Hanley town is the city centre of Stoke on Trent. We were there this evening. When we walked back to the car I noticed this building so took a couple of snaps since it reminded me of the Spode site in Stoke.
What bothers me is that such an amazing frontage has been allowed to remain like this. There is a new hotel and a big apartment block being built directly opposite the old building. And yet old buildings like this are left to rot. If it had money spent on it perhaps it could be rescued. Then instead of eventually being knocked down, or falling down, it could be restored.
On the same note an old Manor house at Betley in Staffordshire burnt down today. A lot of effort had gone into repairing and restoring it, now its mostly destroyed by fire. The world is a sadder place for its loss and people who had flats there have lost their homes.
The Glasgow school of art had burnt down a while ago and the restoration started, then another worse fire happened. Great art was lost.
The point I guess is that instead of always building new things we should save some of our history before it has gone, and protect what remains.
they still need a bit more work. I was painting till 4am. There are things wrong with them, I think the heads are too small slightly, but when you are painting on a matchbox sized canvas it’s hard to get things quite right. A couple of tiny brush strokes and it’s wrong and you have to start again. I left these early this morning as I wanted to see them in daylight. One thing I did notice is the moon on the blue one. I’ve got it curved the wrong way. The light is from the left so the curve needs to be in that direction. I’m also thinking of adding a few specks of white to another one to indicate stars. The one with the yellow sun might have some vegetation added.
