Watercolour painting done today, mostly of the roof of Ford Green Hall. I started over to one side so it’s a bit squashed up on the left. I was just finishing as the rain started to come down so we went inside the cafe there for a brew and a cake.
This was a plein aire (spelling?) with the Orme Art Group. Our last session until we start up again in September.
I really enjoyed being out in the fresh air, although there was a noisy motorbike (2 stroke) zooming around and being very annoying. Ford Green Hall was built in the 15th century. Brilliant place to visit and there is a nature reserve at the back.
My paintings still on display at Etruria Industrial museum today. The bottom painting has just been added. It’s called Phil, morris man/cyber punk and it’s for sale.
The museum is holding steaming days tomorrow and on Sunday 30th July 2023. The beam engine ‘Princess’ will be in steam and running the grinding pans that used to break up flint and bone for use in the manufacture of fine bone China.
I love painting images that are based on pottery manufacturing, but also poppies are a favourite flower and there are two paintings there that incorporate them.
Maybe you will get a chance to visit? Have a great weekend. X
Bit of a bad photo but I had some good news today!
Great to hear I’ve sold this which was on exhibition at Etruria Industrial museum. It was only a small painting of the governor on the Princess beam engine at Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill at Etruria, Stoke on Trent. I took another painting up which was also based on a photograph that I’d taken at Etruria at its last steaming event.
This is my phone screen saver. It just cheers me up to see it. I only have it because someone asked me for a copy of a painting I did forty years ago.
You can see how I’ve laid the scene out and started filling in the image. I don’t tend to underpainting but go straight in with colour. I rarely sketch in the image, but because this was going to be a copy I had to fit the buildings on properly and also it helped with the perspective.
This is about four years old. I can confirm its new owner was very pleased with it.
I had a lovely afternoon out so I gave my friend this small painting to say thank you. It’s only about three inches square. We had gone to a garden center so I felt it would be nice to give her something floral. Poppies are my favourite flower, vibrant and silken looking. This is a simple painting in acrylic. Drops of dew or rain sit on the petals and shimmer in the light. A bud ready to burst sits next to the flower with it’s promise of further beauty.
Art, and particularly painting is where I get “flow”, that is lose track of time when I’m creating art. Sometimes I can go months without painting, but I still create things either by drawing or working on digital art.
From my earliest memories I can remember painting and drawing. It got to the stage where my mom would show relatives my art because she thought they were good. I only had half a bedroom because I shared and that was on the window side, so to display my art I strung strings across the bedroom and hung my pictures from them!
I was obsessed with Elizabethan fashions and used to draw women and men in great dresses and suits of silk, with slashed sleeves and enormous ruffs around their necks. I was also interested in the Asterix the Gaul and would copy the cartoons of him and the other characters. I would spend hours getting the images correct. I think that was when I started getting better at drawing.
I remember spending hours over my art exam paintings. In fact one of my paintings was selected to be put on display at our twin town in Europe.
I think they say you have to do something for 10,000 hours to become an expert. I must have done far more than that. But the time has flown and I don’t recall it being hard work, “time just flies when you are having fun” is a saying that I think is based on what happens when you do an activity and you lose track of time.
A few years ago I did a painting of the bone and flint mill in Etruria. I exhibited it in a small exhibition and I ended up getting four commissions to paint it again!
I had to give each painting a different name, not flint mill 1,2,3 and 4, but slightly different wordings for each.
I only remember this because the photos appeared on Facebook memories. It shows, I think, that I AM a real artist, just because I’m not doing much at the moment. I have paintings to finish, but dear old artists block keeps biting me in the bum. Things I have to do get in the way. Life gets in the way.
My old painting jeans. They are years old. When they started to split I started to sew. One patch of sewing covers another. Trying to keep up with the holes!
Mostly sewn with cotton reel thread, a few strands of embroidery silk. My stitches are no longer neat and small. My shaking arm makes it hard to hold the material while I try and stitch. The yellow is the latest cotton. I will swap to another colour soon. I just need to catch the rip below the pocket before it gets any worse. It’s really threadbare…
This is like the story of the old broom. It’s had three new stales and two new brush heads… But it’s still the old broom you always knew… X
I was painting a backdrop for the final penkhull mystery play before the pandemic. It’s unlikely the plays will be continued, people get older or move on. The children who used to be involved are growing up. I don’t feel able to do anything like this any more. I can do some things but I shake too much to get delicate work like this done. At least I have memories. Willow pattern design I made up.
Mallaband-Brown 