Day 11 of the 30 Day Challenge, Blackberries

I think it's fair to say that where I live isn't the most picturesque or inspiring of of places. Stoke on Trent or the 'Potteries' is a strange place with no heart to the City, it sprawls across 5 run down towns, littered with remnants of its former industrial heritage and demolition sites. Unfortunately it's yet another City undergoing haphazard 'regeneration', dictated by an ill-informed Council.
But even in a place like this it's surprising what you can sometimes find on the doorstep. I live on the outskirts of one of the 5 towns, Longton. It's just a few miles from where I was born, and I have to say that it's the most depressing of places and not really somewhere that you would venture out for a stroll.... but recently I've noticed ( while sitting in the usual traffic jams) that if you look around there are all sorts of bits and pieces of green space in this town, like stepping-stones for wildlife.  Yesterday I ventured along a path that I'd spotted while stuck at yet another set of temporary traffic lights! it runs parallel with the main A50 road and  towards the incinerator and the Britannia football stadium....sounds lovely doesn't it!  But I found some great stuff there and the Council obviously did a good job with the planting in years gone by, with fruit trees, bushes and berries a plenty!
So I now have a haul of items sufficient to keep me going for at least another 10 days of the challenge! And the lesson here is.....stop putting off painting by using the excuse that there's nothing to paint....it's not true! there's always something to paint, you just haven't looked!
Here's my first effort from yesterdays find. The good old blackberry. 

Finished piece, watercolour and graphite

 It started as a simple single fruit study ( below ) but felt like I hadn't done enough, so started adding more berries and some leaves in graphite. I tend to think this isn't a good approach and usually like to have a clear idea of the outcome at the outset but I'm bending my own rules for this Challenge because it's good to bend your own rules.  Think I prefer it as it was in the simpler form, although  the curl of tissue where it was pulled from the stem is quite nice..... and inflicted considerable pain!

Single study first.

Close up, a bit blurred because this is much larger than actual size but I added it so you can see the colours in more detail.

Colours: Red berry: Transparent  Yellow and small amount of Cobalt Blue Deep for the green
Quinacridone Red wash graded into the greener berries,  and then as a wash the the remaining berries, remembering to leave all highlights clear. towards the left of the front berry I added Permanent Alizarin Crimson, where the berries are a cooler colour. I applied two washes and then used dry brush to model the form adding a small amount of Indanth Blue to the red for the shade red. I used cobalt deep and cobalt violet on the reflected light areas.
Blackberry: Indanth, blue and Permanet Alizarin Crimson with a tiny amount of cad yellow, I used different washes of the Indanth and Alizarin on top of the first wash tho show the blue or red bias in the berries. I used the same Cobalt Blue Deep and Cobalt Violet for the light as in the red berries.
Stalk and dried parts: French Ultra and trans yellow for the green. I added raw umber for the browns and hairs with some Permanent Rose and Indanth Blue added to make the darker brown. I used sepia for the darkest touches on the unpollinated dead flower anthers and filaments.
       

Society of Staffordshire Artists and the Pottery Industry

On October 9th I submitted 5 paintings to the Society of Staffordshire Artists adjudication panel for consideration for full membership and was delighted to receive a letter last week informing me that I had been successful.

Freesia watercolour. One of the paintings submitted to SSA for membership.

The SSA has been established for 80 years and has had some notable members and exhibitors since that time, including many that were also employees in the pottery industry. For me this is of interest because that's where I started out.  Past members include Minton's designer Reginald George Haggar RI,   Gordon Mitchell Forsyth RI , Leslie Gilbert RI and Arnold Machin RA, who is best known as the man who sculpted the relief portrait of the Queen used of the first decimal coins and on stamps, the portrait is said to be the most reproduced image ever printed! So I'm pretty pleased to be included.

I've seen many paintings of industrial scenes of the Potteries over the years but oddly enough I appear to be the only current flower painter in the Society and I don't see many in galleries either, which came as a surprise given the tradition of floral painting within the pottery industry. Both my mother and grandmother had worked as paintresses, and I worked as a design technician in the Royal Albert division of Royal Doulton in the 1980's. Having that background in the family meant that painting was always considered a completely 'normal' activity at home. I can recall my grandmother showing me how to paint the freehand floral designs of a Hollyhock pattern that she had painted at work when she was a young woman who worked at at E Brains China.

Sadly the Staffordshire Pottery industry has declined significantly in recent years,  largely due to the changing market, small producers were consumed by larger companies and much of the production was then outsourced to the middle east in the 1990's. It was no real surprise that the appeal of the product and emphasis on local skills was lost and along with it jobs.
Fortunately today there seems to be a glimmer of hope for the craftsmanship and bringing production back to the Potteries.
Funny how things come around as you get older,  I'd never really had much of an interest in the history of the pottery industry, in fact I couldn't wait to get away from Stoke and thought it the most grim of places when I left.