Category Archives: Animals

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023

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Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023. Ripley Town Hall, 25-26 November 2023.

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club hold two exhibitions a year, Spring and Autumn.  The club has over 60 members and meets on Thursday evenings at Harrogate Grammar School during terms.  There are visiting demonstrators or talks at about half of meetings.

I will be exhibiting 7 pictures at the Autumn Exhibition, including two continuous line drawings of animals based upon photographs.

Daniel, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite Windsor Grey carriage horse, in 2017 when he retired to the Horse Trust.  Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

I have always liked shire horses and I based this continuous line drawing on a photograph in the Daily Mail article by Lucy Holden on 3 August 2017.  Danial, retired Royal carriage horse, is romping around in the paddock at Horse Trust.  I have added “fluffy feet”.

My main reason for producing this drawing is the memory of taking my kids to Bradford Industrial Museum and seeing the shire horses arrive back from a procession in full regalia around Bradford.  The staff suggested that we watch the horses when they were released into the paddock after a hard days work.  The horses immediately started dashing around, prancing and rolling on the ground and leaping up again.  We were shocked, surely these heavy animals would break something!

Here is a photograph of Daniel having a roll at the Horse Trust.

Daniel the Royal carriage horse having a roll in the Horse Trust paddock. Daily Mail, Lucy Holden article, 3 August 2017.

Daniel was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite carriage horse for 15 years up to his retirement in 2017 at the age of 22.  His face appeared on a Royal Mail stamp in 2014 and a life size bronze sculpture of him, and another of colleague Storm, appear to trot across the grass on the roundabout near the Long Walk in Windsor. Sculptor Robert Rattray, who was commissioned by residents to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, said “Daniel is an old stalwart and rather cantankerous”.

Bald Eagle, swooping down for a fish. Mick Burton, continuous line Artist.

I based this continuous line drawing of a Bald Eagle on a Getty Image shown below.  I found that progressing overlapping loops worked well with the feathers.

Bald Eagle, Getty Image.

I also did a preliminary drawing in pen and colour pencil.

Bald Eagle in pen and coloured pencil. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

 

 

 

Fluorescephant continuous line to Irrelephant Elephant in 50 years

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I have just had my 80th Birthday and received two cards which both stated “Remember… age is irrelephant!” along with a picture of an Elephant.  Here is one of them below.

Birthday card “80 years young” and “age is irrelephant!” by Pigment Productions Ltd.

This reminded me of my continuous line elephant with colour sequence which was exhibited at the International Amateur Art Exhibition, at Warwick Square Gallery, London, in February 1973 and at the National Society Open Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, in March 1973.  It is the forerunner of “Elephant Grass” at the top of these posts.  I call it “Fluorescephant”.

“Fluorescephant” continuous line exhibited at the International Amateur Open Exhibition and at the National Society Open Exhibition in 1973.

My flatmate Phil suggested that I call it “Fluorescephant”, which I thought was an excellent suggestion.  This word is still uniquely referenced to me on Google.  When I googled “irrelephant” some dictionaries say that it means “Not related to elephants: irrelevant to the discussion of elephants”.

One image that popped up was actually a single continuous line elephant which appears on a shirt produced by “Spreadshirt”.  I am impressed, even though they say that my opinion is irrelephant.

Single continuous line Elephant “Your opinion is irrelephant” on shirt produced by “Spreadshirt”.

This play on words is a bit like “Answersmash”, a game played on the TV game show “House of Games” presented by Richard Osman.

Being 80 triggers all sorts of daft thoughts.  I have told people that I was wondering about Best Before dates on things.  I have decided to adopt one for myself.  About 10 years ago, at a table tennis venue where the home team had a box of wrapped biscuits for visitors, we joked that most of them were past their “Best before dates”.  But I found one that was fine and it’s date was 29.04.3013.  That will do for me!

Cadbury Flake wrapper Best Before Date of 29.04.3013. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

 

 

 

“That’s our Water on the Gold Coast”.

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“That’s our Water on the Goldcoast”. Reaction by Terry when shown “Climate Change Down Under”, a continuous line drawing by Mick Burton.

Our friends Cathy and Terry, who live in Queensland, Australia, were over here recently.  I showed them a photo of my painting “Climate Change Down Under” which I featured in a recent post and I show it again below.  Terry immediately said “That’s our Water!”.

Climate Change hits Australia. Continuous line drawing. Mick Burton.

When I painted it I simply wanted to include a shape depicting Water in blue, in contrast to the Fire in red and the Sunshine in yellow on the land behind.  We knew that Cathy and Terry lived on the Gold Coast and overlooked some moorings, but I did not realise that their waterways were so similar to my painting.

Here is a broader view of their wonderful part of the Gold Coast, which is near Brisbane in Queensland.  Their “water” is at the bottom of the map.

Runaway Bay, on the Gold Coast, showing Cathy and Terry’s “water” at the bottom. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

When Joan and I visited Cathy and Terry in May 2013, they lived inland as I mentioned in the post of October 2022.  Cathy dropped us off in the Gold Coast for the day and here are a few photos.

Gold Coast, Queensland. May 2013. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Pelicans near the beach, Gold Coast, Queensland. May 2013. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Sunset on the Gold Coast, Queensland. May 2013 at about 4.30pm. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Continuous Line Drawing in Colour by Logan Clarke.

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Logan's continuous line hen.

Continuous line Hen by Logan Clarke. Mick Burton post.

Logan contacted me a couple of months ago, saying that he was in Year 7 at a school in Derbyshire and that his Art Teacher had asked his class to complete a homework project based upon my art.

He liked the Rhino that I had featured recently (which was done by a member of Pateley Bridge Art club during a workshop) and my Hen with eggs, which I show below.  He asked for some advice on how I do my continuous line drawings.

Harriet’s Busy day. Single continuous line drawing with colour sequence. Background based on eggs. Mick Burton, 2012.

I sent Logan a short write up on my approach to Continuous Line Drawing and he later sent me his marvellous coloured drawing of his own hen invention, shown at the top of this post.  He has used a range of colours which go well together and the yellows are placed in a very balanced way.  He shows the vibrancy and character of the hen.

Logan’s Dad Paul also had a go at a continuous line Guinea Pig which I show below.

Logan’s Dad Paul Clarke’s continuous line guinea pig. Mick Burton post.

This is an excellent compact drawing with solid balanced colours.  I can imaging this animal bulldozing its way through the straw.

Logan had said that he was due to visit York on holiday and he was looking forward to doing a drawing of York Minster.  I said that I would like to see the result.  Here it is.

York Minster, drawing by Logan Clarke. Mick Burton post.

I mentioned to Logan that I have an ancestor, Thomas Mace a 17th century composer, who said in his book on music that he was at a service in the Minster during the Civil War when York was under siege by Cromwell’s soldiers.  He described how a small missile from a gun smashed through a high window and bounced off several pillars inside before hitting the floor.  Made me think of a pin ball machine.

 

Climate Change Hits Australia, continuous line drawing.

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Climate Change hits Australia. Continuous line drawing. Mick Burton.

I have been looking at using the Primary Colours in a way which uses the colour mix when they overlap.  I wanted to produce a result as effective as that achieved in my “Knight’s Tour Fragments” abstract shown below.

“Knight’s Tour Fragments”, acrylic on canvas. Exhibited at Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club Exhibition in November 2016. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Here I produced a similar effect to overlapping pieces of coloured glass.

This time I decided to give each Primary Colour a distinctive shape which seemed to reflect the nature of the colour itself.  Red often represents Fire and so I decided to use straight lines and pointed angles to contain it.  Blue is a quieter colour often representing water and so I decided upon curves and flowing fingers to contain it.  Yellow can represent the sun and I thought of the outline of Australia, which includes the “sunshine state” of Queensland.

Joan and myself visited some friends of hers in Queensland in 2013.  They lived inland from Brisbane in a large wooden house that they built, which had a couple of wallabies resident in the garden.  They moved to live on the Gold Coast a few years ago, but heard from old neighbours in early 2020 that a bush fire had nearly destroyed their old house.  The street had been evacuated and the fire was apparently heading for the house but veered off in another direction just in time.  The increased number of fires are attributed to Global Warming.

Earlier this month we saw on the news that floods in Sydney were amongst the worst since records began in the 1850’s.

With all these things coming together, I decided upon Primary Colours and Australia as part of a Continuous Line workshop I did a couple of weeks ago at Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club.

For the picture at the top of this post, I superimposed the straight line Red fire line and the curvy Blue water line on top of the sunny Yellow Australia.  This produced semi-primes Orange, Green and Violet areas and where all three Primes overlapped we have a sort of muddy Brown.

I like to think that the outline of a subject can be used to direct continuous lines into the interior which create an image representing the subject.  After completing a single continuous line over a map of Australia I realised that there was something like a kangaroo in there which I have marked in red.  Also, if you push things a little, there may be a Black Swan over Western Australia.

Kangaroo and maybe Black Swan images from single continuous line of Australia. Mick Burton.

The friends we visited have my Wallaby painting in their house on the Gold Coast.

Wallaby, or Kangaroo. Single continuous line drawing and colour sequence. Massive distance background added. Mick Burton, 2013.

Other Primary Colour things we did I will cover in a later post.

 

 

Alien Creatures on Train Tracks Puzzle Continuous Line.

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Alien Creature continuous line from Train Tracks Puzzle.    Puzzle Madness, Large, 1.5.2022.  Mick Burton.

This is an update from my post of 24 December 2020 when I explained how I had started Train Tracks Puzzles during Covid lockdowns.

When I try to solve a Train Tracks Puzzle, I draw out the grid freehand and copy in the cross references of number of tracks in vertical or horizontal rows as well as the given pieces of track.  A big part of the process is marking the squares, which will not have track pieces, with a circle or cloud shape.  I draw in the track I have decided upon with a line between given pieces of track.

Most people will complete the puzzle on their phone or laptop from start to finish, but I just like drawing things, rather than hitting wrong buttons on keypads most of the time.  Here is my initial drawing.

Initial drawing of Train Tracks Puzzle 1.5.2022. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

I coloured all “given pieces of track” yellow and the interior of the Alien red in Sharpie pen and did lighter background with coloured pencils, leaving the cloud shapes white.

Here is another Alien from two days later.

Green Alien based upon Train Tracks Puzzle.    Large 3.5.2022 Puzzle Madness.   Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

I mentioned in my post of 24.12.2020 that I was at position 272 out of the 863 people listed.  Also that I had scored 17.925 points compared to the top rated Stirlingkincaid with 2,766,965. This was nearly twice the points of anyone else and I wondered if he ever slept.

I got to about position 130 and for a time just tried to keep treading water at that level.  The number of participants had more than doubled since I started.  Here is the summary a few months ago, at about the time I ceased to do the puzzles.  You can find the Train Tracks puzzles on     www.PuzzleMadness.co.uk      .

All time Train Tracks table on Puzzle Madness in June 2022. Top three all over 4 million points and Mick Burton on 240 thousand.

GA had drawn level with Stirlingkincaid on 4,221,000 but both trailed Stevo by 665.  Fourth place Antique was only on 2,708,990.  Do any of them ever sleep?

I have kept quite a lot of my initial drawings and may do some more Aliens.

 

 

Stainbeck Arts Club Annual Exhibition at Chapel Allerton Arts Festival.

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Stainbeck Arts Club Annual Exhibition at Chapel Allerton Arts Festival.

The Stainbeck Arts Club has its first Annual Exhibition following the end of Covid on Saturday 3rd September 2022.  As usual it is in the Chapel Allerton Methodist Church and alongside the activities of the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival.  Entry is free and a fine range of paintings and cards will be on view.

If you are interested in joining the club, our meetings are on the second and fourth Tuesdays each month from 2pm to 4pm.  Just ask for details at the exhibition.  You can come along to see what we doing before deciding to join. 

Have a look at our Website       https://stainbeckarts.co.uk 

 

 

Another Artist in the Burton Family

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Fathers’ Day card, from my daughter Kate, painted by my grandson Lucas.      Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

This action painting reminded me of a fast rushing stream.

Kate is a professional artist and film maker (see my post of 2 February 2016 – “BB” by Kate Burton, Glasgow film maker, at London Short Film Festival), and three year old Lucas receives plenty of encouragement to make pictures.

Lucas also squeezes paint tubes directly onto a piece of card to create mixes of paint, before Kate provides another piece of card to squash the paint.  There is a sort of ink blot “butterfly” copy effect.

Lucas squeezes paint directly from the tube.        Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Here are some results, along with “Grandad” type observations.

Lucas watery landscape.         Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

This result made me think of a sort of Chinese or Japanese landscape painting.  Here is a modern version for comparison.

Autumn Mountains at Dawn, by Zhang Daqian.      En.wahooart.com.

The next picture has the appearance of a flying elephant, and I have done a few continuous line elephants in my time.  

Lucas’s flying elephant.    Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Lucas’s flying elephant.  Naturally, he has a squash copy flying the other way.  See below Dumbo, the most famous flying elephant.

Dumbo the Elephant, from Tim Burton’s remake of Dumbo Takes Flight.

Another Lucas watery image reminded me of a Monet.

Lucas – garden pond squash painting.    Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

Here is one of Monet’s many paintings of water lilies.

Water Lilies Giverny – by Claude Monet.

One day I may tell you about a picture Kate painted when she was four.

Pateley Bridge Art Club Continuous Line Drawings

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Pateley Bridge Art Club member’s single continuous line Rhino with internal pattern.

I was at Pateley Bridge Art Club earlier this month with a Demonstration and Workshop for the members.  They have covered the evening in their News Blog with a report by Charles Mellor, which included 16 examples of members’ pictures.  You can find the report at >      https://www.pateleybridgeartclub.org      .

I include here an additional three pictures by members which illustrate how you can devise an internal pattern which represents aspects of the subject.  Members could base their initial attempt at a continuous line, or lines, on a subject of their choosing or one or more of several faint outlines provided by myself.

I demonstrated how the basic ongoing line can involve curves, loops, angles, etc. taking in parts of the outline itself and involving where possible a novel pattern for that subject.  At the same time there is a need to leave spaces for the line to return to the start.  I said that members were free to use rubbers to correct their drawings or have more than one continuous line in their picture to get used to the process.

One member drew a Giraffe which incorporated some of the distinctive inner pattern of that animal.

Giraffe by Pateley Bridge Art Club member, showing inner pattern.

My third example is a Zebra where the member has included the famous stripes.

Head of a Zebra, by Pateley Bridge Art Club member.

The Rhinoceros above has a good inner pattern reflecting the armour plating appearance of the animal.  It reminds me of the woodcut by Albrecht Durer, who was amongst the first artists to portray this animal.

Rhinoceros woodcut by Albrecht Durer in 1515.

And that’s not all.  The Pateley Bridge member’s Rhino at the top of this post has a clear single continuous line and includes two specific features I have used in the past which appear in pictures which I displayed on the evening but may, or may not, have have influenced the drawing of this Rhino –

a.  The Rhino’s left eye is depicted by a gap in the outline, similar to my Panther’s right eye below, where I show only the pupil of the right eye.

b.  The Rhino’s armour pattern involves the outside running into the interior of the animal, similar to my Zebra below.

Continuous line Zebra without crossover lines.

I have requested that the Pateley Bridge member, who did the Rhino, copies the line and then applies alternate shading to highlight the “inside outside” effect.  If not I may have to do it myself.

Picasso was certainly aware of this “inside outside” situation.  At my Demonstrations I pass around Picasso’s book “One-liners” which has 50 pictures.  Most have the line starting at one end and then stopping on completion elsewhere, but there are several which are single continuous lines.  The last two pen drawings in the book are as follows.

Picasso “Studies for Mercury”. Picasso’s One Liners. Artisan, 1997.

On the left, the head, arms, body and legs are all inside the single continuous line.  At first glance it is the same on the right, but in fact there is no “inside”.