New paintings and regular art updates.
Enjoyed the virtual sketch out today with #uskstoke ! I drew our house off Google maps, it was too cold and wet to stand outside. Anyone who knows where I live knows my views out of the house are limited so I drew two other places I know from photos too! Oh how I wish I could get out more…. They are Gladstone pottery museum and Penkhull church. Both drawn as snowy scenes so at least they look a bit like the weather today….
Up the hill and round the bend to Penkhull…. Just over 3km but it is steeply up and down hill. We walked along the road towards the local high school too. The view over the Lyme Valley where it is set was in danger of being lost as there was a fight over hundreds of houses being built there. Hopefully that won’t happen. Cities need green Lungs…..
I came home then went for a second, shorter walk with a friend. I’m shattered!
As I was busy yesterday I missed doing a drawing of something local that was the prompt from stoke urban sketchers. I wanted to do a picture of somewhere a bit further away as my local pottery is not the most exciting image and I’ve already drawn it.
This is Penkhull Church at the top of our hill. It was built in the Victorian era and it is a lovely piece of architecture and centre of the community. It needs some restoration, which has partly been done but as with everything old work needs to continue on it.
If you ever feel like donating I’m sure there is some sort of fund that donations can go to. I don’t know exactly where.
Lots of activities are held there, from services, music festivals and the yearly mystery plays. The local theatre group has held musical evenings there too.
Anyway I might do the next challenge tomorrow. I’m not sure what it will be. Looking forward to it.
I’m doing some backdrops for the Penkhull mystery play. I have calico to paint on, rather than static flat paintings that I usually do. This years backdrops are going to be rolled up and dropped down for the appropriate scenes.
Today apart from painting two willow pattern birds on papier mache I painted an eight foot by four foot backdrop of the church.
The problem was seeing the church through the trees. These mature lime trees have grown tall in the intervening years since the Church was built in the 1840’s. The backdrop is minus the trees. There was apparently a quarry and marl pit at the top of the hill which eventually filled with water and was a duck pond before it was filled in. There was a school on the land before the church was built and it was rebuilt at the top of Trent Valley Road (now the village hall). At the alter end of the church on the outside there were pigsties. I think these must predate the church.
More information about the village of penkhull can be found in books by the local author Richard Talbot.
More painting news will follow when I paint more.
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Mallaband-Brown