New paintings and regular art updates.
I’ve found a new sketching app to download. I’ve used it before on my PC but not on my phone. It has a myriad of tools and a lot more flexibility than the previous sketching app I had. It’s not as intuative but as I sort of know my way round it I’ve got a headstart. This doodle was done in a few minutes. It was meant to resemble the Alfred Hitchcock cartoon but it doesn’t really. Still it sort of works I guess.
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.
I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.
I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.
So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…
Looking down into the water I saw a reflected horse, brown and white with a dark mane. Pleased to see some life around me I looked up from the reflection, but there was nothing there. Only an old tree overhanging the water, flecked with red and brown leaves, that was all, then the sky and a wooden fence….
I looked back down into the water, it was murky now, covered with ripples from the wind, no sign of my previous vision.
I stood up and started walking around the path. The lake was not big and it took me ten minutes to walk through the grass and sedges to the gate. The lake was in a dip so it was soon disappearing behind me. Flowers and hedges shimmering in the sun. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a horses head appearing out of the water, it stepped onto the bank, it started to trot, gallop, it was moving fast towards me. Covered in pond weed, mud slipping off its coat, steaming in the sunshine. I RAN as fast as I could. I could feel its breath on my neck as I reached the gate and flew through it. I stumbled and looked up. Just the sky with white clouds scudding by. No water horse!
Magnolia blossom about to open, the ones with the dark pink/purple outer petals and pale pink insides. They are expensive to buy, so this one stayed at the garden centre last weekend. We do have a small magnolia stellata in the garden, but as its been cold here it is yet to flower.
An Easter symbol, digitally manipulated. Today is Christian Good Friday when Jesus was crucified. I thought I would try creating something that looked slightly baroque but combined with a simple brown cross shape. I added light on the final panel. I’m not religious, but at this time of year the symbology and ideas of peace and love stick with me. I hope this is OK and does not cause offence.
How would you improve your community?
How to improve my town? We are a bit of a post industrial area. A lot of industry has gone, mining, steel works, a tyre factory and a lot of the local potteries.
There are a lot of empty industrial buildings that have been left to rot. Our country charges less VAT on new builds than restoring old buildings, so a lot just gets left. We have recently had a spate of fires in these buildings, which is worrying and probably to the advantage of absent owners ( I have no proof they are involved I must add).
Our local government seems set on building apartments and car parks, but whether they are in the right places is open to question. Meanwhile plots of green land are threatened by the builders, and like everywhere else trees are cut down, roads are built and “levelling up” is touted as a great achievement.
But why are potholes in roads left unfilled? Why are historical buildings surrounded by fencing till they fall down, why aren’t crafts and arts, which bring a wealth of creativity into an area encouraged. This was once the centre of pottery in our country, no more? We have lost so much.
Then add trees and environmental improvements to the local canal and river and maybe people would take more pride in their surroundings. I just hope things can improve. It needs LOVE!
When you get new apps you have to learn how to use them. There are similarities and differences. You try one app and then transport an image into another app and try and alter it by using different filters and pens and markers. Each of these started with the bottom left sketch and then I took a screenshot of it ( I had to find out how on this new phone), then added more on top. It’s not going to be my favourite method of altering images, but I’m learning. I have found recently that drawing tools seem to be limited. Instead you get backgrounds and filters to alter faces and landscapes but using photoshop like tools, not paintbrushes or pens. I know I can do more if I had the tools. Perhaps I will find something more satisfying soon.
A comment on my Instagram photo of my cat offers me the opportunity to sell my work as NFTs. I know NF stands for Non Fungible (transactions?). I noticed that a friend of mine has had a similar proposal offered to her. I immediately got that sinking feeling that this is dodgy. My images are covered by my copyright, but what happens if you start selling digital images. Aren’t they sold via crypto currency? How is it converted into something tangible. My art is OK but I wouldn’t say it was exceptional. Isn’t this just a bit of ego polishing? Like vanity publishing, and who gets any profit. I have friends who were going to set up an NFT gallery with a lot of friends art last year, but after a while I didn’t hear anything more. But the thing that really put me off was the silly Trump NFTs which were sold for masses of money, but almost instantly crashed a few weeks later. Until the whole thing is regularised I won’t touch it with a barge pole!
Added a filter to emphasise the fur on my furry friend. It looks strange but I don’t think it looks bad. He’s sitting on the chair arm next to me starting to nod off. Black and white cats are so sweet. I might try some other filters to see how they come out. I might also try a black and white filter.
Autumn painting. A woman with a red umbrella walks through a damp and misty forest with leaves scattered around. I worked from a photo someone lent me so I don’t know who’s photo it was. If there is a copyright issue I will delete this post.
I had problems with the body length and the length of the legs, trying to get them and the arms in proportion. I had to play with the colours and shadows to try and get a realistic light on the figure. I also tried to make the trees bluer to send them back into the distance.
Mallaband-Brown