Mask

Posted on April 17, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Fun, Hope, Mask, Mystery Play, Penkhull, Play, Pottery, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, theatrical2 Comments

Theatrical mask made by a friend for 2019’s Penkhull Mystery play. Strange that sux months later we had to wear real masks! I painted this up with my hubbies features. He had to sit still at a potters wheel and pretend to be a mannequin until the cast were transported back in time. Then he took it off and became Thomas Doodey, Master Potter.

To be honest I really miss the fun we had on that day. Crowds of people watching the action. Molly dancers, a hurdy hurdy man, Punch and Judy, and a maypole. Lots of stalls.

This year we are going to do a virtual Mystery play. I’m hoping to do a copy of the Mona Lisa I an hour and a half. Numerous other ideas are being considered.

Cactus

Posted on April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Christmas cactus, Felt pens, Fun, Graphite stick, organic shapes, paper cut outs, Pink2 Comments

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was organic shapes. I had drew a pot with a tile pattern using cut outs from post it notes and shaded with graphite. Then I coloured in green post it notes with dark green felt pen and cut out shapes. I then cut out pink Christmas cactus flower shapes and added felt pen to those too.

The loudest miaow!

Posted on April 14, 2021 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat, Fun, Happy, Miaow, Outside cat, Purring, Talking, talking cat, Tuxedo cat4 Comments

I was sitting in the living room tonight and instead of tapping at the cat flap like he normally does, our adopted cat gave an enormous miaow/yowl. I could hear him above the TV!

He then came in, had some food and drink, sat by my feet for a few minutes, purring very loudly then: Miarowwww… He’s up and wants letting out again. That cat has got powers of persuasion! No doubt he will be back in an hour or so.

Bear and Bee

Posted on April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Bear, Bee, Buzz, buzzing, Collage, Colour, Cut paper, Fun, Honey, Life, post it notes2 Comments

Just playing with post it notes and cut out paper. I wanted to make something fun and silly. I don’t think the bear is aggressive and the bee is buzzing and not bothered. The bee hasn’t been swatted. The bear has teeth but is just looking on, probably admiring it’s honey collecting skills. The bear might go and steal its honey though!

Spooky mask

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged celebrating, Crowd, Dance, Fun, Morris team, Music, Photo, plague doctor, plague mask, Wassail2 Comments

Pre covid, my friend at the Wassail for a local apple tree.

Wassail? An ancient celebration to encourage apple trees to be fruitful again this year. In Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent it is celebrated by our local Morris Dancing team.

Morris Dancing? In ancient times Local groups of men (now anyone can join) used to get together and dress up, wearing boots or heavy clogs on their feet. Dancing to ancient tunes. Sometimes there is a person dressed as a hobby horse (with a large skirt and a carved horse head worn as a mask?) I don’t know enough about Morris history. I’m sure there is a lot of information out there.

So why this photo? It’s blurry, but it was taken at a Wassail. The Morris men were dancing, and the apple tree was beaten with sticks to get it to grow. And amidst it was my friend in his plague doctors mask, Cape and tricorn hat. And today I found it again and thought… Why not?

Mice

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Author, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, Life, Mice, Mouse, Poem, Sketching, writer1 Comment

Two little drawings of mice for my friend Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg. She commissioned me to do a couple of illustrations of mice for a poem. In the poem the baby mice sing. I’m not writing it out as she holds the copyright to it. She just wanted simple line drawings and she was very happy with this.

Sketching a choir

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white drawing, Challenge, Choir, Drawing, Fun, Loud Mouth women choir, Music, Sketching, Zoom, Zooming2 Comments

Take a dried up, broad nib, calligraphy felt pen. Start drawing, watch as the view changes because the line up of images moves when you have the songsheet with the words displayed. Try and sing and draw at the same time! It’s hard to look down at your sketchbook, up at the words, and across to your fellow choir members. I challenged them to try and recognise themselves from these crude sketches.

How do I draw a map?

Posted on April 12, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Animal, Art, Design, Drawing, Ears, eye mouth, Fun, Graffiti, Lettering, Map, Maze, modern, Text6 Comments

I’m playing with different ideas. I held two pens together to try and get parallel lines, and I wanted to do something modern, a bit like graffiti for this. The writing says ‘walk this way to get to the treasure trove don’t get bitten on the way through the winding maze.’

There is a gaping mouth and a big staring eye. Big clawed feet and huge ears. The animals body is covered in flowers….fun..

Yummy #bandofsketchers

Posted on April 11, 2021April 11, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Cake, Cherries, Colours, Drawing, Food, Fun, glacè, Poem, Poetry, SketchingLeave a comment

Oh, #band of sketchers

it meant I had to eat

Cherry cake!

The prompt was yummy.

This was very

Tasty and sweet

Glace Cherries

In a madiera

Cake base!

Fork handles or Four candles?

Posted on April 10, 2021April 10, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Drawing, fork handles, four candles, Fun, Humour, Letters, Sketching, two Ronnie's, Words2 Comments

Just found this old drawing, I was playing with words. There is a comedy sketch by a duo in the 1970’s. It’s a bit like Monty Pythons dead parrot sketch in that it is a classic British comedy sketch. This one was by the Two Ronnie’s (Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett). In it one of them goes into a shop and asks for various objects and the other one brings things out that sound the same but are different. Hence the ‘four candles /fork handles joke.

Anyway that’s what the writing on this is about. I think I was trying to mimic graffiti.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Fun