New paintings and regular art updates.
The clouds shone like copper tonight, not red or gold. This is the closest I can get to the colour like in this photo. I’m still looking out for a view of the comet that’s in the evening sky after sunset when it’s clear, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
I wish I could have taken a photo of the actual sunset but I was driving and my camera was in the handbag on the back seat and I couldn’t find anywhere to stop. I will try and look again tomorrow
Some younger people might not recognise these! Pennies and two pence, change from all those £*. 99 purchases. * being 0 and above pounds.
When British Money was decemalised in the 1970’s we went from 240 pence (D) in a pound (L). That was made up of 20 shillings (S) each of twelve pence. And the shilling was also made up of two sixpence, or four threepenny bits, or 24 half pence or 48 farthings (1/4 of a penny) and apparently there was a mite (1/8 of a penny). There was also half a crown which was two shillings and sixpence. (a florin was two shillings). A crown was five shillings. Ten shillings was half a pound and twenty one shillings was a Guinea. Somewhere among the smallest coinage were groats…..
Hence the Pounds, shillings and pence, or L. S. D. You can imagine how confusing that was for a child. My pocket money was either two threepenny bits or a sixpence, going up to a shilling as I got older.
When we went to 100 pence in a pound, the smallest coin was 1/2 new pence (p), a new penny came next, two pence (all copper coloured), five pence (silver coloured) ten, twenty and fifty pence. The fifty and twenty are not round but have seven sides I think? Eventually the half pence was discontinued and later a bi coloured pound coin was bought in, followed by a bi coloured (bronze and silver coloured) two pound coins.
So we get to recent times where notes are now plastic instead of the paper and rag (cloth was used for strength) notes of the past.
Coins and notes are still used, if you can’t afford credit or use the Internet it’s still needed. But smaller denominations, like pence, might disappear. Some of the coins have got smaller over time. Will we see king Charles third on coins? I guess they will be introduced over the next few years. Maybe the copper coins will disappear soon.
(The .99 pence idea fools you into thinking you are spending less than a full pound £1.00) well you are but only 1% less!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt green. I did two versions of this, one a drawing, the other filtered through photodirector. I was going to draw vegetation but then I saw a bright green patch of verdigris on a two pence piece. The colour was amazing compared with the old dull coppers.
I had just done a post about coppering up. Finding loose change to spend, which is why I happened to look in the tub of coins so I used them as my inspiration.
Has anyone else got a box of old coins that they have collected over the years? Sometimes it’s because prices are £9.99 so you get a penny change…
Then other bits and pieces of detritus arrive in the box. This is hubbys main doing. Elastic bands, bits of wire, his allergy tablets.
When we are short of cash we copper up. Digging out any silver coins or pound coins. So in a way it should be silver up? Making discoveries of literally lots of five pence coins! Today we uncoppered about ten pounds in change. Hard to take shopping, but there is a coin exchange machine in the supermarket which gives shopping vouchers to the value of your change.
The best thing about this photo? the verdigris on one of the coins.
Not again! This silly little ring just fell off again. My fingers on my right hand must be getting thinner (my left always feels swollen), it means when I wash my hands the ring can slide off. Today it ended up in the washing up bowl. You will say take it off? But if I do I might not remember where I put it!
I think I will buy a slightly smaller ring to hold it in place, or maybe discard it completely. It’s only a cheap copper thing with a blue bead, but it was a gift from a friend and I like it.
Brown is boring
Brown’s like grey
Such a shame
Is there no way
To be exciting
On a cold wet day
It looks so drab.
But a shaft of sunlight
Brightener of all
Lifts it to Golden brown
Or the colour of copper kettles
Bronzed or even brassy
Makes me happy
Brown can be sassy
I wanted to show you a part of the Staffordshire Moorlands that we visited today. Consall Forge once was an industrial landscape and is part of the industrial archaeology of the area. Sitting in an isolated valley it was connected by a narrow gauge railway between Leek and Froghall Wharf. The Consall Forge was about half way along the valley. We have ridden on the preserved railway several times, but I have never found out about its history before. I have seen old lime kilns there but didn’t know their origins. I think the lime was used in the pottery industry and I think there may be a pottery there?
GOOGLE SAYS: Consall Forge kilns. At Consall Forge against the canalised River Churnet stands a bank of four large limekilns. These date from the early nineteenth century and were linked to the North Stafford Railway, a plateway built between 1815 and 1819, running from the Caldon Canal to north of Caverswall.
The valley continues to Froghall Wharf where there is a station for the railway with a good tea room and station shop. The line passes through the ruins of a copper factory which is possibly going to be developed. This makes Froghall much less picturesque than either Cheddleton, where the Churnet Valley Railway starts and Consall Forge which is where we were. The Cauldon canal was used for transporting coal from Froghall Wharf to Uttoxeter but was closed after losing money because of its rural location. It opened in 1811 and closed in 1849.
There is also a nature reserve at Consall. You can get there along narrow country lanes, along the railway or along the canal or its towpath.
Close up photo of a metal ring holder and a copper coloured stapler. It’s interesting what you can do with duplicated photos. I didn’t know it was going to look like this. It looks like architecture or a space ship with a distant galaxy reflected on the shining floor of the ship. I will play with some more images, juxtaposing different shapes, textures, and colours.
Copper tree, copper sculpture. Photo taken at Trentham Gardens last year. I think it looks Grecian, or Celtic. I like to collect interesting images and this was very striking. I think it’s on the far side of Trentham Gardens Lake? I haven’t been back since with all the problems with the virus and the way things are going it might be winter or later before I go back? Various parts of the country have gone back into increasing quarentine measures. The threat for them is fines of up to £10000 for breaking the rules. So I will remember things rather than going out much. I will try and stay safe, and watch small businesses fail. The world is beautiful and sad.
I like this, the way everything seemed to line up. The wind spinner, lilies and the chair, and I like the colour combinations. The copper colours with the greens and browns. The cloud cover seemed to enhance the shadows as the sun crept out from between them. The calla lily infront of the budda.
Mallaband-Brown