New paintings and regular art updates.
This would have been 17 years old if the Leopard Hotel in Burslem hadn’t burnt down two and a half years ago. I don’t seem to have had much luck with murals. At least three were in buildings that were later knocked down. The risk of being a mural artist I guess is that if they are painted in old buildings they might not outlast you!
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
I’ve accumulated a lot of physical and digital art over a lifetime of being an artist. A lot of it is still in my house. I would set up a shop to clear some of it so it could go to good homes. I’m sure friends would do the same.
I realise people like to be clutter free, and now AI is creeping in they could press a few buttons and make something. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a creation made by a human that suits your taste and is created with love and attention? Go on, give an artist a try.
I went out today to the health clinic. My friend helped me out so we went off for a hot chocolate afterwards. We were going to one cafe but the road was closed because some buildings are being knocked down. So we took a side street and ended up at Middleport pottery in Stoke-on-Trent.
The cafe there is in one of the old pottery buildings and overlooks the canal. I’m not sure who painted this mural but it is a delicate one that includes the love birds that appear on willow pattern plates and pots.
We sat near the door in a cool breeze and I enjoyed a rest after walking the short distance from the car park over the cobbled roadway to the cafe. I felt like I could start to recover.
It’s big, about 4 x 5ft? Been on my wall since I painted it around 30 years ago. So I’ve been a crazy cat lady for several decades! I’m sure there are lots of us about. I’ve never been insulted by being a childless cat lady and I’m not starting now. Whatever you look after, be it child or relative or animal your life should be full of caring and supporting those objects of your love. To have hateful words used against you is pathetic.
I’m painting a green woman and I’ve been trying to sort out how to differentiate the foreground figure from the background trees. I’ve accentuated the stripes on the bark and made them more black and white than in reality. Since the figure is abstracted in a different way I think it’s starting to work.
Imagined view, I think I need to have a look at some real clouds. I’m not sure if I’m going to call this finished. Acrylic on canvas. I just wanted to paint something calm and peaceful so I created this sketch view X
I’m sad to say that I didn’t get my painting of Molly Leigh the Burslem witch into the three counties open exhibition this year. (Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire).
I know they had over 200 entries and it depends who is selecting the works of art. I also know that the exhibition has to be cohesive and not too eclectic. So will I enter again? Yes, but I will probably choose to do something less specific. But I’m glad I painted this.
The reason why? I painted something similar to this as a mural in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, several years ago. The building burned down a couple of years ago and I wanted to try and recreate the memory of it. The painting means a lot more to me than getting it in this competition. X
My painting of a green woman is coming on. I did some more today. I’m adding more metallic colours, to bring out the sheen on the leaves. Also I want to improve the background of the image. Hopefully it will feel more coherent when it is finished. Acrylic on canvas.
Small abstract swirling wave pattern I gifted to someone last year. She has it on display. I don’t remember it being so metallic but it may be the lighting she has used.
I had some modelling paste that I used to build up the surface and make an impasto effect before painting over it. I guess it could crack if it was bumped or knocked. I do love experimenting.
Some of my tiny miniatures hung at the cafe at Etruria Industrial museum, for sale at the Etruria Canal Festival in Etruria, Stoke on Trent, this weekend, 1st and 2nd June, 2024.
For reference these paintings are about 2×3 inches.
Mallaband-Brown