New paintings and regular art updates.
Well after painting all afternoon we’ve decided to go out to our favourite Thai restaurant for tea. It’s valentines day so I’m treating my hubby.
We have ordered Tom Kha (Thai soup), Gang Phed Ped Yang (roast duck curry) and pork with pac choi, plus some rice. I think that’s plenty. I imagine I will be asleep before we finish it I’m so tired! As usual the chef has sent us out extra food!
Have a lovely valentines night if you are celebrating! Might be back later.
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I’m off out to choir practice today. Learning new songs, and old ones to different tunes.
I’m sure my mental health has been better since I began going to a choir over ten years ago. It’s good for things like relaxation and concentration. I would recommend it to anyone who nerds some stress busting.
I can be sitting with the choir with no memory if the words or tune. Then almost miraculously they come to me as we start singing. We sing mainly acappella and my voice is most suited to alto and low parts.
We learnt a version of let your little light shine for the Stoke sings choir festival the weekend before last. With words that were appropriate to the cities history of pottery and mining.
I hope we sing it again tonight. It was fun to sing with 600 other people belting out the various parts. It is on YouTube somewhere.
Imagine whirling around with a bunch of people… Then imagine some of them looking completely confused, going in the wrong directions and flinging each other about in mad abandon. That’s a barn dance. Add amazing live music. A caller explaining the dance moves to people trying to understand what on earth he’s saying. The fun that can be had getting dizzy, twisting and turning, jumping about….
And a pie and peas supper that has both meat and vegetarian options.
It’s all in aid of the Penkhull Mystery play this July.
If you are in the area perhaps you would like to come along to these February Frolics and then get involved in the mystery play itself where there are openings to act, make props and help paint scenery. You never know you might enjoy it.
You know it’s cold when the ice that was put in the sink on Friday night is still frozen in the sink on Sunday.
This is what had happened at the “an, exhibition of Blue”, which I was helping invigilate yesterday.
The exhibition space is in part of the old Spode Factory which has been converted into artists studios. The building used to be full of pottery machinery and pottery kilns. I imagine they did not need much insulation in those days. Now, however, thin walls and single glazed windows together with thick concrete ceilings high up which allow all the heat to rise make for icebox conditions in the winter.
We also did not know where the switch was for the space heater that sits next to the lift. So guests and artists alike stood next to or inside the kitchen where a small electric fan heater was trying to defrost the ice in the sink! People tried to sit on the couches to keep their feet off the freezing concrete floors. I’d been there three hours before one of the other artists at Spode found the heater switch in a cupboard! I did feel foolish for not looking.
Even though it was cold we got a good turn out. The exhibition will be coming down soon but it may be possible to get one of the exhibitors to show you round if you are interested.
Finished Jupiter Blue. This painting of one of the poles of Jupiter is what I have done for an Exhibition based on the colour blue. It looks more blue than the original photo because of this. The picture brush strokes are not as soft as I wanted, in fact it seems to have taken on a Van Gogh feeling. Come and see the result in the flesh at “an Exhibition of Blue” at Spode Site, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, at the artists studios. Starting 6pm on Friday 1st February 2019. There are over 20 artists exhibiting.
I’ve been doing some more work on this painting. I want to get it finished this week. It’s a painting of one of the poles of Jupiter. In the photo it has a bluish tinge but I’m trying to make it bluer as the exhibition title is “an Exhibition of Blue” on in Spode exhibition space at Acava Studios, Spode Site, Eleanor Street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent. From 2nd February 2019.
There’s not many places in Britain where you can wander round with flaming torches (but no pitchforks). But today we did just that round Penkhull Village. From Penkhull village hall we walked down the road to a garden with an ancient apple tree. The Domesday Morris danced and poured cider over its roots, Wassailing (shouting Wassail) to bless it and get it to flourish in the coming year. Domesday Morris danced, the Clay choir, which I sing with, sang Wassailing songs such as ” The old Cornish Wassail” and “the Penkhull Wassail” ( written by Duncan Bourne). Penkhull village brass band and the Penkhull Ukelele band also played.
Once we had drunk warm cider down at the garden we walked back up the hill and on to the local pubs, the Marquis of Granby, the White Lion, which was closed for some reason. We then went to The Beehive pub on Honeywall which had laid on some sandwiches. Then back across the hill to the Terrace pub and up to the Greyhound pub and Manor Court ale House where we finished singing and dancing. The Morris group were brilliant with their decorated hats, bells and boots. When they start dancing their sticks fly and swirl and clash together in time with the music So exciting to watch.
We went over to the village hall for hot soup. Some people stayed for a barndance, but as we were tired out we came home to get warm and have a hot coffee.
No monsters or zombies were affected by this Wassail.
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