New paintings and regular art updates.
In 2016, nine years after the Leopard murals, I was asked to do a series of illustrations for a leaflet about the Trent and Mersey canal and the Cauldon canal. This is of James Brindley taking measurements for the canal navigation. The image was painted in acrylics on water colour paper and was one of several paintings including Middleport pottery and the Kidsgrove canal tunnel. The leaflet was published. I don’t know if they did more than one set.
She stands in front of her cottage. Molly Leigh, the Burslem witch. Notorious and buried in the local churchyard at 90° to the other burials. The painting is based on a peasant woman painting by Theodore Gericault.
This was one of my murals in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem. The pub burnt down at the weekend. I am bereft. I am trying to pass on my memories to keep a feeling of what it was. I painted these on the walls. Emulsion on lining paper directly onto the wall. I’ve had a few comments that they could have been taken down. I don’t think people understand what a mural is.
Pandemic=lockdowns=not going out=buying online.
But if you wear a mask and social distance, you could go into local shops. You could spend money at places that are hitting brick walls when it comes to trading and selling. Local shops bring trade into towns and cities. Money spent there is shared round the local community and can be reinvested. You can spend online but that money just goes to massive industries and into the back pockets of billionaires.
Think first, buy local if you can or buy from independent makers. X
Rough,
Tired,
Aches and and pains,
Sleepy,
grabbed by gravity,
sunk,
coughing,
sneezing,
snotty,
did I say tired?
Just a cold,
nothing to see here.
Going to sleep.
Counting sheep.
I added my easle yesterday. Today I’m showing you my easle two years ago, I did a painting of Etruria Flint Mill. It’s also called Jessie Shirley’s Bone and Flint mill I think? It’s the only working Steam driven Flint mill in the country and the flints and bone were crushed and ground using the power of the steam driven beam engine there.
The buildings are part of Etruria Industrial Museum, a complex of cafe, the museum displays, and the Flint mill on the Trent and Mersey and Cauldon Canals at Etruria, Stoke on Trent. I’m not sure of its opening times. But once a month it used to be fired up and you could watch the fly wheel rotating round and the pans where the flints were ground rumbling as the engine turns them. Its amazing to see the industrial archeology of the potteries in action.
My hubby has caught my cold bug (not Covid) now he feels like I have been feeling all week. He’s been sneezing a lot and apart from coming downstairs for food etc he’s spent the day in bed reading books. I hope he throws it off quickly. He doesn’t usually get ill but because we have been dodging viruses for the last two years I guess our immunity to the common cold has diminished.
Meanwhile I’ve had messages on other social media blaming masks for Covid! I replied that I guessed I’d never agree with the person and pointed out that before the pandemic surgeons, doctors, nurses and dentists wore normal surgical masks. If they don’t stop viruses or bacteria why wear them. Plus the person said CO2 would build up and Oxygen can’t get through a mask! I think O2 is a smaller molecule than CO2 so it’s More likely to get through (and FAR SMALLER than a virus particle). But logic and science does not seem to satisfy these people.
Dry throat
Dry cough
Feeling under the weather
Like a desert
Full of spiky cactus
Stuck in my throat
Cold and tired
Frosty and foggy brained.
Bring back cool showers
And gentle breezes.
Taking time
To recover.
I need to start working on my college project. I’ve given myself time to recover from a bad cold, but I can’t ignore it. I need to produce a portfolio of images and a report to go alongside it. I’ve decided to write about the history of dragons in illustrations. Their images in world history, moving forward in time to medieval art and then the present day including their appearances in literature and film. My portfolio will be illustrations and text for a children’s book exploring colour and pattern alongside an adventure. I hoe it works out.
Grainy, blurry photo of my female cat. I had a printmaking kit delivered and I’ve just taken it out of the box so I left it there for the cats. It’s dark in here as I’m saving electricity and just have a couple of lamps on. I don’t need much light.
She’s a beautiful, delightful cat, mother of at least four kittens that we rehomed. She was pregnant when we took her in as a rescue cat but we got her spayed and she has lots of fun now. Her latest trick now is chasing my dressing gown belt. I’ll be walking through the kitchen and have to stop because she’s caught it with her claws!
My standard lamp, the shade was from the Waiting room gallery. It’s not accurate, I don’t have the right colours. But I like the landscape of potbank and houses on it. The leaves are from a Christmas present (yukka?) next to it. #bandofsketchers prompt ‘lamp’
Mallaband-Brown