New paintings and regular art updates.
I was showing someone how the layout app on my phone works so I took a photo of their garden then made this picture in the app. The architecture really works as a pattern, and the bright blue sky makes it feel fresh and interesting. Just play. That’s all…
After I drew the laburnum arch I looked through the photos I took at the weekend and realised I could have drawn this instead. I don’t remember seeing it before, but it is quite striking. One thing about the UK is the greenery. Once spring and summer arrives the greens burst out. Yes we do get drought conditions, but we are very lucky compared with many places.
I don’t want a mouse
Or a frog
Bought in alive
To scurry or croak.
Caught with a fishing net
For goldfish
And put out again.
I don’t want that bee!
Keep it for yourself
Or a wasp
You surreptitiously
Sneak in
For my pleasure
Take that shrew away
At least hedgehogs are spiky
So they won’t be dropped
At my feet
With a smug purr!
There you go!
Here’s my rent!
Like blackberries and cream, this Rhododendron is in beautiful flower. Splashes of deep purple dot the tops of the flowers. I could eat them. Photo at the Dorothy Clive Garden this weekend. There are masses of different types and colours of them at the gardens.
Sometimes even blurred photos work. I used photodirector to add texture to this. Why? Because although it was blurred the colours were really interesting. The contrast of dark reds and greens and pale green and pink seemed to work really well. You can still tell what it is but in an abstract way. In a way its sketching with photography. I think it’s still art.
Digitally manipulated photo of a cat goblet I had given to me. The glass globe in the top of it is a paperweight. The texture and light highlights are from using photodirector. You can position the highlights over and over so I chose three lots, each placed where they would be reflected off places such as the cats eye. I chose to make this because its Friday 13th which is a day of superstitious fears in the UK.
Get random photos.. I needed to optimise my photos because they were taking up too much memory. So I optimised and deleted 450 originals. The only problem is you get a random selection that is out of order when you go back in your gallery. This set of plant saucers came up as recent! Filled with water and set in a slight slope the birds seem to like them. Memory saved? About 950 megabytes!
If you duplicate or mirror an image, then turn it on its side you can get some quite interesting images. This was clematis growing along a fence, but something magical happens when you add some bilateral symmetry. The fence spikes look like goats or sheeps horns. There is something that looks like eyes and if you look closely you might see faces? This is an example of my Pareidolia. I see faces in a lot of patterns.
Here is a better photo of my mural that was destroyed in a fire at the Leopard Hotel in Burslem earlier in the year. The landlady was said to have come over from the Caribbean and married an English man. She then ran the hotel. The trouble is I painted this in 2006? I honestly can’t remember the story I was told and now the hotel is gone.
I was listening to the Queens’ Speech today (the state opening of Parliament). The government announced that they would be trying to do something about the cost of living and ‘levelling up’, spending on improving the country across the UK. But it never seems to happen. Seeing our once industrial city collapsing in ruins, losing historic buildings. Being overcome by the cost of energy so that factories and shops cannot afford to run. Yes we need to reduce our use of energy, but there seems little effort to do anything about it. Our government are talking about bringing back fracking and opening new oil and gas wells. Yes it is complex, but after twelve years in power we don’t seem to be getting a good result.
Dereliction of duty?
Mallaband-Brown