Catching Up

Drawing By the River, Avenham Park, Preston

It's been a while, hasn't it, since my last blog? I'll try and remember what's been happening.
A search through my sketchbooks should give me some clues!
Here's a picture, above, of Avenham Park in Preston, it's where myself and Mr Price met up with other Preston Sketchers.
As is this one of Morrisons Supermarket.

More Reasons to Sketch at Morrisons..

And we also met at Worden Park in Leyland and sheltered from the rain in the one place we could, condemned to draw what was in front of us, or the person next to us, which is what Messrs Price and Heath often do anyway!

Worden Park, Leyland

I seem to have spent a lot of time in hospitals, this one's when I was waiting in the out-patients..

Waiting Room, Cardio-respiratory Department, Royal Preston Hospital

And here's my dear old Mum who I found slumped at her home after a heart attack - thankfully she's making a good recovery.

Mum Asleep in Chorley Hospital

I've done a lot of bus travel and enjoyed drawing out of the windows,

"..And in Five Minutes It Was Out Here!"

 and listening to snippets of conversation.

Ta Love on the Bus to Preston

I've travelled by Virgin train (this sketch has got to be be worth a fortune now!)

The Train from Preston to Euston

to London Town

The Shard, London

 for the Olympics!

The Olympic Stadium  3rd August 2012

Good times were spent in Brittany.

The Beach at Pen-Guen

But now I'm back, doing things like sketching at the museum in Preston,

The Poulton Elk, Harris Museum, Preston

sometimes venturing over the border to Yorkshire..

Bridestones, Todmorden

 and, in the studio, catching up with the artworks for my exhibition next year.

The Mill That Lowry Drew, Pendlebury

Meeting Myself Coming Backwards

The Eagle and Child from the Parish Churchyard, Leyland.

Once upon a very long time ago I joyfully left my hometown in the grim North-West, to go to art college.   

I'd found little inspiration in the place; I hated its non-descript houses, its cultural shortfalls, the drab council estate where I lived.. and  I especially despised the ugly Gasworks in the centre of town.

The Gasworks

 Over the years of separation, my feelings have mellowed, through indifference towards a grudging acceptance and a present re-appraisal. For many years my heart sank at the sight of the Gasworks. It's gone now, and there's a Macdonald's where it stood. Which still makes my heart sink- I'd much rather have the Gasworks, it'd make a great painting!

Some of my favourites are still here, however. There's the lovely park, the weird 'new' 1960's Catholic Church  ( "a thought-provoking treasure-trove of post-war religious architecture, art and design"), the Eagle and Child pub by the parish churchyard, the surrounding rich countryside of the Lancashire plains, and the ever-present distant hills.

But a huge new Tesco store dominates the prettiest, oldest part of town, imposing its huge car park onto the ancient crossroads and making mockery of thousands of years of history.. "Are we at the airport?" asks my grandson.

 I'm living on the outskirts of town, where the flatlands reach to the sea, and the feeling is one of space, light and distance. It's a big vegetable growing area- and farms stand out against the horizon. Towards the Ribble estuary and the sea are the villages my ancestors came from on Mum's side of the family, where they were mariners and farmers.

Great Uncle Captain Matthew Sutton Iddon

 To the south-west is the village where Dad's ancestors were innkeepers in the 1700s; to the North is Preston where they were cotton workers and 'tripe- dressers'. (they sewed  little frocks and trousers for it, haha!)

Tripe-dressers for the Guild 1922 advert

There are great views from all the windows of my house- well, my kind of views, which might involve sheds!

The river's nearby, too, with walks along it and intimate views of pretty gardens leading down to the water's edge. 

Across the River Lostock

So much has changed, even since we left for France.  Bus travel, central heating... shops that have moved or gone completely. Dodgy areas of town have become almost respectable; fields are now housing estates; the big car-building plants of  Leyland Motors have been razed to make way for Argos, Morrisons and Homebase.

 A boy I last met when he was ten is now a bloke with a kid, library books are no longer stamped and my 'card' is now plastic.. my postman is hatless, shaven-headed with shorts and an earring. Where's his uniform and cap, can I really trust him??

 What do I do with four dustbins, when and where, front of the house or back?
 'The Rates' are known as Council Tax and water is a Utility (I always thought it was useful), but why is the Electricity called the Gas?
 
 

From the Bus

An English Artist in England

Dad and Mum, Blackpool 1946

My dear old Dad passed away in January. I'd flown over to deal with Family Matters (it's a long story which would best belong to the world of Charles Dickens) and he died a few days later. It's as though he waited for me.
Here was a man who was down-to-earth and practical, yet an incurable dreamer and a poet.
For us as children, and for his grandchildren, he blurred the lines between reality and fantasy, creating the magical childhood that he himself had missed.
There were fairies at the bottom of the garden- to say there weren't meant one would die! Ghost riders roamed the skies, highwaymen rode down ribbons of moonlight to their deaths, and Gypsy Rovers came over the hill.
On Friday evenings (it was pay day from 'The Motors') there were sugar mice with string tails for us, and the Beano and the Dandy.
Pink milk with coconut on top was a cure for crying last thing at night, or he would plan to make 'tear butties' from our weepings, which turned to smiles at the thought.
But he would warn us of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and against excessive noise he would recite darkly:

“Father heard his children scream

So he threw them in the stream

Saying as he drowned the third

Children should be seen, not heard.”

Harry Graham, poet

He took care to treat his daughters equally, without favouritism, and made each of us feel loved for herself.

As I grew up, he was protective and ambitious for me.

Bad school reports would bring threats of being made to work in the Mill, or, strangely, Woolworths- I quite fancied the sweet counter myself!

Although Dad mostly, like his Gypsy Rover, whistled and sang his way through life, he had a fondness for sentimental verse and song- Nobody's Child, Old Shep, and sad poems that he would delight in quoting freely.... to anyone at hand.

Adults were plied with his home-brewed wine, a variable selection ranging from sheer ambrosia to downright undrinkable.

I'll raise an imaginary glass to him- from one of his better bottles- to Vic, Dad, Uncle Vic, Grandad, Great Grandad... warm-hearted, generous, sometimes annoying, intelligent....

In the RAF, India

A small man, with a big heart !

With his grand-daughters

Geese Are Getting Fat- Already!

Cross-Channel Ferry, Rain

“Is it really that time again? It doesn't seem like a year since you were round last!”

Well, yessiree, it is- we've travelled in the rain from Roscoff to Plymouth, and through the drizzle heading North to the market town of Clitheroe, Lancashire, where we'll brighten shop windows with our jolly and festive paintings.

We have the luxury of a house in the town this year which means we can walk to work and get home in the light if we finish early enough. We can see the castle from our street, and there's a fish and chip shop on the corner- such a novelty for the exiled Brit- and a particular delight to Mr. Price! We haven't actually had any as yet, but it's just the knowing that it's there.

I was almost happy, too, to be woken up in the early hours by a milkman making his deliveries. And I've seen a coalman. Small but important pleasures!

While we're here I have paintings to deliver to the Colin Jellicoe Gallery in Manchester and the Calder Gallery in Hebden Bridge. The latter is a new one to me, and I've enjoyed depicting a different landscape. The Calder Valley area of Yorkshire is so full of contrasts- high, bleak moorlands stand over the old factory and mill towns in their deep, lush valleys.

Last week I was in Salford to sign up for an exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery. The room where I'll be is enormous and I felt very small... probably because I'm very small! But filling the space with my work will be a wonderful opportunity for my own development as an artist..I can only improve!

In the meantime it's out with the red paint for berries, reindeer noses and Santa, and the green for trees and decking the halls with holly. The red red robin bobs along to the Estate Agents; a mother lays her baby in a barber's window; the Three Kings traverse afar by field and fountain, moor and mountain, and call for refreshments at Molly's café on Moor Lane.

With a smile on our faces and a Ho-ho-ho, we're ringing in the new and the true... yes, already!

Nativity.. Alastair Price

Dances with Bretons

St.Quay, the old port

Brittany in September is recuperating from the summer influx of tourists and Parisians.
We drive on quieter roads to see our friend, Yann Lozet, up the coast from here.
Yann is a true bagpipe-playing, bombarde-blowing Breton, but at six foot eight in height, he's far from 'traditionally built'.
Our connection with his family goes back a very long way.
Before the Second world War, Mr. Price's father was still at school in Wolverhampton and had a French penpal called Christian Savary. When war broke out he heard nothing from him for several years.
Then in 1944 came the sad news from Christians sister, Denise. He'd joined the Resistance movement and had been captured and executed by the Germans in Rennes.


The correspondence continued with Denise, however, for around fifty years.
It's up to us, now, to keep up the contact.
Yann's invited us to see him playing, and, after a spot of sketching before dusk, we find ourselves in a large hall packed with dancers. We're strongly encouraged to join in with the jollifications and after an hour my calves are aching and I'm still confusing the hops, skips and jumps. There are so many different dances, each with its own local versions.... gavottes, ficels, bals and avants-deux.

Hurray, here's a refreshment break. We drink cider and there's chocolate cake. Curiously, in a big earthenware pot, there's rice pudding, which people try bravely to eat from floppy paper plates, until some bright spark produces plastic bowls.
More bewildering dances with some of the throng taking themselves very seriously, and beginners, like ourselves, collapsing in giggles. I bet they don't like that.
It goes on 'til after midnight- how do they do it?! I want to go to bed, but now we're invited to stay on a while here with Yann and the musicians and organisers, and... to his house afterwards.
We drink more cider and eat more cake, and Mr.Price (due to his size) is asked if he's related to Yann, who has to bend double to speak to a lady.
"For once, I wasn't the biggest bloke in the room" he says on the way home, at half-past two in the morning.

Caroline Johnson

Breton Dancing at St Quay

Holiday Time!

It's the holidays, the family are over and we're busy visiting favourite places. While the 'children' and grandchildren play it's a great opportunity to get some sketches done.
What a delight to sit on a sunny beach, lean against a rock and draw this lovely scene!
This beautiful 'maison de maitre' at Dinard was built in the late eighteen-hundreds and is called 'Les Roches Brunes'.
It was bequeathed to the town and exhibitions are now held here.

Another popular place for a day out is the heavenly Pen-Guen beach.


Between dips in the sea I practise drawing the chaos of rocks at the foot of the cliffs....

..........while Mr Price sketches his favourite subject- people.


Caroline Johnson, Rennes and Manchester

Urban Sketches, Urban Paintings

On the ferry, English Channel

It feels good to be back in one's own country and last time was no exception. In May we sailed from Roscoff in Brittany to Plymouth in England and journeyed to our homeland in the north via the motorways M5 and M6. Early summer was upon us, with the elderflower just in bloom, small farms on the hills and red-brick towns like rashes across the landscape, their chimneys coughing smoke. Here and there, the tower of an ancient church rising from the trees evoked an earlier, less fickle age. Motorway Travel

We went to the private view of an exhibition at the Calder Gallery in the old industrial town of Hebden Bridge, now generally cleaned- up and very arty and touristy .. we arrived early and to while away the time we were forced to have a cream tea and sit by the river watching the ducks. Quel dommage!
Earlier that week I'd had the opening of my solo exhibition 'The Secret World of the Ordinary' at the See Gallery in Crawshawbooth. "Where the hell is Crawshawbooth?" I hear you ask- well, it's:

" a small village on the edge of the Pennine Hills in England just north of the market town of Rawtenstall, Lancashire, and just south of Loveclough It is part of the valley of Rossendale, an ancient royal hunting ground. The majority of surrounding land is farm and moor land and
many walkers come to the area."

For me, Urban sketching has a parallel in urban painting, and this is mainly what the exhibition is about. Thank to the tender ministrations of Mr. Price, we had some great publicity for the show:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13595893

The See Gallery is a wonderful place to exhibit and the 'galleristes' are human and approachable. You have just under a week in which to visit, and to claim a cup of tea when you tell them I sent you!

(My many thanks go out to to Julian and Jackie, to our friends and family, and to everyone who came along to the show.)