New paintings and regular art updates.
I took this photo a few months ago with the intention of doing a painting. It struck me that the copper beech behind it shows off the verdigris of the horse really well and the wooden plinth it is on mimics the tree trunk behind it. Trentham lake is in the distance. I’m not sure if it’s significance but I do like it. I’m guessing it could be based on a Greco-Roman or Celtic design? I could try and find out, but I just like it as it is.
It took me a few months to realise that there is a panorama mode on this phone. This was westport lake last month. I like that my partner is at the far right and the path continues at the far left. The geese are at different heights which seems to work with the step where the landing stage cuts into the waters surface. Mine and my friends shadow are a bit annoying but the sun was setting behind us and all the shadows fan in towards the lake. I like how the path on the left is straight and not curved like the rest of the photo.
I’m picking random photos to look at because often they just get a glance and then I move on……
Today one of the choirs I am in sang at a local school for “sing up day”. We sang some a capella songs from Loud Mouth Women’s reportoir and also “New light ” a new anthem based on “this little light of mine” composed and written by Greg Stephens and Steven Seabridge (the potteries poet laureate).
It was a pleasure to sing infront of a full school assembly. The children joined in and even did some of the gestures for the song. I hope they enjoyed it, although some of the little ones seemed a bit perplexed by what we were doing at first.
One of the teachers is a member of the choir and enthusiastically explained what we were doing, and Penny Vincent (who helped organised Stoke Sings choir festival in February) and Kate Bardfield, our choir leader, helped teach the children some of the song including sections of”this little light of mine” and adapted versions of this and a section about the six towns, Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.
The anthem talks about coal mining and hard clay. It talks about regeneration and a feeling that the city of Stoke-on-Trent is worth fighting for. It was a very enjoyable occasion.
Sorry for the blurry photo. This is the memorial to a man called Timothy Trow.
I’d known about this for a few years but got a leaflet today and it explained he was a local hero 125 years ago.
Timothy Trow was from neighbouring area of Shelton. He was a conductor on a tram that ran along London Road in Stoke. When the tram reached the West End area of Stoke, at a spot near James Street, he saw a young girl who had fallen in the canal. She was later identified as Jane Ridgeway. He jumped into the Newcastle Canal and rescued her but he then got cramp and despite people trying to rescue him he drowned. All of this happened on 13 April 1894.
There is a memorial stone in recognition of his courage. In recent years our local Councillor has encouraged an annual commemoration. The local West End Methodist Church and local people have turned it into an annual event. One of my friends actually wrote a song to commemorate his bravery and a couple of years ago we walked along the course of the canal (which has since been filled in) and my friend sang the song next to the memorial stone.
Caught on camera, this fairie metallic us, seen flitting over the lake at Trentham Gardens. Like a dragonfly. Was she catching gnats for supper or taking a drink of water from the lake.
Fairies rarely stay still long enough to be photographed. Their magic powers mean that they can hide from view. I only caught this image by dodging out from between the trees and having my camera on zoom. That is why it suffers from camera shake.
Lol actually there are lots of wire weave fairies at Trentham but I just tried to write a small fiction about this one.
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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.
I painted this out in the open air a couple of years ago. It took a couple of hours to paint. As you can see the day was very overcast. This is a small acrylic on canvas. I don’t actually know where it is. I have a feeling that I sold it?
I’ve painted from this position a few times, looking down the lake towards the Italian Gardens at Trentham. The end of the lake at this end is next to Trentham monkey forest where they have two troops of macaque monkeys.
I hope to go back soon and try and draw some of them. They are beautiful animals and they are so cute when they are babies.
In the meantime I’m feeling a bit better so over the next few weeks I will try and get some new paintings done.
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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 ..
I saw lits of fairies made of wire at a place called Trentham Gardens recently.
I was intrigued by them so when I saw a wire weaving kit to make a small one I decided to get it. I opened the box to find a small mackette of a figure and three thickness of wire together with some pliers.
I’m nervous of even starting! There are apparently YouTube videos to help but I’m not sure what I will end up making. I’m better at painting in two dimensions than creating in three. Wish me luck!
About 5 years ago we went on a photo walk around the north of the city of Stoke on Trent in a town called Tunstall. The idea was to do a circular walk encompassing greenways around the town that used to have a rail line and that runs between terraced houses on a raised path. There are bridges over paths and tunnels driven through the ground.
I used my old phone so the images are not brilliant. The day started overcast then it started to snow as we walked along the path. We came out onto the side of a newly built section of road then followed the path round up a hill before coming out at an old pub (can’t remember it’s name) where we stopped off for lunch and sat next to a real coal fire to warm up. Then off through local streets to finish near where we started outside the local health centre.
Photos include trees, train signals, walking along the path. A terraced house. The corrugated side of one of the tunnels. One of the metal greenaway signs, a dandelion growing on the side wall of part of the path, and bracket fungus growing on an old wooden post.
I’m hoping to go on another photo walk, may be when the weather is a bit better. The idea of looking at industrial and post industrial landscapes fascinates me.
Mallaband-Brown