New paintings and regular art updates.
When we were out yesterday we saw this lovely horse in a field. There wasn’t much grass so we pulled some up from our side of the fence and the horse came over and tugged it out of my hand… It soon wandered off in search of some more. I think the colour was Bay, its coat was very shiny and well groomed. It was good to see a different living creature. We usually only see cats, dogs and people.
If we go back we might take an apple, although I’m not sure if you can get in trouble for feeding it?
This was one of the portraits I did in a student led portrait group at college during the last few months.
The face was mostly drawn with one of those ink rollers you can use to blank out your address on letters so that you can throw them away without anyone seeing your details and stealing your data. Its quite hard to use because you have to sort of turn and twist your hand and press firmly to sketch curves. AfterId done that I added colour using pastels and the thick black lines were done with black calligraphy pen (most of these have run out so I need some more).
I quite like the strong feel to this. I am trying to find my illustrational voice. I have been told to look for illustrators that my work resembles, but I think mine is different? Is this a good or bad thing? I’m definitley developing my analogue skills. Digital work is more difficult for me.
This trees flowers make Chesnuts when they are fertilised and mature.
Chestnuts are big brown nuts or seeds. They have hard shells and children gather them up in the autumn to play the game Conkers.
The local children throw sticks up into the tree to knock the chestnuts down. Then they make holes through them and thread them onto string tying a knot at the bottom so the Chestnut (or Conker) doesn’t fall off.
They take turns to swing one conker against the other until one of them cracks and breaks up. There are various tricks to try and make the chestnuts harder, like for instance soaking them in vinegar.
The more conkers a child hits and breaks, the more important the child’s conker is. If it’s only broken one it’s a ‘oner’ a six would be a ‘sixer’ the winner is the person whose conker does not disintegrate and beats all the other ones.
Probably not a game played much these days. But I remember playing it until my friend conker accidentally hit the knuckles of my hand. Ow!
I went a bit mad for this, today’s #bandofsketchers prompt dancer/music. Made a drawing in metallic watercolours of a ballet dancer, I didn’t base it on a particular pose. When it was finished I wasn’t happy so I drew over it, then changed it in the photo app on my phone . I’m including all three versions I saved.
I did a few quick sketches of the birds and animals while we visited today. A great opportunity to sketch some lovely creatures.
A racoon, a baby owl and a falcon called Logan. They were all enjoying the sunny weather today.
Gentleshaw is a wildlife rescue centre and is based at Eccleshall in Staffordshire. It’s in a garden centre but is run seperatley. They offer bird flying experiences and take in animals that are unwanted by owners that cannot be placed in zoos. They give space and care for many birds and animals which could otherwise lose their lives.
My photos are a bit blurry but I also drew the birds and animals. See my next post!
Today I found someone at a place called Art Glass Lounge where they do glass workshops. I was really pleased because I had wanted to do some more glass pieces and my hubby wanted another go too.
We met a lovely glass artist who was very informative and helpful. Social distancing was used and at the end we bumped elbows. We had a go at grinding the glass to shape it, melting thin glass rods with either a candle or a blow torch to slump it or with the blow torch, fuse it together.
Very interesting and enjoyable.
A random drawing
Oh my wobbly lines
Shaking as I draw
Damaged nerves
Causing me to dither.
Gold glitter to decorate first,
Black fine liner
Pen of choice.
Writing a poem
With a mug?
About a drawing?
A bit of fun,
Sketching and blank verse.
Is this a twofor?
That’s, two for the price of one!
Reading a blog about computers and computer programming today I suddenly remembered an incident that happened over forty years ago.
I didn’t know how they worked and I was just starting college. I went in an exhibition about information technology. I saw on a computer screen a message which said something about typing the answer to a question and it would then play a game.
I typed in the answer, nothing happened. I did it again and again, nothing? The original question disappeared off the top of the screen….frustrated I gave up.
There was no-one there to explain what had happened. There was no one there to tell me you had to press enter!
I did the drawing of a fingerprint for today’s #bandofsketchers prompt but there was some question of whether this was in line with the prompt. So I decided to do a fingerprint out of black monoprinting cut up in a collage. That didn’t really work because I couldn’t stick thin enough pieces of paper down. So it’s morphed into a rather cheeky couple of birds!
Mallaband-Brown