New paintings and regular art updates.
If you’re in the area why not come to our concert in a few weeks time. You’ll be supporting Penkhull Players and our plans to put on another pantomime in the future. We are practicing ancient and modern songs, there will also be solos and poems. Its going to be fun.
I thought I’d show you the other photo of the church floor I took last night. It’s a bit blurry but this is the main block of minton? tiles. It’s hard to tell what the central section depicts. I love the contrasting blues, oranges and terracotta colours. Using complementary colours makes the image pop even with using only blue and orange.
We had to go out early this morning so we popped in a cafe at Penkhull for breakfast. It was nice to sit down and eat in although there was only one table inside, (there are more outside but it was raining).
I don’t normally take photos of food, but this struck me as an image that explains what a full English breakfast is. Hiding under the tomatoes were two slices of bacon. It also came with toast and a cup of tea. Additionally you could have mushrooms and black pudding, but this was too much! I was defeated and left some toast and beans.
I’ve never been sure about hash browns though? Are they part of a traditional full English breakfast? I don’t know.
A cloudy sky (with an odd dog shape- I’m not changing it) flys above a park. The grass is shaded by the long shadows of trees. The sun is bright, but starting to set. I used various techniques taught to us by Jo Watson, an artist who comes out and teaches charcoal workshops.
Most of the group used images supplied by Jo, but a few of us chose our own images. This drawing was based on a photo of Baker Street Park in Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent.
I really loved learning about charcoal, I’ve used it before, but not been in control of it! ❤️
A stag and thistles against a Scottish Saltire. The Penkhull Panto is not having scenery this year except for some smaller A2 panels that I painted a few years ago of various scenes from around the world. I offered to paint something representing Scotland and found various images of Scottish jewellery depicting Stags and Thistles in a semi celtic design. This is my interpretation of the idea. The blue and white of the saltire is a good background to the design. I used two A1 boards glued together for strength (£10) and it is painted in acrylics with some silver metallic pen highlights. I hope they like it.
Penkhull Pantomime this year is Robin Hood. It will be on in Stoke on Trent again next week, the Penkhull group is performing at our local village hall. I was not able to take part in it this year because of my ill health, but I am pleased that they will be using some small paintings of scenes I originally did three years ago. I’m trying to source some fibreboard so I can do a final painting, it will be based on a celtic design that I found and as it’s about Scotland there will be thistles and a stags head. I haven’t painted it yet but no doubt I will post about it when I’ve completed it. The photo here is me waring a mob cap in a performance I was in back in December.
The world is trying to wake up again and one of the local rituals is happening today on SATURDAY 14th January 2023.
This is possibly of anyone visiting the Stoke-on-Trent area later today.
The Penkhull Wassail is fast approaching, and Domesday Morris look forward to seeing all friends both old and new!
Starting at 4.30pm at the Village Hall in Penkhull, there will be the usual torch lit procession, blessing of fruit trees, wassail readings, music, song and of course Morris dance this year on the Church Green in the very heart of the village. Please feel free to bring lanterns.
From the Church Green the procession will then make their way around the village from hostelry to village hostelry for a traditional old twelfth night evening of misrule.
The wonderful Penkhull Brass will be there and guests Leek Morris and hopefully Greg and Kate with the Clay Chorus choir.
There is a TICKET ONLY CEILIDH in the Village Hall from 8pm
Well I decided to go back and join in our local penkhull panto because I need to start getting out and stop moping about. So… Its been in rehersal for weeks, so I’ve not been cast as anyone but I should be helping with the scenery. Maybe some props, it’s bringing back good memories…
The production is Robin Hood and we already had a script from a couple of years ago. It’s not on until the new year. It should be a laugh…. Oh yes it will be… Oh no it won’t.. Oh yes it will
An old biro/ digital drawing I did a few years ago of our local church. I think I intended to use it as a christmas card (its several years ago but i think I did print a few off). I can see from it that I drew it out in biro first, but then must have scanned it into photoshop because I can see areas where it seems to have had some flood fill colour. I don’t know if I intended it to have white areas as snow or reflected starlight. I was watching a programme about astronomy last night. It said that a star will become a supernova once a century on average in our galaxy, but there have been none in the Milky Way since the Seventeenth century. Our closest candidate is Betelguese in the constellation Orion. It is a red giant star and sits on the top left hand side of the constellation. It has been dimming recently, which may mean it is shrinking. It might as they said, not explode for a million years, or it might become a Supernova tomorrow. No one can tell. But when it does it will be a very bright object in the sky. It might even look like this.
Just back from an afternoon in the sunshine drinking (alcohol free) gin and diet tonic. The Boat Band were playing a mixture of cajun and sea shanty and folk music. People joined in. I found my kazoo and had a go but had completely forgotten how to play. I was embarrassed because they introduced me and I couldn’t get it to work…. Then as the orchestra of interesting instruments kicked back in again I could play it! Weirdly I think it was nerves. After two years of not joining in with open mic situations (with no mic) I just wasn’t quite ready. Glad to chat with people and think about strategies for coping with anxiety. I will try and get help for that. X
Mallaband-Brown