Day five of the potter's art challenge....and this camel seen in the window at the Buckenham Gallery in Southwold...is ready, willing and able to paaarrrtay!!

Where do the ideas come from?...I dread to think!

I think this sweet camel is long gone...off partying somewhere classy...but others will follow where he has lead no doubt.

You can always pop into the Potters House here on Heath Road Penketh to see what the potter is conjuring up at the moment.

Looking in  and...

...he's looking out!!

A Poem for Thursday....

I was asked by @neviepiecakes aka Natasha Collins...lovely daughter..if I would post some pics for seven days from the different series that I've taken on camera. Thankyou Natasha.
This photo is one of three from a travel series. It now belongs to a great friend. I'm sure that there are references in this pic from wonderful international photographers...and so I give them thanks for their blogs and hope that I may have learnt from them and their skills.

I often think poetry when I take pics...and this little poem is very apt for the feelings often there when on a long journey...and you are really nowhere!

To Travel

To travel is to be nowhere.

You’re not here

And you’re not there.

So,

If you get the wrong train to somewhere,

Or you get off at

The wrong station for somewhere,

Does that mean

That you have completely disappeared?

And when the train gets to somewhere

Will they find that you are nowhere.

And how will you get back from there?

I'll post the other two in the series for you. 

 The start of the journey

All change at Euston

Five day #art #challenge...day three...pelicans!...by the potter..Alan Snape Warrington, England

A pretty pair!!

Pelicans...

...a new commission has brought these fellows into being....

...wearing boots and ready for action...

...they will soon leave so I'm making sure that I have a memory of them...

A Poem for Thursday..."The loss".

We thought
That maybe we had lost her
On the day
They blew up the BBC building
In the middle of the city.
Her office
With it's ancient glass roof
Abutted the back wall.
Saving the Company
A need
To make her office more substantial.
Safer.
She never complained.
She was a lady who lunches.
And so it was on that day.
Though no thanks to the army
Who didn't like to make their way
Down the darkened alley
Into her lonely room.
Only the jolly aunt called
Before the detonator blew it all up
And gave her the..."Let's go Mary".

We thought
That maybe we had lost him
On the day
They targeted children
Near MacDonalds on Bridge Street.
He was selling his cheery mugs
announcing
"Mum"
And
"Nana"
And all those other titles in between,
Hawking his wares
In the shopping mall.
But the second bomb was at Boots
Where the children had run for safety.
So it missed him.
And he
Jolly as ever,
Found solace in the Town Hall
Where his son discovered him later.
And with northern canniness
Shrugged and said
"Glad you're safe dad".

"Extreme Drawing!"

Every now and then I try to get the people in the art group that I teach...

...to step out of their comfort zone ...

...and have a go at something that takes them into uncharted territory!

So this week they came into the studio to find drawing paper pasted up on walls and windows.
Sticks with pressed charcoal and chalk pastels taped to the ends and different sized brushes also on long pieces of garden bamboo .

Oow! Aww! Scary!

One or two suggested that after a half hour...maybe they could revert to their safe paintings!

But I got tough!

Result?....Fun and laughter as they tried to work with their arm at full length and the bamboo held almost out of control at the very end...a bit like Harry Potter waving the wand and casting a spell!

I don't think that they will be mounting or framing any of them...
...but the end results were better than they thought they were capable of.
And one or two even got so into it that they didn't want to stop...
...but those "potters" were due in after them so all had to end.
Here are a few of the morning's attempts.

I believe that Matisse often painted  with long brushes and chalks on the end of sticks...
..certainly at the end of his painting life when often he was unable to stand...
...but I should think also to loosen up his work...
.... the tendency always in art is to " pretty" things a bit too much.