Parts of Britain and France are turning brown, fires are burning in France. Its happening across Europe. Its happening in America. Where has the rain gone? Crops are withering in places where the monthly rainfall has dwindled to almost nothing. Will the climate recover? Will rainfall be abundant again? The weather has only been overheated for a short time, but the damage is being done. What will happen in the future if we don’t reduce Carbon emissions and slow the increase in temperature we are currently experiencing? We are such a destructive species and we have started to overwhelm Earth. We only have one planet. Let’s try and take care of it.
Stained glass window in Burslem School of art. Its on the stairs, halfway up between the main floor and the upper floor. It has a history, but again I was in a rush and didn’t get the details. But it was created by the head of art there and his students. Its mainly painted on the glass and does not have a lot of lead segments like church windows. I think it’s beautiful and poignant, and a great memory to cherish.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is ‘straight’. The cat went straight up the tree! It was going to be a straight road but when I started drawing I changed my mind. Felt pens white pencil crayon and black ink fine line pen.
Making anything with symmetry and filters on my phone. Purple and green. Subtle architecture. I can see elven and pixy faces in green in the bottom row of the picture. Yes , there goes my pareidolia again! Pattern and colour. Fun!
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.
At the three counties open. There was a small group of musicians playing gentle music. I think it was jazz. They were in a corner, just taking up a small space by one of the doors. Three hundred or so people milled past them, looking at pictures, photos, paintings. The band played on. I don’t think any of them were hit by out flung elbows, but it was a lucky escape! As the evening progressed more people arrived. The ‘one glass of wine’ policy seemed to be relaxed. Two hundred and more unmasked people mingled and breathed on each other… And I felt worried and anxious. I’d forgotten to take a mask. I was like a baby taking my first steps… Very nervous.
While we were down in Falmouth we called in a bar for a drink. The prices were rather expensive so we only had one drink each. We only went in because they were offering 10% off some drinks for Falmouth University students. But that turned out to be for bottles of champagne, rising from £36 a bottle to over £100! That was the cost of one ersin staying at the hotel. We couldn’t afford that so we had a ‘sangria’ at £5 a glass! Even that was pricey and we all agreed it didn’t look like the normal recipe but the drinks were refreshing after the long degree ceremony we had just come from.
Our cat looked cute, but hubbies foot in a sandal was in the top right corner of the picture. I decided to try and hide it. I used my sketch app on my phone. Using the ‘chalk’ pen tool and the colour picker option. I carefully chose colours that corresponded with the parts of the mat that needed redrawing. I also drew over a metal tin that was in the bottom right of the picture. The chalk option was good because it gives a more mottled pattern to the mat. It’s not perfect but I’m reasonably happy.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was above. Thinking of above, anything over 5ft 6in is higher than me it could have been tree branches, buildings, Blackpool tower, but I went astronomical, Moon above Earth…, felt pen drawing.
Mallaband-Brown 