New paintings and regular art updates.
Shaggy giants with delicate fronds of leaves hanging down and blowing in the cold wind. I’ve sat underneath a willow tree, back against its trunk, hidden behind the curtain of leaves. I was only young and it was like sitting in a fairytale. I remember the sunlight sparkling and dancing through the lace like leaves.
Dry ground, roots, scuffed by ducks and geese. Memories of the 1960’s. So long ago, but we’ll remembered.
As we arrived at Westport Lake today it started to snow. It didn’t stick, but children were running screaming as it came down thick and fast. We sat and waited in the car till it stopped. I didn’t take a photo of it because my phone was stuck in my pocket trapped between me and the car door.
Then out, a quick visit to the icecream van for a treat and round the latge lake once and the small one twice. No where near as far as I would normally do, but I managed to get enough steps and heart points in to meet my daily challenge. I’m shattered but happy!
Two years ago we were visiting the Gladstone Pottery museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. I saw this design for a red dragon and took a photo. I think it was a panel explaining the glazing techniques for getting the red colouration. I believe reds are quite difficult to produce?
Red dragons are the symbol for đ´ó §ó ˘ó ˇó Źó łó ż Wales, but this does not look like it. At the moment I’m trying to create a map for a maze/garden and this is another possibility to base it on. We will see…
Although the nature reserve is on a steep slope, there is still a pool on it. The end with the bridge over it might be a dam. I don’t know the history of the place but there are steep steps down into it and in some areas what paths there are, are quite slippy.
I had to lean on my friends arm to get down one section, not socially distanced but I was wearing a mask.
Today was sunny with very warm temperatures, the warmest March day since 1968. Red admiral butterflies were flitting about in pairs and triplets. The bird song was loud and liquid. Buds were bursting and insects humming.
I did another five miles today, that seems to be my upper limit for walking at the moment. Tomorrows planned walk is about the same length!
I was depressed by the amount of rubbish floating in the canal today. It was in an area close to Stoke Town centre.
I saw many old plastic bottles, they were dirty, as if they had been stored somewhere outside and then dumped together into the canal later. There were bits of broken wood and even an old set of mudguards from a bike floating on the surface. It makes me angry, because this section of canal is part of our city. How disgusting that stuff can just be dumped. Then further on towards Dolphin Boats but on the other side was a burnt out motor scooter. No one seems to care. I tagged in the Canal and Rivers Trust. I hope they can arrange a clean up.
I drew this years ago. A celtic style cat. I did a full colour acrylic painting afterwards but I don’t have a photo of that and I think my sister has it now.
I was trying to think of a subject for an illustrated map we have to do for college. I’ve been visiting a local lake recently and there is a hedge maze there. You cannot see the shape of it from the ground and it would be interesting in mapping it out, but I don’t own a drone camera! Then I thought the map might be based around ideas of the Staffordshire Hoard found in this area a few years ago. This was coins and gold sword ornaments and other pieces of treasure. I might base my map on these Saxon patterns. Then I did my original thesis on pre Christian celtic art, and that’s where the idea of a celtic cat came from.
Decisions…. What to draw…. Hmm
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was decay. It took me a while to find a subject that I liked. In this case it was a photo I took of an old bottle oven and fencing / boarding reflected in the Trent and Mersey canal. This was near Dolphin boats in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
I used Boldmere colouring pencils for the drawing which made it paler than the photo. I could use some watercolour washes to increase the depth of colour but I quite like the way this is blended. One thing I didn’t include was the debris floating in the canal after so many windy days.
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On Westport lake yesterday. The water was as still as a millpond one minute, then blustery gusts of wind rippled the surface and blurred the reflections.
Seeing a row of geese standing on one leg was an amusing picture. The water was very shallow at the edge, but these are old pit workings I think and there are deep sections. People have drowned in them two lakes, caught up in the weeds that spread inwards from the sides. This is more of a nature reserve than a leasure area and now it is being run by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust you can see how much it has improved. The one fly in the ointment is that the local council is thinking of introducing parking charges. There is a petition against this. A lot of people using the site don’t have the means to pay high prices, and it would probably impact on the cafe when it reopens.. I signed the petition against it…
Dr Kathy Bullock ran the afternoon workshop for the Stoke Sings Festival 2021, #ssf21. She was brilliant, giving a history of the slave trade and the way people were transported from Africa across the world as slaves. Dragged from their homes and imprisoned in cells until ships came and took them away. She explained the inhuman ways they were held and treated. Their transportation in ships where they were often thrown overboard if they were sick or had died during the passage. Beaten and tortured. And from this came the spiritual songs people sang as they worked, and later the Gospel songs as they worshipped. The history of African America is so sad and their treatment was and is despicable. They deserve the freedom that some people just have through the luck of birth.
The workshop was wonderful, Dr Bullock’s singing is great. It was so informative and thought provoking.
Today is Stoke Sings Festival 2021. Over a hundred singers have got together virtually on Zoom and are singing together (muted sadly, it’s not possible to sync the sound). #ssf21 is the hashtag and I’ve posted a couple of drawings here of the workshop leaders as they taught us…
Mallaband-Brown