Dorothy Clive Garden.

Posted on June 10, 2020June 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 2018, Art, Day out, Dorothy Clive garden, Drawing, Fun, Gardening, Pictures, Plants, Sketching, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, VisitLeave a comment

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This was my drawing of the Dorothy Clive Garden on 6.5.18. It’s recently reopened but with a booking system so you have to book morning or afternoon slots to visit. There is a self service system at the cafe. I hope we can go one day next week if the weather improves, after a month or more of sunshine we have been having rain for the last few days. Good for all gardens including the Dorothy Clive.

It will be lovely to see different landscapes, beautiful flowers, and peaceful water features.

When you draw a place you are interpreting the world in a different way to simple photographs. That’s why I enjoy it. Trying to tame nature and describe it.

Day 37. #uskstoke

Posted on May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #grayson perry's art club, #uskstoke, Art, Black and white, Design, Drawing, Garden, Home, Sketching, Staffordshire, Usk challenge Stoke-on-Trent2 Comments

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Today’s theme was doorway, this is inside the summerhouse looking out into the very green and bushy garden. Unipen black ink pen, size 0.2 because I found it and the other ones are running out. The garden smells lovely, but lots of things in pots are drying out, so they are wilting a bit. We need to get the hose out. Another beautiful sunny day. A few clouds.

Tomorrow is the last day of this challenge. I’m hoping people will come up with new ideas. It would be good to have a few days off. As I’ve been posting the challenges it would be good tobe led by someone else’s perspective.

See you later.

In happier times

Posted on May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, happy times, Memories, Photo, Spode, Spode studio, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, TimeLeave a comment

I haven’t been to my studio for months , I’m keeping away from people as much as I can. That said, it was lovely to come across this photo. I was at tge studio at Spode. It must have been cold because I was wearing a hat. I don’t know where the jumper went to…..

It is clear I was happy in the photo, something had made me chuckle. Someday things will get better. Some of the paintings have been sold, but I can’t do craft fairs or exhibitions at the moment so I haven’t been replacing them. Maybe I will have a go again soon. I have got a course that I’m taking which starts in June. Hopefully that will get me going again.

‘Underneath’ day 28 usk challenge.

Posted on May 16, 2020May 16, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Day 28 usk challenge, Drawing, Glitter ball, Life, Mobiles, Sketching, Staffordshire, Usk challenge, Usk Stoke-on-Trent2 Comments

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This is underneath the arch in our living room. There are various things hanging off it, like a disco glitter ball, which I sometimes shine a torch at when music is playing. Then there’s a star that lights up and changes colour, a model of a usaf plane and an old cardboard mobile of the solar system, which is so old it still includes Pluto! Also luminous stars stuck on the underside of the arch.

USK Stoke-on-Trent challenge had pushed me with lots of prompts. I thought of looking underneath the table, or at the shed roof, or even ‘Underneath the canopy of stars’, but this was easier. I haven’t added a great deal of detail as it is a sketch.

Finding a calm view

Posted on May 6, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Cheshire, Dorothy Clive garden, Gardening, Gardens, Laburnum walk, Magnolias, Photo, Place to visit, Quarry garden, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Waterfall, World famous2 Comments

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Waterfall at the Dorothy Clive Garden.

This was taken about this time last year. We had driven out to visit the beautiful garden on the border of Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire.

The garden is in a steep slope with colourful flower borders filling the air with scents of summer. But before the summer show I am drawn to the quarry garden at the top of the site. This is filled with flowering rhododendrons, under planted with spring flowers such as bluebells. At its centre is a little dell where a waterfall cascades down into a tranquil pool. You can follow paths up to the top of the waterfall where you will find a full sized bronze stag sculpture looking out magestically over the quarry garden.

Other pleasures include a magnolia walk at the back of the garden, this is behind the quarry at the top of the slope. Here you can see the surrounding countryside.

There is another dry garden, with a laburnum walk arching over the path.

When lockdown ends I think this will be one of the first places I visit.

Today’s challenge was clothes

Posted on May 4, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Black, Clothes, Day 16 challenge, Grey, Owls, Red, Selfie, Sketching, Staffordshire, Usk challenge, Usk Stoke-on-Trent2 Comments

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Day 16, USK S-O-T sketching challenge is a self portrait of me wearing my favourite top, covered in red and black owls. It’s funny and quirky.

A few people are still keeping to the challenge, and some say they will catch up later. Some of the subjects are a bit odd, but it’s fun.

I was watching the artist Maggie Hambling on a programme called ‘Grayson Perry’s art club’. It’s a weekly programme on channel four encouraging people to do art while we are in lockdown. Maggie Hambling said draw something every day, and Grayson Perry reiterated that. I think they are right. The drawings I’m doing are my diary of my life at the moment.

Other celebrities were either drawing or making sculpture. Grayson and his wife created ceramic images based on their cat Kevin. Both created wonderful, abstract, exciting sculptures.

After seeing it I decided I shall continue….

Colourful, today’s usk challenge.

Posted on May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Colours, Drawing, Fun, Photo, Picture, Staffordshire, Urban sketch day 15, Usk challenge, Usk Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

Today’s challenge was to draw something colourful. My eyes fell on an owl sculpture by a blacksmith who works at a Forge at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent. She’s called Charis Jones and her company is called Sculpted Steel.

Behind the owl is a plate that my hubby painted at the Gladstone pottery museum in Longton.

I started by drawing the outlines in black ink. I then filled in the colours with permanent ink markers and a few coloured pencils.

The colours are not all accurate, but as the brief was colourful I added some to the books and cds in the background while trying not to overdo it.

I’ve included a reference photo to give you an idea of what I was working from.

Hello duck!

Posted on May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cost kick a boe, Duck, England, Learning, Midlands dialects, Potteries dialect, Pronunciation, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, UK, Words3 Comments

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This was a sign in a local museum that someone shared on Facebook.

It was strange coming to live here. In my home town people would say hello chick, or love. But Stoke people say ‘duck’. I had no idea of the origins, and the first few times I heard it I literally did duck! I thought someone was warning me! Eventually, though, I got used to the greeting. Together with the phrase ‘cost kick a bow agin a woe an it it wi yer hed til ya bost it?’ I may have misspelt this but it means ‘Can you kick a ball against a wall and hit it with your head until you burst it?’

As you can see, the old dialect and pronunciation is interesting. But as someone with a west Midlands accent. Oim not reealy botheered abowt iyt.

Edinburgh Castle by zoom.

Posted on May 2, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Edinburgh Castle, Quick sketch, Sketching, Staffordshire, Urban Sketchers, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent, Virtual visitLeave a comment

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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent are holding weekly virtual visits to places we cannot go to at the moment. This week it was Edinburgh Castle.

About fifteen of us joined a zoom meeting to draw scenes from the castle and its grounds. We use Google to find the images to draw.

In my case I was late joining, and there was only a short time for me to draw before our throw down, that’s where we all get together to show our art, and to take pictures for a joint photograph of the results.

I’m not sure where we are going next week. But I’m enjoying these virtual visits.

Day fourteen USK challenge.. Pets

Posted on May 2, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Black and white cat, Cat sketch, Challenge, Drawing, Life, Pet, Pet drawing, Sleeping, Sleeping cat, Staffordshire, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent4 Comments

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I drew this at about 3.30am but waited to post till now. This is my fourteenth urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent drawing.

I have tried to draw the darker areas with heavier pen strokes. The lighter ones I’ve drawn with the same pen, but trying not to put as much pressure on. I used a unipin ink pen 0.8 size nib. On an A5 sheet of cartridge paper.

The stripey thing he is lying on is a knitted cushion in the shape of an owl. It’s my cats favourite sleeping spot as it’s over the gap between the chair arms of our two arm chairs, so he gets the chance to sleep between the two of us when we are there. He’s lying there now. Dozing…

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Staffordshire