New paintings and regular art updates.
Made a coffee, but as often happens I saw a pattern as the cream swirled over the top. I took a photo, which isn’t very good, because I thought it looks like the yin-yang symbol.
I have always, for as long as I remember, found shapes in patterns, from imagined fairies in rose wallpaper, to dragons on tablecloth fabric. I have a mind that has a creative bent. Pareidolia is sometimes fun, sometimes irritating. But I use it for my art.
Sitting around being bored. Shops shut, nowhere to go. Listening to the radio, parents doing the washing in a boiler and a spin drier in the kitchen. Steam coming up and then patterns in the water as the spindryer vibrated the bowl that caught the water. No fridge, just a cold pantry, food was usually bacon and eggs for breakfast and tinned peaches and evaporated milk with sliced bread and butter at teatime. It was always the same. Things did change, life got more interesting, but only when my parents got transport, which was two small motorbikes. Memories are strange, they suddenly appear, then what do you do.
Memory from 2017 of a mural I painted in 2007. This was at the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. I have a strong connection with Burslem from doing a series of murals in the hotel. Who knows whether I will do anymore?
I would love to do a bit more mural painting, or scenery, or large paintings. I’m hoping if I can get my shaking arm under control I might be able to do it.
Memories are a great thing, but also they can be tinged with sadness when you think of all the things you could have done. I do wonder about the pandemic times. Could I have done more to keep my art business going? What things can I do to actually sell my work? I’m not a sales person, I’m an artist…. I don’t think I’ll ever have a USP!
Just got rid of twenty books to the local charity shop.
Relocating ‘stuff’ is hard work in the Summer. Especially since its forecast 29 to 30°C over the next couple of days. We found a damp patch so now there a tray of absorbent crystals under this space, I think it’s just condensation because it was stuffed with books!
That’s the main problem, books, more than one thousand when I gave up counting. The trouble is that especially with hubby, every book has to be checked to see if he still wants it, there is a lot of emotional attachment, a lot of connections and memories. I’m proud of him. So this spring cleaning in the summer is hard and tedious work, but it needs doing.
That I had created a wonderful painting. I’d entered it for a competition and got it in. The dream continued as I walked around a massive gallery, in and out of many rooms. I could not find the painting anywhere. Then I walked u some steps and round a panelled wall. It was there! It said ‘awarded master of art’ next to it. I remember being elated and shocked at the same time. Someone had recognised me as an actual artist! I was standing back, looking at it, wondering how I’d managed to create such complexity and colours. I don’t remember waking up but I’m glad I remembered the dream. It’s odd how things get in your brain, what you want isn’t always what you get, but it’s good to dream!
Horse Chestnut leaf today. On a sapling. The leaves are larger than a man’s hand, deeply segmented and split into seven sections. The tree will grow very large and when it starts to flower it will grow large white flowering bracts. Then in the autumn it develops nuts called Conkers. These are encased in a spikey shell that you have to peel off. This is the thing that children make holes through and then use to play the game conkers. Basically each person has one of them. They drill or pierce the nut with a skewer fron the top to the base. It is then threaded onto a string. Two children / people stand opposite each other. One holds up their conker and swings it at the other one. If it hits it can either knock the other conker or split it. If it doesn’t break the other person takes a turn. The conker is called a “one-er” if it survives. Each time it doesn’t break the number goes up, so “two-er” and so on. Some people bake conkers or soak them in vinegar to strengthen them.
So basically when you hear about a game of conkers that’s what it is. The trouble comes when you try and get them off the trees. We have a row of them on the main road. Children throw sticks and stones up at the branches to get them down which can be a hazard if you walk or drive underneath them.
When I was little I used to get called ‘four eyes’ because I was wearing glasses. It was hurtful and upsetting but I don’t think I really understood why other children were calling me that. It didn’t help having an unusual name. Kids would shout names at me like ‘blueband’ (a name of a margarine). I realise now I was being bullied. I was only about seven or eight and I hated it.
Sketchfu drawing. An old website that closed. I’ve left it uncropped so you can see a bit of the technique I used. The drawing space was landscape orientated so portraits left a lot of space on either side. The site used simple tools but by changing opacity you could blend colours.
Memory of a sundae/ knickerbocker glory from my childhood. We went up the Great Orme mountain at Llandudno in Wales and I think we were treated to these? Or maybe it was a Wimpy cafe? Great memories. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was decadent. I think this is x
Mallaband-Brown