New paintings and regular art updates.
Thistle, old flower,
Magenta and green,
Sharp and green,
Sparkling with spikes,
Shunning the soft,
Not needing likes,
But waiting to shed
Your seeds all around,
Soft thistledown
X
Work in progress on a painting of a thistle against old brickwork. It’s good how life can spring from cracks in the pavement or up from old guttering. The world tries to take over for our concrete and brick….
Thistles do remind me of punk and spikey hairdos!
If you wonder where I have been, I have been painting these tiny miniature paintings on canvases around the size of a matchbox.
I’m quite enjoying doing them. I would like to present them in small gift boxes but I don’t know where I can get some from.
People don’t seem to have room for art, so the idea is they might buy one of these to put somewhere special… you never know…
I haven’t done much this month but at least I have got going again over the last few days. I’m putting an Exhibition up later today which will be up on Saturday and Sunday at Etruria.
Details are that the Etruria Industrial museum is holding a static steam engine day on Saturday and a classic car day on Sunday.
Might see you there…..
X
This is a quick, half hour painting, of a yellow bowl I have. This is a little acrylic on canvas, from my memory. I’ve had this bowl for years. I just wanted to paint something simple after all the work I did on the previous painting. I may work on the shadows. I want to try and he the elipse of the bowl top right, but its after midnight now and I haven’t been very well so I think I will give myself a rest.
I’m glad I tried painting in these lovely primary colours. They pretty much are an accurate representation of the bowl.
I think this is finished now, although I might change the blues…. added cat for scale 😀.
I’m go I to start doing some more paintings as I want some new work for an exhibition I’m in this weekend at Etruria Industrial museum.
My green man/woman pictures are built around the idea of tiles which were made in Stoke-on-Trent at factories like Mintons.
I also want to do some small paintings based on classic cars because the exhibition is at the same time as a classic car rally and a static steam engine event. That’s this weekend at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent.
X
This is a be painting, Autumn lady. I’ve been working on it most of the day. I’m not sure about the colours on the final picture, I’m going to have a think about it over night. I need to see how it looks in the daylight.
Anyway its an acrylic on canvas. This has taken about 7 or 8 hours so far
X
These are works in progress, a Ginger autumn cat and a Catfish, I’m doing quite flat designs on black canvases. The catfish painting looks better in the second photo but I think the Ginger autumn cat isn’t quite right yet.
Yesterday I bought metallic colours that really glint in the light, I think my problem is photographing them as they are a bit over exposed in places. I may add additional colours as the Orange is not as subtle as I would like.
Talking about cats and painting, keeping my cats from drinking my paint water is a challenge. I will try and remember to empty it tonight!
Anyway these are going into my exhibition / art sale at the weekend, so I had better get on with them.
X
This is a painting is my owl bag. I was looking for something to paint for a still life and decided to paint him.
I don’t know whooo made the bag, but he gets admiring glances all the time…whooo ever the designer was I thank you!
Acrylic on canvas about 6 inches square….
Owl is a hoot!
I don’t remember painting this but I have found a post on Facebook where a friend thanks me for it.
I’m glad I did it and I think I must have needed to paint it at the time although I’m not a religious person, but the idea of having a guardian angel does appeal. I’m not sure why I did a rainbow halo on it? I had an angel mirror on the wall in the bedroom for years so this seems really familiar in a dream like way.
I think I’m influenced by a James Stewart film with a character called Clarence, he is an Angel in the film. I can’t remember the name of the movie but James Stewart plays a banker who had been framed by a rich land owner for taking money when it was actually a total mistake. Stewart decides to kill himself and Clarence saves him only to be told by Stewart that he wished he had never been born. There follows a scene where Clarence shows him what the world would be like without him…..I won’t spoil this with the ending in case you have never seen it.
Anyway sometimes we all need an angel even if it is only imagined.
X
P.S. just remembered the film was called “its a wonderful life”.
I was watching a video today and remembered one if our old cats, Gemma. Like the cat in the video she would ride round on my shoulders, and was determined to stay near me. I once visited a friend in the street and went in through the front door. I came out the back way after the visit and could not see her so I went through the entry (passageway) back to the front, and there she was, sitting on my friends doorstep, waiting for me.
We first met because she had been going to my friends house and eating the dog’s food there. I had recently lost my old cat, he had died of old age, so I agreed to take her. We booked to have her neutered but she was pregnant. She was fine up until the birth but did not bite through the umbilical cords, When we got up in the morning the kittens had been born, but one had died. It was a shock as I had not realised there was a problem. We were saddened by the kittens death.
As there were three kittens left we kept two and gave one away. This was because it was an odd eyed white cat, and we didn’t think living by a main road would be good for it.
Her two kittens, a male and a female lived with us too. All of them lived long lives, I think they had a good life with us.
Anyway we had not realised how bright Gemma was. I have a painting I did of her from a photo. If I was outside with her and tapped one side of the gate post she would jump across the gap to me. She was so good at it that I could take a photo of her in mid air, this was the basis of a painting called Gemma leaping.
Her happiest spot was sitting in the sun on the window ledge upstairs. This is my favourite cat painting, and most loved image if her.
I think I’m reasonably good at capturing people’s images when I paint and draw both traditionally and digitally. I also enjoy painting animals, and again I need to be accurate in representing them.
There are lots of books and videos to aid drawing and painting techniques. But the biggest thing that helps me is practice. Like anything else the more you do the better you get.
That said, having the book you are drawing in or canvas you at painting on placed at an upright position, either vertical or slightly sloping, helps with the resulting picture. If you draw on a horizontal surface thee picture can end up elongated or distorted. Similarly if you have a canvas in front of you too low down you can end up with a picture where the head may be to big, and thevlegd too small. It’s all a matter of positioning so you see the image equally.
I don’t tend to draw out first, I’m really terrible for starting with the eyes then working my way out! I guess I think the eyes hold the character. If you look at a face eyes are not always level. Because a face is symmetrical does not mean it completely matches on either side. Edgar Allen Poe was photographed, and when you take the two halves and multiply them into two new faces it could be two different men you are looking at…
Anyway it’s too early in the morning to be doing this…
X
P.S. the paintings here are distorted a bit because of the angles they were taken at. I have tried to straighten them up digitally but they are still a bit “off” I will try and get more photos if I can, but some belong to a relative who lives a fair distance away .
Mallaband-Brown