Garden pictures

Posted on April 7, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cat, Daffodils, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Photos, Plants, Summerhouse, Sunny, woodyLeave a comment

Oh its coming on…. I’ve been cutting back a few bushes and tidying up. The summer house is full of junk so it needs clearing out. I’m keen to go out there and paint. The weather has been lovely, we’ve not really had any April showers yet. I guess they will be in the way.

Oh I ache from trying to cut back overgrown buddlias and ivy climbing up the cherry trees. When the cherry blossom is out I will try and share photos.

By the way the cat is Woody, he’s the outside cat we look after. He’s really enjoying lying in the sun now the weather has improved. But we have tomato plants, so I’m scared he will squash them!

Ghostly

Posted on April 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black and white image, Figures, Forty years ago, Ghostly image, Photographic paper, Photography, Photos, Pin hole, Pin hole photographLeave a comment

Have you ever used a pin hole camera? This was me and a friend at our neighbours house. The pinhole camera was a biscuit tin, sealed with sellotape and with a sheet of black and white photographic paper in the base. The lid had a tiny hole created by hammering a small nail through it. I used a piece of card, I think, to cover the hole. In this case I stayed still for about a minute, but my friend moved after about thirty seconds if I remember correctly. The image was created by lifting the flap over the hole, then covering the hole up again after the exposure.

I don’t remember developing it. I’m sure I did, it was part of the coursework at college to do some photography. I did a few more. One of an old man, standing in front of this window, and one of me sitting on a setee inside the house by this window. In it I had turned my head right for thirty seconds and then left. The result was my body was visible, but my head was missing, just a stump where it should be.

That was forty years ago, a long time ago. The dim and distant past.

Short walk along the canal and Westport lake.

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blustery, Longport, Nature, Photos, Pottery, Price and Kensington, Trent and mersey canal, Trubshaw Cross, Weather, Westport lake, Wildfowl, WildlifeLeave a comment

Long title…

We went for a walk along the Trent and Mersey canal, from the road up to Trubshaw Cross at Longport, Stoke-on-Trent, along the towpath, to the lakes at Westport. I was not at my best so we only walked round the small lake, then back along to our starting point.

The day was blustery, but I could feel some warmth from the sun. The old bottle oven round the back of Price and Kensington (facade allowed to crumble so much the council had to demolish part of it). It was sad to see all the rubbish and wood stacked up on the yard waiting to be burnt. The owners regularly light fires, not small ones, and cause a nuisance with smoke. I worry that the buildings may be irreversibly damaged by this behaviour. As you walk along the canal towpath the image improves, although there are places that are derelict and that made me wonder what would happen if the facade of a building were to fall into the canal.

We found the entry to Westport lake easily enough. We popped into the cafe to get some duck food, than a nice stroll round the lake. Stopping to chat with a photographer who had a really long lens to take pictures of the birds on the lake.

I need more exercise and this helped!

Today’s art lunch

Posted on March 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Art lunch, Chatting, Discussion, Friends, Fun, Light, Lunch, Photos, Sunlight, Talk, Tired4 Comments

Today’s art lunch was spicy vegetable soup served with chats about funding streams for artists and how to apply for them. Discussing organising workshops. Chatting about doodling. Working out about clearing a work space at the Etruria Artists warehouse.

We were serenaded by lovely jazz music on my friends record player, so stylish. The light was streaming into the living room so I took photos of the sunlight shining on the wall and painting patterns on to it. It was a fun afternoon but I came home shattered and fell fast asleep. I’m struggling to stay awake while writing this!

Spider or beetle?

Posted on February 8, 2020February 8, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Fun, Humour, Life, Looking, Mirror, Moss, Photos, Picture, Roots, Tree, WalkLeave a comment

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Roots can be interesting and exciting. Just be duplicating a picture you can get something fascinating. This looks like a spider to me, but someone else suggested a beetle about to fly. Or I guess it could be a land crab?

Anyway see what you think, have you got any images you can play with and create flights of fancy?

Two sunsets, two days

Posted on February 5, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Dawn, Dusk, Horizon, Photos, Pictures, Sun, Sunset, TreesLeave a comment

A few days ago there was a reddish sunset, today it was more silvery. Each one was beautiful.

I like the glow in the sky on the second one. I’m sad when the sun goes down in the winter because of how long it is until the sun returns in the morning. As the days go on I look forward to longer days.

I’m already noticing the change of position of the sunrise and Sunset, gently moving along the horizon, gradually changing the time it rises and sets.

The weather should look very different on Sunday. A storm called Keira is on its way, due to give gale force winds.

In the meantime if I see more beautiful skies I will post pictures. X

Swans and ducks

Posted on January 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Barlaston, Blogging, Canal, Ducks, Photos, Staffordshire, Sunshine, Swans, Trent and mersey canal, Winter dayLeave a comment

What better on a crisp winters day than to take photos of a Swan and a couple of ducks. Interesting how the sky is reflected in the first one and not so much in the second. They were taken last year out at a place called the plume of feathers, at Barlaston, Staffordshire. The pub sits alongside the Trent and Mersey canal. Much more picturesque than where it runs through the city, the canal offers an opportunity to glide along in narrow boats on self catering holidays. The boats are beautiful to look at, but they can be quite expensive to rent for a week, so I prefer to walk for free by the water and allow the Swans and Ducks to do the gliding….

Twig owl

Posted on January 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Garden, Image, Landscapes, Life, Mirrored and flipped images, Owl, Photos, SurrealLeave a comment

A process of cropping, mirroring and flipping images to create interesting patterns. I think the final result looks like a little owl reflected in water. I’ve changed the tones and hues slightly in the image to enhance the shadows in the cloudscape. The idea has always been to have abstract shapes apparently floating in the sky. It’s a recurring theme of mine.

Doodling faces

Posted on January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Digital art, Digital drawings, Drawing, Photos, SketchLeave a comment

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I doodled this today, I love drawing and doodling. Faces are my thing really, I like drawing them and get a feeling of satisfaction if I draw them well. This isn’t a portrait, it’s just playing around with drawing tools and adding layers to backgrounds.

Just a bit of fun….

Shades of green

Posted on January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 64 million artists challenge, Art, Colour, Design, Fun, Green, Layout app, Montage, photo montage, Photos, PlantsLeave a comment

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Today’s challenge on the 64 million artists January challenge on Facebook was to take a journey through your home or garden or to take a walk and collect images of a colour. Because I’ve got a lot of plants and other objects that are green I decided to choose that colour. Including crocheted blanket from my sis, a book on trains, a box for a toy train, a multicolour duster (green section). A late I designed based on clarice cliffs’ pottery, a little sketchbook, Christmas cactus, some plants I’m growing on for spring, ferns and a green bottle, my cat and the garden outside, the border round some photos, finally the ariel roots of my orchid…..

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Photos