New paintings and regular art updates.
A memory of my cups and mugs a few years ago. Look at the bottom of them and you can often find out where they were manufactured. The image on the bottom is called the back stamp. There’s a lot of people in Stoke on Trent (also known as the Potteries), that check this out. They are called the turn over club? Sometimes you sneak a peak when your mug is full! A dangerous manoeuvre!
#bandofsketchers prompt still life…. Still catching up. Still life with mugs, why use one when you still have plenty available. Last night’s horde! Black ink drawing. I just washed them up.
On our walk we came across a green metal table. There were fish and chip wrappers discarded on it at one end, but also these pottery shards, like an archaeological dig. I didn’t want to disturb them but I took a photo. If you live in Stoke-on-Trent you might look at the backstamps on the back of pottery. I just zoomed in on the mug base it has a green lion printed on it, a scroll or banner shape under that and then just about decipherable ‘Maddocks and Sons Ltd’ there were other words below I couldn’t read. People who look at the bottom of pots sometimes say they are part of the ‘turnover club’. I haven’t looked at the image much yet but I can see a dark band that would encircle a plate with a white interlinked chain on it. Perhaps these came from the waters edge? The small lake at Westport, next to the table, looks to have a lower water level than normal so they might have been scavenged from there.
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!
Instead of an easle I prop a stand up in a chair. But sometimes it becomes a bit of a dumping ground. Empty mug, started to colour a canvas, pallette, brushes and tissues and a mug for water. Sketchbook with a zebra Dragon idea. I need to start painting but I have no get up and go. Tidy up and start, or worry and prevaricate. I don’t know. I need to do something soon. Maybe it’s these dark days that are getting to me? I need my mojo back….
How many mugs and cups have you got? I seem to have enough for a small orchestra!
I think there are a few more around the house and in the garden. I am not going to search them out. They are from various manufacturers. The majority from this city, Stoke-on-Trent.
Different styles and sizes. Some that I decorated (you can book workshops to paint your own mugs, some places are more expensive than others). The small cups are for tea or expresso coffee. But I prefer a madium sized mug, pint sized ones are too much for me.
The creativity of this city shows through the designs and shapes of the mugs and cups.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ceramic. This is my brown ‘Bessie’ or ‘Betty’ tea pot and a couple of mugs of tea. One of which has the Penkhull Flag on it.
The shadow at the bottom was from my head as I stood and drew in the sunny kitchen. It was just going to be ink and pencil, then I thought why not add colour? It’s a sketch rather than a neat drawing. Hope you like.
At Etruria Artists today we painted mugs, they were blank white mugs and we used on glaze paints that stay the same colour when they are heated. The most exciting thing is that they can be heated in an ordinary domestic oven. They have to be dried for twenty four hours, then heated at 150°C or gas mark 2 for 35 minutes to bake the colours in.
The outside photo is lock 40 on the Trent and Mersey canal. It was a beautiful morning, bright and sunny. I really do prefer coming to Etruria Artists ‘hands on Art’ at the Warehouse next to the lock in the morning rather than the evening. It is on from 10am to 12 noon if anyone wants to come along.
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Mallaband-Brown