This month’s spread from the Dalesman. The morel growing from the foot of a wall just down the road was a new species for me.
Morels and Scurvygrass
Category: Art
Left-handed Sketchbook
My attempts at drawing – and, even more tricky, writing – with my non-dominant hand. Guest artist: my great niece Florence, who drew the snowman with the psychedelic mandalas.
After several over-enthusiastic sessions trimming back the rowan and crab apple with secateurs, the doctor has suggested that I take a break from anything too strenuous with my right hand for a couple of weeks, so no more big pruning sessions, but I will be doing some gentle exercises with a squeezy soft ball.
All Sorts of Walks
Liquorice lovers historical and legendary get walk-on partsintroducing my booklet ‘All Sorts of Walks in Liquorice Country’ (2010).
Drawn in Procreate Dreams on the iPad. Music: the folk song ‘Shepherd’s Hey’, transcribed using GarageBand.
Navigators
Ahoy there! Happy birthday to Rob. My first homemade card that includes a porthole.
Were-Wolf Walking
My first experiments for part of a longer animation celebrating Baring-Gould’s Centenary, using Procreate and the new animation program, Procreate Dreams.
Joe Earnshaw
You wouldn’t want to meet Joe Earnshaw on a dark night, but if you’d been prowling around the mill yard at Arkwright’s in Baring-Gould’s novel Through Flood and Flame, you’d find it hard to avoid him as he’s the resident night watchman.
Hugh Arkwright, ‘Through Flood . . .’
Meet our hero, Hugh Arkwright of Arkwright’s Mill in Sabine Baring-Gould’s thinly disguised version of Horbury in his semi-autobiographical novel of 1868, Through Flood and Flame. I’ve gone for him encountering peril number one, the flood.
I based the action-hero pose on an Indiana Jones movie poster but as Indy is holding his trademark bullwhip and our hero Hugh was negotiating the flood walking along a garden wall clinging onto a clothes line to keep his balance, I’ve shown him in a later scene which involves a rescue by boat (although in that case Hugh is catching the lifeline rather than throwing it).
Hat, frock coat and necktie, along with the character himself, based on Timothée Chalamet’s version of Willy Wonka.
Annis Greenwell, Mill Worker
Despite the melodrama and the larger-than-life characters, Baring-Gould’s novel Through Flood and Flame was semi-autobiographical. Annis Greenwell was closely modelled on Grace Taylor, a young worker at Baines’s Mill, who – in real life – he met, fell in love with and, a few years later, in May 1868, married at St Peter’s, Horbury.
Richard Grover, Man-Monkey
The first character for my Baring-Gould Centenary display is taken from his Horbury-inspired novel Through Flood and Flame: Richard Grover, man-monkey (and firebrand preacher).
The Wizard of Ozzett
Have a magical Christmas . . .
This year we’re remembering Barbara’s brother John, who died last April, a newsagent of Ossett (hence the ‘Star’, ‘Sun’ and ‘Mirror’). He had a starring role in the Ellis family pantomime on New Year’s Eve 1986.
John was born on a snowy March day at Manygates Maternity Hospital in 1941. Just after he was born the air raid siren went so he spent his first night in the shelter. Not with his mum though: Betty had to stay in bed.
Also appearing in The Wizard of Ozzett: Joane (Tin Man), Susan (Dorothy), Andrew (Scarecrow) and Betty (Cowardly Lion). Karen was a suitably malevolent Wicked Witch of the West. She does a great cackle but in real life she’s really nice.
And no, that wasn’t me as Belinda the Good Fairy. That was my late brother-in-law Carl, who made his own tutu. The Wizard repaired Belinda’s wand with a Star.