THE LADY LOVES ORANGE

Faber Castell Artist's Brush Pens and Dovercraft Dual Tip Markers
used for all 5 drawings shown on this post

In my childhood Clarice Cliff Art Deco pottery was used for it's intended purpose - drinking a coffee, eating a meal, putting flowers in a vase.  Nowadays items can be worth hundreds or even thousands of pounds sterling depending on their size and rarity. 

When I was about 4 or 5 years old I hated the stuff, the strange orange trees and red mountains offended my sense of what was right, and what I thought of as streaky paint looked like careless painting.  And boy, did that lady love orange!

Now that I am older and wiser, and know more about art, I hate it even more.  So why have I chosen to use Clarice Cliff designs for the Artist's Playroom and Inspiration Avenue challenges?  Because I'm a sucker for punishment.  I know many people love her work and I apologise to them for my bad taste! 

I have to say that her Art Deco design for a cup handle must be the most useless ever invented.

And even worse, the APR theme is Cups and Mugs.  Now I cannot draw a cup or a mug that looks realistic with the correct curves and ellipses, and I just hope Tracey Fletcher King never makes the mistake of looking at this blog post because she is, in my eyes, the Queen of Cups.

 The designs I've drawn on my mugs are not straight copies of Clarice Cliff designs.  The crocus and strange yellow tree cups are fairly close, just to get me going.  For the other three designs I have used elements that are common in her work arranged in my own designs.

The brush pens and markers were quite good for imitating the streaky paintwork that I disliked so much as a child, and I was quite pleased with the effect.  If you are interested in Clarice Cliff pottery you can see dozens of examples on the internet and perhaps be surprised at the prices collectors will pay.

The theme for Take a Word this week is Orange, and I think there should be enough orange in my CC mugs to qualify, but here's a bright little flower centre as a bonus.

I'm going to be taking part in the Summer of Colour challenges, which start next week.  Take a look at the Summer of Colour blog to see what's going to be happening.