Tag: Stoke-on trent

Elephant in the room.

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I painted this a few years ago. It was an elephant my friend made for penkhull mystery plays. It was used in a procession onto the village green and was carried by shoulder straps. I think it had cloth legs hanging over the edge to make it look like someone was sitting on the elephant.

It was so amazing I decided to record it as a painting. The frame was made of willow withies then canvas was stretched over the frame and painted white. Finally a fringe was attached to it and other fabric decorations.

The painting went to my friends house but sadly the elephant is no more. I think it was burnt in a fire at the garage it was stored in a few years after the play.

My studio

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If you want to see somewhere full of paintings you could look round my studio. There are paintings of people, abstracts, animals, landscapes, buildings, cars, plants, or anything else you can think of.

I tend to use acrylic on canvas but also paint in watercolours and gouache. I have worked with pastel and with pencils and ink pens. I like anything that makes marks. Once at college I even drew with boot polish.

I paint on canvas and paper but I have painted on wooden doors when I was a student..

So yes I’m an artist, I can’t stop!

Sculpture at Trentham Gardens

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We visited Trentham Gardens yesterday and it was great to see so many statues at the park. Many were fairy sculptures, several were new (at least to me). The only one that I think had always been there was the sculpture of Medusa being killed by Persius. I can remember seeing it before the Gardens were sold off. Now there are so many more sculptures there. Many of them are of fairies holding dandelion seed heads. There are also wildlife statues including owls, mice, slugs, frogs and other animals. I had a lovely afternoon taking photos of them.

The day was rather overcast and the flowers were past their best but there were also a lot of shapely seed heads to enhance the view. We don’t go to the gardens very often, perhaps once or twice a year. But it is worth visiting.

Penkhull flag result

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A while ago Penkhull residents association decided to have a competition to create a flag for the village. The pictures surrounding the final flag were the 10 designs that had the most overall influence over the final design. I was really pleased to find out that one of them was my design. (the middle top design).

It feels good to have a flag to describe the village. The oval and lines coming in symbolise the village green and the roads coming into and surrounding it. The cockrel is based on the weather vane on top of the church. The colours are vibrant and cheerful. Local people had a choice of 4 designs taken from dozens of entries. The central flag in the photo was the winning design.

Glass workshop

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One of the advantages of having a studio at spode is the fact you meet so many creative people.

One of them is a lady called Angela who makes glass art and runs workshops.

We had a very pleasant few hours today making some new pieces of glass. We used new techniques to make larger bowls (they will be when they are fired) and handkerchief vases which will be placed over a glass shaped form which the glass slumps over.

I hope we can go back for more.

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Buses

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I was looking at Facebook and this came  up on my memories from a year ago. It seems like Gladstone has turned into an annual event. These photos were taken on my old phone but I think they came out OK.

Bus’s, bus, busses, buses,

Hiss of air brake, diesel drumming,

Sitting up top, out looking,

Running upstairs, keep on trucking,

Ding ding, we’re off

Charabang to the coast

Come look at me,

By the sea 🌊

Just a short trip up town

Buy a dressing gown.?

Memories of buses

Number 21

Conductor checks the ticket

Missed it, now its gone..

Tiles

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Tiles at Gladstone yesterday.

I think they are by Minton which was a Pottery that went out of business a few years ago when a lot of Pottery manufacture went abroad because it was cheaper.

I know lots of people admire these tiles and they are often found in hallways in old victorian houses in this area. Our local church, St Thomas’s has tiles by Minton. The factory was based in Stoke-upon-trent, which is one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent.

Many of the people in the town were laid off from factories in Stoke, including Spode. Only a few places still make Pottery now, including Emma Bridgewater, Portmerion, Moorland Pottery, Moorcroft and I think Wedgwood…. There is also a tile manufacturer called Johnson’s tiles. But nothing really compares to the beauty of Minton.

Raku and sawdust..

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While we were at Gladstone today we saw a couple of interesting ceramic techniques. The first was by a lady called Tez. She was firing some raku Pottery. She had some pots in a metal bin with a gas jet heating it at the base. I didn’t find out what temperature she was firing at, but she said it takes about 40 minutes for a firing plus the work on the pots afterwards. Once they had been fired the pots were taken out of the bin and put in another one to rapidly cool causing crazing in the glaze. The lady put lots of beech shavings on top of the pots so that it smothered the fire. We were told that the wood sucks the oxygen out of the air around the pots and is a reduction reaction causing the copper in the glazes to shine through in a wonderful sheen.

The other technique we saw was more subtle. This time another potter put her pots in a box of burned sawdust ash. The pot was then covered in fresh sawdust mixed with white spirit. She sprinkled some of the burnt ashes on the pot to mask some areas then set light to the sawdust. As it burned it gave a mottled effect on the pot. It looked like it was being aged.

Finally there was some traditional stone ware pottery for sale. Fired in an ordinary kiln but also lovely to look at

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Today at Gladstone

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I’m in a group called urban sketchers. Today we braved the wind and cold and went out to draw and sketch there. I got quite chilly and damp but it was worth it. There were about 8 or 9 of us there.

There is so much to see at the Gladstone Pottery museum. Plus there is a nice little shop with Pottery for sale and a good friendly cafe upstairs.

Sited in Longton, Stoke on Trent, the Gladstone Pottery museum shows you the history of ceramics. There is a flushed with success section about toilets and a display of ceramic flower making, pot throwing, an old engine house, a doctors house and surgery. A selection of historical tiles and much more.

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Transitions

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We have an art challenge at Spode studios to come up with an art work which follows the theme “transition” or “transitions”.

I would normally come up with a realistic painting but I’m also toying with something more abstract. These are initial digital drawings, working on the transition from grainy to smooth, straight to curvy, and changes of colour.

I might try and turn one of these into a large painting. In a way it’s also making me think about changing my work practice from quite a straightforward way of working into something more involved.

Watch thus space for possible updates….

I might even enter something into the exhibition….