Dorothy Clive Garden day

I was out today with a local group of artists called the Orme art group. We went to the Dorothy Clive Garden and enjoyed a warm if sometimes cloudy day painting the views. These are my three. All watercolour paintings. A3 size on a watercolour paper pad.

Can I say I was shattered after doing these? But I do feel guilty saying that after a lovely day out in splendid surroundings.

Terraces by the canal

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The sun beating down on Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent today. Terraced houses lined up near the canal. This is the Cauldon canal that heads towards Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands where it eventually joins with the river Churnet. The houses are lower down than the canal so there is a big retaining wall made of stone that prevents the water escaping from it. You can see the wall as it lifts up into a bridge over the canal on the left hand side. The street slopes away down towards the Trent and Mersey canal which is joined to the Cauldon canal by a series of locks. The Trent and Mersey is in the valley and runs close to the Trent River (which is really only a small river running through the city). The Trent eventually runs to the sea at Hull after passing east through Nottingham I think.

So these terraces are connected by water to many places. You might see them if you ever travel the canals.