Over The Moor

                                                     By the Canal, Todmorden

It's a sunny day, so to get out of this valley and into another, Mr. Price and I go over the moor to Todmorden, past the composting (former maggot) factory and the astronomy centre.

'Tod', as it's known round here, is a post-industrial market town in the upper Calder valley- at one time it had the largest weaving shed in the world.

I first passed through in the Sixties when I was hitching from Leyland to see an old school-friend at Leeds University and I recall being appalled by the oppressive town with its blackened stone railway arches, back-to-backs and smoky mills. I'd grown up with the wide skies and open fields of West Lancashire and was shocked that other people lived in this place, trapped in this narrow valley surrounded by high, brooding moors.

Not so, now! You can see the sky, many of the buildings have been cleaned up, there are pleasant riverside and canal walks, galleries, cafés and bars... it's increasingly a commuter town for people who work in Manchester, Leeds, Bradford or nearby places.

                                                  From The Golden Lion, Todmorden

We have a short stroll by the river and I take pictures of some interesting decrepit sheds which will do nicely for my ongoing shed/shack project.

Back in the town centre, there's a rum-looking bunch of loud folk, drinking outside the White Hart, which we avoid and look at the churchyard instead. 

We're perusing some tombstones which are propped up by the path when a cheerful Bavarian in full national dress pops his head round the corner and says “ Ahh! You're reating the grafestones!” He loves Todmorden, he moved here recently after selling his house in York ( “Bad times, York iss finished!”) and being able to buy two here, one for himself and one for his son. It was Octoberfest yesterday, he tells us, there was a big celebration at his house and now he's on his way to The Golden Lion for “ A hair off the dog”. I mention the nearby Hebden Bridge, a pretty tourist town. He says it's no good anymore ”Hebden Bridge iss finished!”

We were originally thinking of going to the pub ourselves but now we chicken out, fearful that we might be forced into a heavy session, ending up singing those jolly German drinking songs with our new friend, shouting “Ans, zwoa, drei, g'suffa”... we have tea in a cafe instead.

I need some supplies and go in the well-stocked friendly wholefood shop. Understandably for such specialisation, prices are high. Outside, and after we've distanced ourselves, Mr. Price exclaims “No wonder vegans are so thin, they can't afford to feed themselves!!”

                                                   Canal Bridge and Rooftops, Todmorden.

 

Brief Encounters

 

On the way to the doctor's I walk down the hill to the bus-stop, past the perpetual road works. My phone pings- it's a message from a friend, who says “I just saw you walk past, looking super-cool”... well that's a boost, she made an old lady very happy!

Two huge Clive Hurt trucks rumble by and the old hitch-hiker in me looks at how I might get up into the cab nowadays- it's very high, with two steps. I wonder, idly... would I get picked up if I stuck out my thumb? And in the cab, instead of “Yeah, I'm heading for London, meeting friends there”, I'd have to say “Just popping to the doctors to see about my cholesterol levels”. Perhaps not.

There's a friendly fat lad waiting for the bus, and later, when the driver swerves violently at my stop, I nearly end up in his lap. ' A soft landing, anyway' I think.

Waiting at the surgery, conversations drift by. “He was lovely, he's a lovely boy” “He was always a bit of a teenager, though!”... “ She does Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday”...He's such a lovely boy, we're proud of him” …. “I could tell you some proper tales!”

Later, in the chemist's, a man on his way out shouts hoarsely to the assistant “ SEE YOU SAM! BY THE WAY, SAM, I'M CALLED SAM!!!” “ Yeah, ah know”

I make my way out through 'Exit Only'. In the street I see a small girl with her mother- she's looking up, craning her neck .”Big tree!” she exclaims, and, reaching out a tiny hand to the trunk, says gently “Gonna stroke it'.                                                                                                                                    How sweet is that?

On the way homewards back up the hill  there's a young lady studying her phone outside a corner shop. She sports a bare midriff. This is Rossendale, it's February and 8 degrees, for goodness sake! She's just ASKING for a dose of cystitis!

Pictured: A Waiting Room, (although not my doctor's)

How To Waste Money

I call in at the studios to measure up the big table we've got, to see if it'll fit in my workroom at home.

Paddy's there, with his open-air head and Cornish twinkle. He invites me into his space to look at a new painting- it's a wide landscape with one of his big skies.

The room's full of stuff and I admire a little faded and worn wooden boat lying wrecked on a heap of debris. He kindly gives it to me... “ I found it in the road,” he says, “Just lying there.”

The boat's fitted with an ugly plastic holder for a bulb and he donates the remains of a lampshade to go on top. “I'll re-cover that.” I say, knowing I won't.

When I get home with my treasures, Mr. Price agrees that the bulb-holder must go and offers to remove it, slashing his finger with a blade in the process.

I send off for a new holder, nicely retro with a touch of the trendy industrial. There's a plug and real fabric cord- none of your plastic tat! and I can use one of those bulbs where you can see the filaments. “The ones that make it look darker” quips Mr. Price.

Anyway, think I, it'll look really cool on the French cupboard and, when we're allowed, visitors will gaze upon it in admiration.

It comes the next day. Oh no, it's enormous, almost half as big as the boat! It'll look really stupid! I'm disappointed- I might as well have taken a match to a fiver and a tenner!

After unsuccessfully hanging it in various places round the house- I consign it to a drawer.

           It'll come in use sometime. '!It's bound to go somewhere!'

Taking to Drink

                                                   Three Co-op Beers

One effect of the Coronavirus, apparently, is that the nation's alcohol consumption has increased.

If this is applies to you, you could nip to your local Co-op store and buy some of these three Manchester beers that have my images on. How they got there is a long story. I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you afterwards.

I'm rightly proud of them- the first beer-labels with my drawings on were on bottles of my home-made 'Tyneside Brown Ale', but that doesn't count really.

I've made my own wine, too, and fondly remember my first attempt. It was dandelion and had the same golden sheen of late afternoon in the small meadow where I picked the flowers. Sunshine in a glass, or should that read moonshine?

                                                          Winemaking

Being new to this area our early evening explorative walks bring a sadness when passing closed pubs “We could have had a half and a bag of crisps”... Mr Price's test of a pub's worthiness is to ask if they serve a dark mild. This request is particularly cruel when demanded of younger barmaids, who crumple under interrogation and nervously try to suggest that “this bitter's a bit darker than that one...??”

On one of these outings our neighbour's busy gardening behind her house and we ask how she's coping with the lock-down . She's alright, she assures us, she's got her gin and a bit of marijuana to see her through.

I've yet to find any government statistics on the increased consumption of Herbal Jazz Cigarettes, but I'll let you know when I do!

All Kinds of Kindnesses

                            Waiting in the car while Mr. Price does the shopping.

We're living in disturbing times, and I wish you all well.
After the unsettling questions raised by Brexit and the general election, we're thrust into the surreal netherworld of the Covid 19 virus with its restrictions and tragedies.

We've just moved house, to add to the unease. But, despite being surrounded by boxes and hampered by that big, temporarily redundant new cooker in the doorway, the situation brings its lighter moments.

I'm bending over in our tiny garden tackling some vicious invasive plants when a man calls over the fence, "Jean! Jean?.... oh, is Jean in the house then?" I say "I hope not, we just moved in!"
Jean's his aunty and he lived here as a child, his parents had the greengrocer's shop  which is now my studio room.
We keep our distance apart. He hasn't seen Jean for several years, later on I realise he's come back to re-establish the connection and make sure she's okay.
He indicates the huge fir-trees at the end of the street- they were just so tall when he lived here. "We used to fish off the river wall there" he tells me. I ask did he ever catch anything- "No" he replies "Did we heck!"

Early evening there's some shouting on the main road and we go out to investigate. Whoever was kicking off has gone, but a woman crosses the road to give us our door key. She tells us she used to clean our house. She's a bit unsteady on her feet and apologises. "Sorry love, I've been on the gin!... well, with this Coronavirus you don't know where you are, do you?"

A card's posted through the door. Touchingly, it's from the elderly couple over the road...'to our new neighbours, welcome to your new home. Sorry we can't be of further assistance at the moment, we hope to say hello and get to know you when everything gets back to normal. In the meantime we hope you settle in well'.
How nice is that?

In these strange times, then, check up on your Aunty Jean, be kind to your neighbours and know how to relax with a glass of gin..
And above all, stay safe!

                                           Moving house, the bedroom with boxes.

Five Years Later..

Five Years Later...

Well, it's nearly five years since my last blog. Life (and death) got in the way, but here we are now, living in the Rossendale Valley. Above is my view from the Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery which is just down the road from here. 

This is an area full of contrasts- gritty post-industrial towns with the backdrop of wild moorland.

Everywhere is up a hill, and my bike lies rusting in the shed. I say shed, but it's one of the old toilets out the back in the communal alleyway. The loo in this one has gone, but next to it is another outhouse, still complete with its Victorian 'tipper' toilet. It's in a fetching rough brown earthenware and it's so old that there's one in Manchester's MOSI Museum. Here's a fascinating link, below.

 You learn something every day!

A 'tipper' toilet.

We have other Facilities in our house, I hasten to add. Here's one of them.

John Bratby did a better painting of his toilet... I think they were more interesting then, too.

Intriguingly (to me at least), we're buying a house a couple of miles away from here and our solicitor had a query to the sellers...  in an old deed from 1948 there was a provision stating that the owner of another property would be entitled to continue to use a closet on land to the side of the house. 

The closets were knocked down ages ago, so we won't expect pyjama and negligée clad neighbours pounding on the door in the early hours, thankfully!

Happy Times, Warmer Climes

 

                                              Angouleme   
I'm into my fifth week of tutoring six Tuesday evening sketching workshops in at Alston Hall in Lancashire. It's a rambling Victorian Gothic house and we look out of the studio, through arched windows and across fields dotted with sheep and lambs, to the tree-line of the River Ribble.

This loveliest of settings makes me look forward to my week at Chateau L'Age Baston, another grand house with lovely views from an elevated position. Here, though, I'll be looking towards the Dordogne, over countryside punctuated by terracotta-roofed houses and rimmed by blue distant hills.

I've drawn the ironing board and the washing line, but there's the dovecote and the courtyard with its bright umbrellas, worn stone steps, pretty gates and doorways, drystone walls and deep dark woods studded with wild cyclamen.

 

    

If that isn't enough, pet donkeys and sheep roam within the shake of a paintbrush and the breeze ripples, Hockneyesque, the swimming pool's sunlit surface.

In nearby towns, there are markets, bars and riverside chateaux. 

 

                                                   Piegut-Pluviers, the Market and the Bar

Fellow guests, too, are often happy to sit for a portrait, well, once at least!

                                    Don, drawing in the Studio

 I'll be encouraging students to get lively and loose and to respond to different subject matter in different ways, with different materials. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain from a week in such an idyllic retreat!

Packing Paints and Brushes

I've been asked to give several workshops this year, both at home and abroad, all of them in the loveliest of venues!

Before my exhibition at the Whitaker-Rossendale Museum and Art Gallery ends on the 22nd February, I'll be giving a half-term workshop for children, having fun using collage and line.


The Whitaker, Rawtenstall

And we plan a sketching afternoon for adults around the same time.

Also at The Whitaker, when the days get longer we'll see a return of last year's popular evening sketching sessions. With a free glass of wine for those who need some false courage!


Alston Hall, Longridge

Further to the North-West, the stunning Victorian Alston Hall in the Ribble Valley is the venue for different courses.

Tuesday evenings through April and May there'll be sketching workshops in the Gothic house and grounds, including an Urban Sketching session in the bright lights of nearby Longridge!

On the 13th June I'll be hosting a whole day's sketching at the Hall.

And! there's a whole week's residential art course from August 10th, which gives the opportunity to learn new skills and be immersed in all things artistic from morning to night, inspired by our surroundings and the world in general!


Chateau L'Age Baston

 For those who love la Belle France, I'm at beautiful Chateau L'age Baston in Poitou - Charentes for a week starting on the 27th June.


Outside the Studio

I've given workshops here for several years and love the house, the food (candlelit dinners in tapestried dining room or in the courtyard!), the beautiful dovecote, and the studio space

It's surrounded by gardens, cyclamen-strewn woods, and there are distant views towards the Dordogne.

I nearly forgot the pool, the heated pool, mustn't forget the pool.

I'm hoping you'll be inspired to join me- let's meet somewhere, sometime!

You can keep in touch with what I'm up to on my Facebook page (Caroline Johnson, Fine Artist and Urban Sketcher)

Watch this space for more detail, and go to individual websites for further information.

Bonjour La Bretagne!

                                           Motorway travel, views from a jam

This year's Urban Sketchers symposium is as I write taking place in Paraty- a Portuguese colonial seaside town in Brazil prone to flooding. But while the participants were packing flip-flops for this annual gathering, I was heading with Mr. Price for the tranquil shores of Brittany.

From the north of England, with the motorways jammed with traffic, it's a slow journey down to the south coast and the ferries.

The boat's jam-packed, too! We have no overnight cabin and as I lie bruising myself on the floor under a table I'm close to weeping (or homicide) at one-o-clock in the morning, as I listen to a selfish mother nearby, raucously singing 'Row, row, row your boat” with her child. Well, thank you! Charming and touching though the scene might be in daylight hours, I don't think it's really on when everyone's trying to get some rest ...

                                                  The little barn, washing and roof-mending

Our house has survived since Spring, although the familiar dead-mouse-under-the-floorboards smell greets us and stays around for a few days. Over the years we've learned you just have to sit it out, helped along by incense and air-fresheners.

A box of clothes has been nibbled by the wee pests, too. I buy horrid mouse-traps, but Mr.Price 'forgets' to ever set them while we're over.

 

                                           Nest-on-a-rope.

The garden's run rampage as well, with little plum trees everywhere. There's a wren's nest built in a hank of rope on the back wall of the lean-to. The little bird has flown, but inside are empty eggshells and just one lonely infertile egg, tiny and white, translucent and almost weightless in the hand. We need the rope for cutting down a big branch, though, so I carefully remove the small dwelling to keep in a box, perhaps to draw at a later date.

Some of the family are with us, and the younger grandson is quite eager to help us and his Mum and Dad clear the garden. The other, older and aware that his hairstyle and cool need preserving. is less naively enthusiastic and chooses to wander around foppishly, documenting the work of others on his camera.

They're at the beach most days, however- and we, too, manage to escape the relentless gardening for an afternoon swim at the lovely Pen-guen beach. The seawater stings my bramble-scratched arms and that cliff-path gets steeper every year, but it's a good pain!

The house is up for sale, so every visit might be almost the last, who knows?                                               

And in an act of blatant self-publicity (contact me, though), here's a link:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-30091923.html

In England's Green and Pleasant?

 

 Compared to rural Brittany where we last lived, what a  very crowded island this is! House prices are prohibitively high and building land is at a premium.

For a couple of years now I've looked out of the kitchen window to see, across the road, a large stretch of grass edged in the distance by mature trees. Some days, a duck would take the sun here with her ducklings, and at night cats would prowl. "How lovely", thought I naively, "of them to leave such a pretty patch of green between the houses!"

Ignorance is often bliss, and in March the first bulldozers arrive to tear up the grass and uproot bushes into an undignified heap.

 Permission for 'one bedroom flats and two bungalows' has been given and over the following weeks I witness the noisy machinery of the ground- clearing stages of construction replaced by cement deliveries.

Then come the more hands-on outside tasks of brick-laying and roofing. Now I can hear the builders calling to each other (and to young lady passers-by) and sometimes singing.

I've learnt a bit, if I'm ever called upon to build a house, fat chance! but my view's gradually disappearing. It's as though the trees are slowly drowning in a relentless tide of bricks. Today I see them from the upper windows, but not the kitchen.

However, I'm always ready to turn the negative to my advantage. It's not often that such a sketching opportunity presents itself, without even having to leave the house and I set about recording the sad process. I'm taking hundreds of photos for a stop-frame animation (I'll have to call on my technician!) and of course I'm drawing the scene as it unfolds before me.

I can't wait to draw the new neighbours... perhaps!

Into The Valley, Rossendale.

                                           Mill Chimney with Distant Fells, Rossendale.

 For some time now I've been involved with The Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery in Rawtenstall, to the North of Manchester.
  And in case you didn't already know, this post-industrial area is known as The Rossendale Valley, characterised by the steep sided valley of the River Irwell and its tributaries which cut through the high moorland of the Rossendale Hills. In the valley bottom, urban settlements grew up at river crossing points between Rawtenstall and Bacup.
 

                                        Millworkers clogs, Whitaker Museum
 

Textile mills and chimneys and gritstone terraced houses are the dominant buildings and roads are concentrated in the narrow valley. There's a striking contrast between the forbidding mill towns and the sunlit heights which form their backdrop.
 
  We have such a wealth of subject matter for the sketching workshops I'm giving at the museum (Thursday evenings, with wine, other beverages available!) and for The Big Draw, which took place late last year..
 
The museum's in a Victorian mansion with lovely views over the surrounding park and town, towards the fells. Inside, there's an eclectic collection of objects, including stuffed animals- some quite frightening- and birds, and an excellent café.

                                                    Various objects, Whitaker Museum 

 
Everything you could ever need for a few hours spent happily sketching or not, and with refreshments to hand!

 Cakes at the Whitaker

The BBC Philharmonic

I was pleased to have the opportunity to sketch this orchestra over a couple of days.
Their publicity department had used my picture of Ordsall Hall, where they're playing this very week, so I made a deal to sit in on rehearsals. 

They're based in Media City UK on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford.

The BBC's move marked a large-scale decentralisation from London, and the North of England has profited from this. From the top floor of the building we could just about see Coronation Street's factory wall- what a thrill!

It took at least the first morning's drawing to feel comfortable, and to have some sense of the direction or focus my work might take. Because this was a rehearsal, the music would start and then suddenly stop and the conductor would gently encourage the musicians in a mixture of English and Italian. This was a bit distracting at first, and the longer pieces of music encouraged inspiration and a better flow to the pencil.

 

The musicians were a nice bunch, interested in what we were doing, as we were in them- we're all artists, aren't we?!

I used my sketches in the studio later, along with photographs, to produce a larger work, below.

 

 BBC Philharmonic, Studio Drawing 44cm x 122cm

This is one of the traditional uses of the sketchbook.. as Fine Art students we were we were encouraged to use them for various purposes: as preliminary drawings prior to painting; to explore new ideas, thus developing creativity; as visual diaries of the external world and as drawing practise, and to re-visit as source material for inspiration.

Our books were untidy, experimental, fearless and anarchic.

I'd like to get back to that level of 'insouciance' -it's so easy to blinker oneself by worrying about a good result on the page to be shown to others, rather than opening up to new approaches and unfamiliar materials.

Let's not be hampered by the fear of failure!

The Liverpool Scene

Steble Fountain and Empire Theatre, Liverpool

Being born during one of the worst winters on record doesn't bode well for birthday outings, but on a sunny day this week we caught the train to Liverpool.

It's often cool and breezy in this city by the River Mersey.  And it's bright, airy and spacious by comparison to our usual Manchester.. the light's so different here, and quite beautiful.

There's a lovely view from The Walker Gallery on William Brown Street. In the foreground is the Steble Fountain:
" The casting from which the fountain was derived had originally been designed for the Paris Exposition of 1867. At the opening ceremony in 1879 the mayor turned the fountain on with a silver key presented by Steble, but the water pressure was low and the effect was "dismal"."
 I expect it was more impressive than today, though, when there's not a drop of water in sight!

The Beatles at Liverpool Empire Theatre, December 7th 1963

 

Across the square towards Lime Street station is the Empire Theatre with its imposing neo-classical facade in Portland stone.
"In 1957 a local pop group called The Quarrymen appeared at the Empire Theatre. They returned in 1959, having changed their name to "Johnny and the Moondogs". They returned to the Empire again in 1962, now named The Beatles."
Crowds gathered in this square after the death of Gladstone, Queen Victoria and the assassination of John Lennon.

A Corinthian Column, Walker Gallery, Liverpool

It's too chilly to spend much time sketching the view before we head inside the gallery to see the David Hockney exhibition, so I finish my picture the next day in the warmth of the studio. I don't see this as cheating but as a sensible choice. Yes, I could sit on the gallery steps and risk frostbite or, worse, certain painful conditions involving internal organs, referred to discreetly as 'Trouble Down There'... but that would be stupid of me, especially a I'm a whole year older this week!

"Glastonbury With Dinner Ladies"

Way back in my last blog, I was sketching in the dark at The Soup Kitchen in Manchester.

What I didn't mention was that Mr. Price and I met two lovely ladies there who invited us to run a 'Little Urban Sketchers' workshop and to be official 'war artists' for Cavfest.

This is a family-friendly one-day rock festival run by the forward thinking Cavendish Primary school in Didsbury, Manchester.

As the day dawns, they've sold out of their 2,000 tickets, but when we arrive in the quiet of late morning, organisers and volunteers are peacefully setting up on the playing field.

However.. by three, the craft tent is a madness of parents and kids. Our little stall is set up to encourage youngsters to pick up pen and paper (supplied) and go out and draw a list of subjects.

It's a quiet start for us, other activities such as face-painting and drum workshops have more immediate appeal. And we're next to to the immensely popular Make Me A Monster workshop which threatens to push us out of our corner, with its ever-advancing army of still-wet, painted-box monster heads.

“Look at my bloody jeans!” says Mr Price a couple of days later, showing me where he's caught his legs on some particularly lurid shades..

We take it in turns to oversee our budding artists or to go out sketching.

The sun's shining when I selfishly overstay my sketching time to draw Emma from Throwing Pandas and The Cornelius Crane, leaving Mr Price to the increasing volume in the tent.

I'm delighted to see children sat in front of the stage who are actually sketching! So it HAS worked!

Later on we're able to go out together and sketch the crowds and lean on the barrier in front of the bands. What a lot of babies and children there are- I feel quite unfashionable in my sproglessness, but liberated at the same time.

Evening falls with a light drizzle. Badly Drawn Boy is headlining, and we DO draw him, and his hat. “ I reckon he got a job lot thirteen years ago and feels he has to wear 'em all out” observes Mr Price.

At half past ten the evening isn't over yet as we've been given tickets for free after-festival drinks at a local tennis and bowling club. It's difficult to find and 'someone' has to refuel at a chippy on the way. Kindly locals try to give us directions and a nice young couple even lead us through the dark suburban streets lined with trees and Victorian villas.

There's the club, down a drive and, outside and in, it's a lovely old building dating from 1874. The organisers and volunteers are there, they're really pleased at what we achieved with the children and with our day's sketches, too.

And in an ever so humble and self-effacing way, so are we.

 A big thank you to everyone for an excellent day!