Beach, #bandofsketchers. Today’s prompt. Felt pens. I also did digital variations. I might put them on another post. Trying for a 1930’s art deco vibe.
Beach
Tag: Memory
Cat toy on a mat
Found my old cat toy while tidying up today. I will balance him on the back of the sofa but I couldn’t resist putting him on my old mat. Then I played with the texture to emphasise the fake fur on him. He has a gold tartan ribbon. I think I got him to go with a ‘merrythought’ tortoise soft toy that I won in a raffle years ago. That’s missing too, but I only just realised that because they are linked together in my mind.
Now my cats have come in. They want food! The toy cat has one advantage, it doesn’t need feeding!
Tree view
When you stand under a tree remember to look up. You might be surprised to see the pattern the branches make and how the leaves don’t always overlap so they can absorb as much light as possible. Spreading out towards the light (phototropism) is where plants bent their stems to move towards the light. Look at the different shaped trees make, depending on the species. Some even have nicknames. Ash trees are supposed to have branches like witches fingers. This was one of my paintings from about twenty years ago.
Teapot at a hotel
A few years ago I did a series of paintings of pottery that were displayed in a local hotel on the Spode factory site. It was great to see my work on show in different venue to a gallery. The hotel staff were very friendly and welcoming. I liked the fact the works were hung on rough brickwork. It gave it more of a feeling of industrial heritage. I’d like the opportunity to do it again.
Bobble hat
Doodle of a woman in a bobble hat. Just a finger drawing, flooded with blocks of colour, done whilst listening to an online lecture about a deamon that someone has drawn over and over again.
My doodles are usually cats, nice, friendly creatures (with claws and teeth), but because this was a finger drawing it was easier to do.
Will I remember the lecture when I see this image? Possibly, but have I invested too much time in it so I have switched off my brain to the lecture? No, I don’t think so.
Sharpener
On my desk, it needs emptying. But I leave it. The colours from the shafts of the pencil (which I have hidden by turning it to black and white) remind me of the colour of the image I have drawn. The pencil sharpenings share its history. It is my memory encapsulated.
How the Leopard looked
This was the function room, the Arnold Bennett suite, in the back of the Leopard Hotel with my murals visible on the walls. They were quite high up and I’m only short, so I spent a lot of time climbing up and down ladders! If I had realised it was likely to take me almost two years to paint them (there were eleven? ) seven on one side and four on the other if I remember?
Titles were :
The Leopardess
Umbrellas by Clarice Cliff
Arthur Berry, artist
Walter, the regular
Pot banks and woman worker
Murdered woman
The Leopard coat of arms
The Burslem Riot 1842
Wedgwood and Brindley
Molly Leigh, Burslem witch
Burslem Angel
I cannot remember if there was another one. I’m hoping to collect a full set of images of them. I hope that local people will be able to help me.
Old card
Spring cleaning and I found this card. It’s off a relative and it must be twenty or thirty years old. I was moving a bookcase amd found it down the back together with an A to Z of Stoke-on-Trent. Its so cute with the fire extinguisher and the startled bat!
It would be good to find more interesting things. Maybe a gold ring, or an earring that matches one I’ve lost. But no doubt I’ve already vacuumed them up!
Anyway I like this dragon, I will take him as a good omen for my college course project. Its about the mythology and history of dragons, and a children’s book based on a dragon story. So fingers crossed that I can get it done. X
Light in the sky
Half past five in the evening and the clouds scud by. There’s still light in the sky but the rain showers keep pounding the windows. I love the newly washed look of the air. Almost sparkling. When I came here forty years ago there was far more heavy industry in the area. Smoke and dust polluted the air. A smog sometimes settled over the city and you could smell the fumes from the tyre factory or enamel being fired onto pottery if the wind was in the right direction. Now the wind is more a carrier of sound. The local A road and the motorway. The occasional sound of pile drivers when new buildings are erected, which is not very often. Sometimes smoke travels on the forlorn breeze as an old building accidentally burns down. So sad. So much bustle gone. We are a warehouse city of poorly paid jobs. No real chances. No ambition if the naysayers are believed. I think we can do better. Think creative, be creative. Let a bit of light shine on us. X
Mugs and Mojo
I painted these mugs with special overglaze paints about three years ago when our art group at Etruria were still meeting. We haven’t done anything recently because of Covid. It’s only when I look back at things like this that I realise I was doing so much more than now. It’s only when I remember these things that you know I am, or was, capable of so much more than I’m doing now. The designs were from my imagination. Painted directly, no sketching out first. Give me my Mojo back!
