Art at the Villas

Posted on June 22, 2019June 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Art at the Villas, Ceramics, Drawing, Life, Oakhill, Painting, Pottery, Print, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Textiles, The Villas, Urban Sketchers, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

I was going to get up early today and going on a community walk along the local canal, but I got up late. I also considered going to an Urban Sketchers event at the Chatterley Whitfield nature reserve. But again I was too late. In the end we went to the Villas which is just down the road. There was an event called art at the Villas. The show was almost at the top of the road on the right hand side. The road is unadopted so go carefully driving up there. We parked at the bottom and walked.

The house we went in and its garden were full of interesting art. There were prints, original tee shirts, paintings, ceramics and a warm welcome. They were also accepting donations for charity. If you feel like visiting its in the Villas up the hill on the right off London Road, Oakhill , Stoke-on-Trent.

Since I was there and had missed other sketching opportunities I did a quick drawing of the garden and summerhouse in the distance.

Hanging baskets up

Posted on June 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colour, Flowers, Green, Hanging baskets, Life, Summer2 Comments

The hanging baskets I ordered arrived last week so I’m busily watering them to get them to grow. I get them from a farm out on the road between Silverdale and the road between Keele and Madeley in Staffordshire.

They are cheaper if you take the old baskets in. I did spend too much on them but I can’t explain the joy I feel seeing them hanging up. The bright colours inspire me. The different shapes and leaf colours are interesting. Apparently the human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other colour.

One thing I like doing is hanging one basket under the other, it also means that when you feed and water one the other gets watered.

Happy summer x

Shouting

Posted on June 21, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Life, Memories, Noise, People, Remembrance, Sad, Short blog, ShoutingLeave a comment

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It’s dark outside, in two minutes it will be the longest day of the year. In one minute……

There’s shouting outside, raucous farewells from the pub we live near to. A car revvs loudly in the night, then screeches of up the hill. A woman screams with laughter, so loud it sounds like distress but it turns into a loud giggle.

The longest day has arrived, well actually it did an hour ago. But because we are now in British summertime, our 1am is 12 (midnight) in the rest of the timezone we are in.

The noises have faded. Perhaps they have gone home. Taking their fag ends with them I hope. That is something that really annoys me since the smoking ban. People smoke outside and then discard the cigarette butt’s.

Someone is walking past, heavy shoes Thudding on the pavement outside like a rushing heart beat.

I’d better get some sleep, today, now, is a sad day, a relative passed away a few years ago and I remember it being the 21st of June, the longest day. My memories are stirred every year at thus time.

Minton tiles

Posted on June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Ceramics, Life, making, Minton, Minton tiles, Potteries, Staffordshire, Stoke your gratitude, Stoke-on trent, TilesLeave a comment

One thing I have got to do is paint some images of minton tiles. These were made in their millions over many years and can often be found in the hallways of town houses especially in Stoke-on-Trent. People are enthusiastic about them even now and get excited about them when they find them in old houses.

There were apparently 12 original designs which are documented in a little book called touching history by Hans van Lemmen and Bret Shah. This is available through StokeYourGratitude.org.uk #StokeYourGratitude

Hot flushes

Posted on June 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ageing, Health, Hot flushes, Life, Menopause, Osteoporosis, WomenLeave a comment

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Things that you don’t find out when you are young….

Middle aged women suffer from hot flushes (or flashes) as they get older. This is called the Menopause. You can start getting problems when you are perimenopausal. This is when the normal hormones reduce as you age. Women start getting problems like osteoporosis or loss of bone density. It can also cause memory problems.

One thing that can relieve this is HRT or hormone replacement therapy, but this is not widely available. Basically women are just expected to get on with it.

I guess the only advantage is not needing extra layers when it’s cold. At the moment I feel like the central heating is on full blast.. But the radiators are off!

Looks like rain….. again!

Posted on June 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Britain, Flooding, Life, Low pressure, Rain, raindrops, River, Thunder, Water, WeatherLeave a comment

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Rain, some people never get any, others get monsoons. Here in temperate Britain we get our fair share but the South East gets less. Up here in the Midlands we usually have reasonable amounts and we rarely have hose pipe bans.

This year we had a really mild February followed by a wet and windy spell. Now in June the temperature is lower than usual and we are stuck under a low pressure area, so it keeps raining. Don’t expect to get enough vitamin D either. It’s overcast and grey.

Apparently the Jet Stream in the upper atmosphere if swinging backwards and forwards, sending Low pressure areas down riwards us or up from the bay if biscay. High pressure and a stable weather situation seem far away.

The weather in the east has been very bad for a change and there are floods in Lincolnshire. Rivers have burst their banks, and as a lot of the land is below sea level, the embankments and river edges are overflowing. Homes have been flooded. Life is interesting.

Brick built

Posted on June 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Blue brick, Brick, Building, Environment, Life, Photo, Red brick, UniversityLeave a comment

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Bricks are a wonderful building material. They are baked hard clay that lasts for centuries.

Bricks are ceramic, the clay becomes vitrified (turned to a hard substance though heating in a kiln).

Bricks change in size through the ages. From small and thin in Tudor times and getting larger closer to the present day.

My favourite sort are Staffordshire blue bricks. These are dark blue/grey and often covered in dimples on their upper and lower surfaces which are visible when the bricks are used for paving garden paths.

Red brick is also used in building and there are “red brick” universities in the middle and North of England. These are not as posh as places like Cambridge and Oxford but their courses are as good as the ancient ones. Examples of red brick universities are Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield.

The photo on this post is from my collection of photos manipulated in an app called Layout.

Music and singing

Posted on June 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged A capella, Blogging, Choir, Education, Enjoyment, Fun, Learning, Life, Music, School, SongsLeave a comment

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I’ve been to a choir workshop on Sunday where we learnt songs and short pieces over a four hour period, then tonight I was learning songs for the penkhull mystery play which is being accompanied by Clay Chorus, a choir I’m part of. I’m a member of the cast of the play, so I might not actually be singing all the songs but it’s good to learn them.

It is quite tiring doing so much singing. It takes concentration and the ability to listen closely to your fellow choir members and the choir leader. We learn a capella so we often don’t have any accompaniment.

I also went to a concert on Saturday night and later today I will be watching a live broadcast of the Pirates of Penzance at our local cinema.

Music can transport your mind, calm stress, but also excite and enthral. Music can be raucous, noisy, loud, rhythmic and ugly. It can also bring tranquility and peace.

I think music should be taught more, to all ages and abilities. It should not be elitist and should not be for the privileged few. Music broadens the mind and the senses.

Blue

Posted on June 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Lapis Lazuli, Life, Oil paint, Painting, Sea, Sky, Titian, UltramarineLeave a comment

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I just watched a programme on TV about colours, one of which was blue. They showed the rock, Lapis Lazuli, which can only be found in a small number of places in the world including Afghanistan and California.

Lapis Lazuli was used as a paint pigment in paintings by artists like Titian. The rock is ground down to fine powder and then mixed with oil and wax to make oil paint. The resulting colour is called ultramarine and is a superb blue used in things like the blue paint in the robes of the virgin Mary in Titian’s paintings.

So how did Lapis Lazuli become blue? Sulphur rich rock, which was a pale grey brown was heated up 30 or 40 kilometres below the Earth’s surface. The intense heat and pressure apparently compresses the mineral and makes three atoms of Sulphur line up in each molecule. It is this geometry in the molecules that causes it to reflect pure blue light. (Sulphur is usually found in nature in a yellow, red, orange, brown or black form – the Volcanic moon of Jupiter, Io, is coloured by Sulphur).

Blue sky

Blue Sea.

Blue life.

Blue me

River

Posted on June 16, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cliff hanger, Creative writing, Environment, Life, Short story, tension, Very short storyLeave a comment

Standing on the bridge looking over into the turbulent waters of the stream. She did not realise that in a few hours the water would be flowing above it. Mud and rocks were being washed down from the local hills, trees had slipped down the hillsides, branches had been broken from their boughs by a storm.

She walked along the waters edge, seeing the beauty of the land, green and verdant. She heard the rumble of thunder but it sounded hushed and far away. She walked down stream into a narrow valley, the birds were singing loudly, the sound echoing from the rocks.

She felt a gust of wind and realised the storm was getting closer. She hurried along the path, the road was half a mile away….

Now the wind and rain were rushing past her, each minute the squall grew stronger. She heard a rumbling sound and turned to look. A wall of black mud, tree trunks, churned towards her. She started to run and climb up the steep sides of the valley. Would she reach high ground in time?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life