Art college

Posted on April 17, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, College, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1909, freedom, History, Home, Life, lucky, Mother, Past, Time2 Comments

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

I will always be grateful for my mother’s encouragement for me to go to art college. She had to work to support us all and when I finished school she might have insisted that I work full time.

Instead she let me go to college (though I had a couple of part time jobs). I initially went on a preparatory course, then left home to do my degree.

I was aware that my cousin who was also artistic had to go to work in a factory and forget her dreams. I don’t know what happened to her after I moved away. But in my case I was always welcomed home in the holidays.

I’m glad my mom gave me the freedom to do art. Learning has always been something that I enjoyed, and to do a subject that I love? I will always be eternally grateful to her.

Going home over the years I realised how proud she was of me. She was always encouraging us all to do the best we could.

Pompom dahlia

Posted on April 17, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Biddulph grange garden, Dahlia, Day trip, Gardening, Life, National Trust, Plants, themes, Time2 Comments

Dad used to grow these. You can see why they are called pompom dahlias. He had a whole patch of them in the back garden. I found some in the local garden centre so I have bought a packet of tubers just to see if I can grow them.

The best place to see dahlias in the area is the dahlia walk at the Biddulph Grange garden in Biddulph, Staffordshire. The National Trust owns the house and gardens. The building is only accessible in a few rooms, but the gardens are magnificent. Part classic gardening, part themed garden it is worth visiting and you have to see the Dahlia Walk in late summer. Sections separated by hedges on either side of a central pathway are filled with all sorts of Dahlia plants in all sorts of colours, for example red Bishop of Llandaff ones. Other sections in the garden have various themes, a Swiss cottage next to an Egyptian tomb, grottos and stepping stones and a Chinese temple and giant stone frog and golden calf!

Worth a visit if you are in the area.

Mass trespass

Posted on April 17, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Derbyshire, History, Kinder Scout, Life, mass trespass, Rambling, Time, UK, WalkingLeave a comment

On 24th April 1931, 500 ramblers climbed over a wall and walked up Kinder Scout, a hill in the Derbyshire peak district. That mass trespass was onto countryside that was exclusively used for hunting and shooting. For those people it was the start of a fight to allow the right to roam.

The trespass led eventually to the first National park in the Derbyshire peak district which was opened on 17th April 1951 almost twenty years later.

There are many more National parks in Britain now, and people have many more freedoms than they had in the past, but there are still restrictions on what you can do. A recent court ruling stopped wild camping on Dartmoor. Worryingly people are using portable barbecues which have set fire to grassland and heathland in recent years. The right to roam has also caused erosion of pathways and peat bogs in places like Kinder Scout and the pathways up the hill had to be restored and widened.

The situation needs to be managed, to allow us to move about more freely, but to also protect the environment. However a large proportion of the land in Britain is owned by the military and or the royal family, so some places like parts of Salisbury plain will continue to be out of bounds.

Cat wish

Posted on April 17, 2023 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Asleep, Bad rhymes, Black and white cat, Cat, Curled, Fun, Life, Photo, Poem, Poetry4 Comments

I wish I was a cat. Curled up curves, elegant in sleep. Cashew nut shape, spiral, sweet.

I wish I was a cat, that’s just been fed, delicate meals or lion roaring red.

I wish I were a cat, washing paws and face, the most incredible positions, but all done with grace.

I wish I were a cat, out in the wild, climbing trees in gardens. But home again to play.

I wish I were a cat, companion and good friend. Asleep on your lap. Pinned you down, so he can nap!

Owlish

Posted on April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artists block, Canvases, Craft fairs, Crafts, Fine Art, Life, miniature, Owls, Painting, small, Thinking8 Comments

A small turquoise and blue painting of two owls I painted a few years ago. I want to do a few more like this, semi realistic but with a bit of quirkiness.

I’ve got a small craft table in June and I need to restock my paintings. I’ll post about the craft fair soon.

I’m asking for suggestions for small paintings, ideas for new pictures? These will be matchbox sized or slightly bigger. I need to do some paintings of bees on flowers. I painted giraffes against sunsets. I might add some metallic paint again.

I just want to get going. But I’m a bit blocked mentally at the moment. I look at me easle and think, tomorrow? But that begins tomorrow again…. Life is strange.

Gone

Posted on April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Environment, Frogs, Gardening, Hedgehog, Landscape, Life, Nature, Outside, Pond, PoolLeave a comment

Snowdrops gone, daffodils fading, tulips opening… Winter is over and Spring has sprung. I hope for warm spring days and new flowers opening. Blossom on the boughs of the cherry and pear trees, open already on the old plum tree and the walnut tree is starting to transform.

There are strong gusts and April Showers. Heavy rain and lightning, but we await the warmth of the sun. Not too hot. But the garden is growing and buds are breaking. I hope the hedgehogs and frogs reappear. It’s an effort to maintain things like the pond which needs a new liner. I must take some photos soon.

Abstract horse sketch

Posted on April 15, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged App, Design, Digital drawing, Drawing, Experiment, Horse, Life, Sketching, Sketching app6 Comments

Playing with my sketching app again. This time I found my drawing stylus so I had more control over the lines in it. Although you can see by my writing that it’s not much more under control!

The pens in the app are very varied, here I used a solid flowing line, a texture and a watercolour effect. This could represent a chess piece, the knight. I like the way it’s turned out.

Bench view?

Posted on April 15, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Age, Bench, bench appreciation, Flowers, Life, Memorial, Memories, Wood, WreathLeave a comment

Flowers in a wreath seen on a bench last year? Was it a memorial to someone who had passed. Remembering a share time together looking at a view…. I wonder.

The bench itself is in good condition, the wood is starting to go green and will need to be replaces one day. I had a bench and the slats rotted. I went out and bought new slats but never found someone to put it back together again. I guess benches and people are similar. If they aren’t looked after they have a tendency to fall apart!

People sketching

Posted on April 15, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Canal, Crane, Drawing, Life, Middleport, Photo, Pottery, Sketching, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

When I was out sketching a few weeks ago there were lots of other people drawing. After I finished I took this photo of my friend drawing the same view I’d done. He was working in charcoal and pencil I remember. The day was overcast with patches of blue sky. The ground is covered in concrete, but the way it is breaking up I think there are probably cobblestones underneath. There is a large area of cobbles around the corner where you enter the Middleport pottery complex. In the backdround you can see a small wooden crane which was used to load and unload barges. Forty years ago my hubby worked at another pottery, he actually used one of these to lift packed pottery ware to load onto a lorry. He said you could lift a big weight easily because of the gearing on it. The one he used was cast iron. It had a band brake and a pawl and ratchet to hold the load in place as it was swung over the lorry.

We are not that far away from the past, history is not that long ago. A lot of the old industry in the area was using old machines and equipment, because they had always done things that way and it probably saved a lot in investment. Even now there are lots of pottery molds to be found in the area. Sadly a lot of them get smashed. Losing our heritage. Do we really want to wipe our history out completely?

Teary eyed

Posted on April 14, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Life, Memory, Sadness, Sister, Sketching, Tears, Thought, Time, Twins8 Comments

I found this on my phone and once again remembered. Those thoughts came back again, sadness, guilt, loss. To lose a sister, it’s not right. When it’s a twin it might be worse. I don’t know. But as our birthday approaches, will I be OK? I somehow feel this should be both of us. I want to get to my next birthday, but the idea seems wrong. I will keep going but I’m not sure I will be happy on that day. And it’s not just me, it’s the rest of the family. I guess we will wait and see…. Sorry to post this but I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life