

Posted on April 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Design, Experiment, Fun, Learning, Photo, Playing, Poem, Poetry, ThoughtLeave a comment

I shone a bright torch on our disco ball (yes I’ve got one) took a photo, then another one with the torch on a lower power. Duplicated the photos, and ended up with a couple of interesting pictures that are quite abstract…..

Playing with shapes and light is fun.

Experimental things teach you

How to make new things.

If you don’t try,

You never learn….

Age

Posted on April 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white drawing, Design, Doodle, Face, Fun, Life, Pen and ink, Sketch2 Comments

I was playing with a similar face to the previous one, and wanted a change of style and mark making. More patterned, lines, dots and dashes. Trying to get a feeling of age. The grey areas were done by wetting a brush and running it over the papers surface. Spreading the black ink gently into the shadows.

Age seemed an appropriate title.

He won’t put books back!

Posted on April 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Annoyed, Bookcases, Books, Fun, Imagination, Life, Short story, untidy, Very short storyLeave a comment

We have bookcases, but the books from them are on the floor, on tables, on footstools, in flurries and drifts. So I asked him. Why won’t you put the books back? I will do, he snapped back. He is the one who puts them there, often opened and left unread.

When I change the bedsheets his side of the bed is six inches deep in books. I have to force my way through a tidal wave of them…

I plot now. I think about what to do. I want one of those camouflaged book cases, where you tilt a book back and a door opens. I would like that.

Open the door, fill it with books, or push him in and throw away the key. Oh don’t get me wrong, food would be delivered three times a day. There would be a laundry chute and a bathroom. A comfy chair and a bed. A secret trap door would be there to pass in things, or hook things out when he’s asleep. He would be happy, I would be able to tidy up….

Life goes on in lockdown. Ideas spring to mind. They are not serious.

Dance

Posted on April 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colours, Contrasting colours, Dance, Dancer, Digital drawing, Exciting, Fun, Learning, Playing, Red and greenLeave a comment

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Green and red can really zing. It depends on the brightness and hue of the colours, here I used the sketcher app on my tablet to create a simple image of a dancer. You don’t have to be exact or realistic to create art….. Just have fun. Something will make you happy or sad, will surprise you. Art us learning, sometimes every day or month. You do art and it can move you. It grabs you and wants you to make more. It is a buzz….

Sleeping cat

Posted on April 27, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat photos, Cute, Friendly, Fun, Happy cat, Photos, Relaxed cat, Sleepy, Sweet, Tummy rubLeave a comment

Then he decides to pose, to shade his eyes with his paw. To look cute, so sweet. Staying still so I can get photos of him. And no claws or biting, just wanting comfort and friendship. Warmth, snuggling, happy.

I know not everyone loves cats. They are seen as aloof and stand-offish. But when they trust you. They can be truly loving.

Squoodling

Posted on April 26, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Desigm, Doodle, Fun, Inks, Pattern, Scribble, Sketch6 Comments

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To coin a word, squoodling, half way between doodling and scribbling….

Well why not, I love pattern. I’m thinking of turning it into a planet, I want to do more to it. I might draw round a pan lid to get the shape.

A task I love

Posted on April 26, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Drawing, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Hanging baskets, Love, Planting, Plants, Sketching, Staffordshire, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent2 Comments

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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent new challenge, a task you love.

I am trying to plant up hanging baskets, but I only have a few plug plants, and a bit of compost to put them in.

Luckily some of my plants overwintered and are regrowing, so I have a few fushia plants, a lobelia, and some trailing plants with pale purple flowers that is in this basket. I’ve put a few begonias in the pot hanging below it.

I put one basket under another to get a tiered effect. Usually these are full of plants, now I’ve done two with tumbler tomatoes which you put in baskets and as they grow they hang down for picking.

Yes these are tasks I love. X

Man-cave

Posted on April 23, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Challenge, Day 5, Drawing, Fun, Humour, Life, Lockdown, Man cave, Mess, Pasting tables, Shed, Sketching, Toy trains, Train, Urban SketchersLeave a comment

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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent day 5, draw inside your shed or garage.

Where do I start. In my case our shed has had all the tools expelled to the outer darkness of our little shed. Instead some rickety pasting tables have been put up. The tops are covered with boxes, lengths of train track, bits of trains, engines, train trucks, stuff…. Plus he’s got different controllers to send power through the tracks. The pasting tables are so warped it’s like the trains are running through hills!

Then he’s got his bike bits, wheels, and a box that the stray cat sleeps in, which is surrounded with bags of straw… I’m allowed in as long as I don’t mess with anything… In the meantime he wants to upgrade things when the lockdown is over. We are going to buy some better tables. Exciting eh?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Fun