Tonight’s sketches.

These are the best of the bunch of sketches I did at the Beehive pub in Honeywall tonight. Some of the others were not too bad, but when you are trying to draw moving people it is difficult to get enough information down rapidly enough. That was what happened with the other ones – I was not speedy enough.

One image I do want to get is my friend Kate playing the trombone. It’s a wonderful sound in a small pub. I’m also in love with the gleam and reflections on it. Next month I will try and get closer and do a better drawing if I can.

These drawings were done in a Seawhite of Brighton Plein Air Sketchbook size A5 with watercolour paper. Using a Bic grip roller black roller ball pen.

Rocking horse

IMG_20190306_012504_261

Did I once have a rocking horse ?

How fast did it go,

Over hills, over fields,

Up mountain paths,

Down into dales and vales.

If I had a rocking horse

Where did it live?

In stables or a farm yard

Or the back bedroom in our house.

What colour was that rocking horse

Was it a bay?

A white maned charger

A gentle, dappled grey?

I once had a rocking horse,

So long ago

I don’t remember anything-

Where did it go?

Painting

sketch-1551747238173

Sometimes my creative juices freeze

then like a bird I flit and flitter

from one path to another

sit and shiver.

Like a lonely lark.

Sometimes they thaw

but not enough

so the thought is there

but cannot reach from my brain

through my heart

to my hands.. ..

In other times my mind is woken,

colours flow

shapes fly from my fingers

hot sharp ideas stagger me with their invention.

Later, all is quiet again.

The mood has stormed its way through me.

Calm descends and I am lost in fog again.

Almost midnight

_20190211_122909

The green glow outside had intensified and was visible in her living room now. It was almost midnight and she knew if anything was going to happen it would be soon. He heart was pounding and she felt sweat trickle down the side of her nose. All she could do was hide.

She stepped into the old oak cupboard, pulled the door shut and hung on to the catch.

Suddenly the rushing noise outside was everywhere. She stuffed her hand in her mouth to stop screaming.

Gradually the noise calmed down, it quietened  there was a moment of a shrill scream and then silence.

In the morning it was on the news, her neighbour dead of a heart attack.

She never saw the green glow again…..

 

Classy lighting

Having taken a photo of an old gas lamp in Rhyl last year, I came across these today.

The lamps seem to have almost the same design as the lamp in Rhyl. But these are in much better condition because they were protected inside the Guildhall in Newcastle-under-Lyme and seem to have recently been restored.

Each lamp sits at the bottom of a sweeping curved staircase that splits at the top and comes down on either side of an almost circular lobby. Above the upright lamps hangs a formidable, eight branched chandelier with curving arms. Both the lamps and chandelier are lit with electric light bulbs. But looking at them they appear to have had gas mantles in the past.

Presently the guildhall at the ironmarket in Newcastle-under-Lyme is being run by volunteers. They are holding a cake making competition on Saturday 9 March 2019 for the finish of the fair trade fortnight. They are always looking for new volunteers.

As a bit of extra information apparently the hall was once used for grand ballroom dances. With stairs and lamps like this I’m sure it’s true.

Sleep

IMG_20190303_230237_339

Now I light my way to bed

Lots of thoughts twist in my head.

Have I shut the door and locked it?

Have I done it, or just thought it?

Have I got a book to read?

Till sleep descends within my head.

Will I sleep or will I wake?

Will I see a red dawn break?

Now I wonder what I’ll dream?

Soft and gentle will it seem?

Life is complex when I wake

Sleep reveals a nightmare fate.

Now I need to rest my head.

So I’m off to sleep in bed.

 

 

 

 

Bad weather

IMG_20180720_144523

The lake was quiet on that day in November. The little ferry was only open one day a week so people could get supplies from the local village. It had been raining all morning. Grey clouds full of grey rain. The lake remained calm, placid, but the weather threatened to grow worse and the pressure was dropping.

They had caught the ferry earlier on in the afternoon and now they were making the trip back. Suddenly the wind whipped up. The water started to get choppy and white tops grew on the waves that were building up. Instead of the calm trip they were used to, the little boat was rising and falling over the crest of the waves, tipping and twisting. The internal lights came on and the ships captain announced that they were taking in a little water and that all passengers must remain calm, but they should all go to their muster points at the front and back of the ferry.

It was not far from shore when the propeller caught an old floating tree trunk. The forward motion stopped and the ferry lurched up and down. Waves were crashing over the prow, and the rain seemed to intensify.

When the squall passed the boat was gone. Only floating life rafts could be seen from shore. Of the twenty people on the boat 18 survived. The only two that were missing were an older man and woman. They were still holding hands when their bodies were found on the shingle beach in the morning.

Then I forgot

sketch-1551559065377

I don’t remember anything after Saturday afternoon?

Who are you?

Where am I?

So many questions, I remember going to the park for a walk, I can see in my minds eye the youth on a motorbike, then I forget…. Its gone.

Who are you? A nurse? Who are they? My parents…..?

What did I do to get here?

Hello, yes I feel OK, just taking my pulse? My blood pressure….

Yes so you are my doctor?

There was a boy on a motorbike, I can see him in my minds eye. Where was that?

I need to sleep. Dreaming, remembering, she sees the park, the ducks running for the bread she was feeding them. The motorbike comes through the park gate, along the path, speeding, roaring. Breaks and skids to avoid the ducks and hits her hard….

Waking, the memory fades, she sees time reverse, only now she’s further down the path. The ducks are still on the lake. The sun is shining on her face. Heat. Her face is hot…..

Who am I?

Why am I here? I remembered, but then I forgot.

Addicted to blogging!

DSC_1715

I started blogging in January 2018. I’d never really written before. I’d done things in a little newsletter years ago and I’d tried to write a children’s book which I called the swimming dragon about a dragon wanting to get back to its family in South America. But I’ve never had that published and I spent hours over it. I even painted illustrations  But it never went anywhere because I was too nervous. It’s stuck on a floppy disc and on my old computer somewhere .

So I wasn’t expecting to get into this. It’s been a revelation to me. I know I’m only skimming the surface of blogging but I find myself more and more involved, to the detriment sometimes of painting which is what I intended this blog to be about.

I find myself enjoying writing short stories, sometimes with a little twist in the tale. Other times trying to write poems. I think about science and other subjects. I have stopped watching as much TV. I go out more so I can post photos of places. Most disturbing is that I no longer look at Facebook and Instagram as much.

Life is interesting, whether or not I shall continue at this pace I don’t know. But I’m enjoying things at the moment.

Nothing

DSC_1772

Couldn’t resist posting this photo.

On this site sept. 5, 1782 Nothing happened.

The day before had been busy, barges were loaded with pottery to take away on the canal, horses pulling the barges to distant towns along the trent and mersey canal…. . Seven days earlier a load of clay and ground flint had arrived. The pottery has been thrown on wheels or cast in slip. Then into the kilns so that they could be fired biscuit hard. The paintresses had decorated each pot with beautiful designs. These were the pots that were spreading out over the land now.

But today nothing happened.

Mable smiled at  Jeremiah, he smiled back, but nothing happened. Mabels father was not approving of Jeremiah, he was only a lowly saggar makers bottom knocker, making the bases for saggars. These were the pottery cases that fine pottery and china was fired in to protect it from the smoke from the coal. Jeremiah had no prospects. He was younger than Mable. She was the owners daughter.

All she could do was smile. All she could do was hope things would change. But today …

Nothing happened.

Maybe one day it would ..