Scenery painting

Posted on June 27, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Backdrops, Calico, Life, Painting, Penkhull, Penkhull Church, Penkhull mystery play, Scenery, St Thomas's ChurchLeave a comment

I’m doing some backdrops for the Penkhull mystery play. I have calico to paint on, rather than static flat paintings that I usually do. This years backdrops are going to be rolled up and dropped down for the appropriate scenes.

Today apart from painting two willow pattern birds on papier mache I painted an eight foot by four foot backdrop of the church.

The problem was seeing the church through the trees. These mature lime trees have grown tall in the intervening years since the Church was built in the 1840’s. The backdrop is minus the trees. There was apparently a quarry and marl pit at the top of the hill which eventually filled with water and was a duck pond before it was filled in. There was a school on the land before the church was built and it was rebuilt at the top of Trent Valley Road (now the village hall). At the alter end of the church on the outside there were pigsties. I think these must predate the church.

More information about the village of penkhull can be found in books by the local author Richard Talbot.

More painting news will follow when I paint more.

Art at the Villas

Posted on June 22, 2019June 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Art at the Villas, Ceramics, Drawing, Life, Oakhill, Painting, Pottery, Print, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Textiles, The Villas, Urban Sketchers, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

I was going to get up early today and going on a community walk along the local canal, but I got up late. I also considered going to an Urban Sketchers event at the Chatterley Whitfield nature reserve. But again I was too late. In the end we went to the Villas which is just down the road. There was an event called art at the Villas. The show was almost at the top of the road on the right hand side. The road is unadopted so go carefully driving up there. We parked at the bottom and walked.

The house we went in and its garden were full of interesting art. There were prints, original tee shirts, paintings, ceramics and a warm welcome. They were also accepting donations for charity. If you feel like visiting its in the Villas up the hill on the right off London Road, Oakhill , Stoke-on-Trent.

Since I was there and had missed other sketching opportunities I did a quick drawing of the garden and summerhouse in the distance.

Making again

Posted on June 20, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Chinese lacquer, Design, Fun, making, Making props, Painting, Penkhull mystery playLeave a comment

Today was all about making and painting things for the Penkhull Mystery Play this year. I reused two boxes from previous plays. I was asked to paint them black and then to use gold and yellow paint for the decoration.

The idea was to create boxes which would look like they had been decorated with Chinese lacquer. I didn’t know whether the idea would work, but it seemed OK.

Other work to do include sticking paper plates together to make them strong enough to be passed between 50school children and painting two large papier machè birds that represent the birds on the willow pattern plate.

One box has a landscape on the top of it, the other has a circular coin like shape on the top.

Blue

Posted on June 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Lapis Lazuli, Life, Oil paint, Painting, Sea, Sky, Titian, UltramarineLeave a comment

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I just watched a programme on TV about colours, one of which was blue. They showed the rock, Lapis Lazuli, which can only be found in a small number of places in the world including Afghanistan and California.

Lapis Lazuli was used as a paint pigment in paintings by artists like Titian. The rock is ground down to fine powder and then mixed with oil and wax to make oil paint. The resulting colour is called ultramarine and is a superb blue used in things like the blue paint in the robes of the virgin Mary in Titian’s paintings.

So how did Lapis Lazuli become blue? Sulphur rich rock, which was a pale grey brown was heated up 30 or 40 kilometres below the Earth’s surface. The intense heat and pressure apparently compresses the mineral and makes three atoms of Sulphur line up in each molecule. It is this geometry in the molecules that causes it to reflect pure blue light. (Sulphur is usually found in nature in a yellow, red, orange, brown or black form – the Volcanic moon of Jupiter, Io, is coloured by Sulphur).

Blue sky

Blue Sea.

Blue life.

Blue me

In the paper!

Posted on June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Burslem, Chartists riot 1842, Life, Murals, Not enough memory, Painting, Photo in the sentinel 5.6.19, Riot act, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, The Leopard Hotel2 Comments

I can’t use the actual painting in this blog because I don’t have the memory on my plan. But imagine this is a mural of the Burslem Chartists riot of 1842 that I painted in the Leopard Hotel, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent in about 2007.

The mural includes the hotel, the original town hall in Burslem and Josiah Wedgewood House.

The painting included police and members of the Staffordshire troop taking on rioters in Burslem. The rioters were Chartists and were fighting for the rughr to vote. One of them was killed, his name was Josiah Heapy and he now has a memorial in Swan Square, Burslem.

My mural included local people from 2007 depicted as rioters. These include local historians Fred Hughes and Mervyn Edwards and the then owners of the pub, Neil Crisp and Neil Cox. Other members of the hotel staff are included. I really wish I could show it you. If I sort things out I will post photos.

Quiet day

Posted on June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Day off, Life. Rest, Painting, Quiet dayLeave a comment

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I’ve not felt like drawing or painting since the exhibition and after the weekend up at Etruria I’m still recovering from walking round for hours. Plus we had to cut the hedge back at the front of the garden yesterday which was tiring, so I’m having a quiet day.

Which means a quiet morning actually, because I need to start doing things this afternoon. Like collecting my paintings and storing them. Wish I’d sold something, but I want things to go to a good home. So anyway, I might post something later.

Portrait with portrait

Posted on May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylics, Art, Blogging, Commission, Design, Life, Painting, Pastels, Portrait, Watercolour11 Comments

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The exhibition is going well and I had my photo taken with my portrait of my husband as a green man. It’s called my green man. I’m pleased with the composition.

What next? Once this is over I’ve booked to put a show up in another local gallery called the waiting room, in Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. That will be in September, not got the dates yet. I’m also going to do a couple of craft fairs in the next couple of months. It would be good to be commissioned to paint for people but I’m not sure how to break into that sort of work. I am happy to paint for people. Just contact me.

Opening night!

Posted on May 29, 2019 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artist, Blog, Centre space, Eleanora st, Exhibition, Fine Art, Life, Painting, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent9 Comments

Thank you to everyone who came to the exhibition. I think people enjoyed it. I will be putting up more photos if I get some. These are quick snaps but I’ve included all the paintings. The people at Centre Space gallery, Darren and Sarah, could not be more helpful. If there was a trip advisor for galleries (maybe there is) I would recommend them.

If you would like to see it it’s on till Sunday from 10.30am to 4.00pm at the Centre Space gallery, at Spode Site, Eleanora street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 1QQ.

Favourite photo 2012.

Posted on May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Dreadlocks, Friend, Market scene, Painting, Portrait, Puppet, Red hair, SnakeLeave a comment

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Memories, I don’t know when I painted this but it’s just come up on my FB page as the favourite photo of 2012. It’s a painting of my friend when she ran a market stall surrounded by her objects for sale. It’s based on a photo of her that I had taken. The cardigan and hair really added to the vibrant colours in the painting. I can’t remember what it’s called.

I loved the scarf with the snake on it, and the puppet which may be Thai or Indian. Sometimes it’s good to paint what you see.

It’s up!

Posted on May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Centre space, Eleanora street, Exhibition, Fun, Life, Painting, Spode, Spode Heritage visitors centre, Stoke, Stoke-on trent5 Comments

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I’m so pleased with my exhibition which opens tomorrow. Darren and Sarah who run the Centre Space couldn’t have been more helpful.

I will post some photos of the paintings tomorrow when they are on show. I was pleased with the way the exhibition looks and the careful way that it was put up. I hope I get a few commissions out of it.

Will people understand my passion for painting green men? Or my love if planets and astronomy? My quirky ideas about earth, air, fire and water and a series of national and international animals and birds?

I hope whatever people like there will be something that will pique their interest. Like a victorian collector of curiosities I enjoy the odd, interesting, and fun.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Painting