My latest rucksack for city breaks, the Eurohike Ratio 18.
Trekking around Town
Category: Urban
Kelly, Banger, Mizzy and Guy
My 1981 Wakefield Market acrylic on canvas painting makes a rare appearance at Wednesday’s Wakefield ArtWalk at the Gissing House, Thompson’s Yard, at the top of Westgate, along with some of the sketches I made on location.
I’d taken a new A5 hardback sketchbook and was drawing in fountain pen so I hoped that no-one would notice me scribbling away as I sat on the low wall in front of the Old Queen Elizabeth Gallery and started on the first page sketching the backs of the fruit and veg stalls. No such luck.
“Penny for the Guy, Mister?”
Grudgingly I agreed to make a small contribution to their firework fund on condition that they’d keep still for a few minutes while I drew them. The whole point of my market sketches was to get practice drawing a variety of figures.
I’m sure that poor old Guy didn’t last long but I wonder what creative entrepreneurs Kelly, Banger and Mizzy are up to now. Would be great to meet up with them again at the ArtWalk.
I guess that they might be about 50 years old by now.
The Weeping Birch
Stan Barstow Memorial Garden, Queen Street, Horbury, 2.30 pm, 65℉, 17℃: As soon as I sit on a bench beneath a weeping silver birch, aphids and plant bugs start trundling about on my knee and over my sketchbook page.
Curled Dock
Fine strands of dodder twirl around the clusters of flowers at the top of this curled dock’s stem. Dodder is a parasitic climbing plant, a member of the convolvulus family.
Secret Walls
George Street, Wakefield: Wall-rue and Maidenhair Spleenwort on a brick wall which probably dates back to the days of the cattle market, and a mossy pool on the roots of an old flowering cherry. The ‘well kept secret’ herbs and spices are served at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Westgate Retail Park.
St Pancras
It’s so long since I drew in London so I took the opportunity as we waited for a train to draw St Pancras from a bench in the welcome shade of the Francis Crick Institute.
Junction 32
As part of my attempt to get to know my way around my digital camera I’m making a point of taking it with me whenever I can, even on a trip to Junction 32 shopping centre at Castleford this morning. This is the view from our table at Bakers and Baristas.
Just to get started I took a photograph of the gabion wall by the car park.
If I can get relaxed about using my camera in public I’ll move on to including people in my photographs.
The Leeds Bus
Coming home from Leeds on the 116. Colour added later.
The View from the Car Park
My favourite view from Wakefield’s Riding Centre multistorey?
- To the south, to what Lawrence Butler called the ‘upturned pudding-basin’ of Sandal Castle motte?
- To the south-west to the Emley Moor transmitter on the edge of the South Pennines?
- Or looking back across the precinct towards the peregrine eyrie on the tower of Wakefield Cathedral?
Since the Hannah Starkey show at the Hepworth, the view that I always park facing is the one of the flats on Kirkgate.
In Starkey’s thoughtfully stage-managed take on this scene, she gives Wakefield an aura of Indie movie sophistication (which it has, especially on a morning like today’s). One of her characters leans on the parapet, like a split-hair-dyed Rapunzel, looking out over the cloud-capped towers of Wakefield.
Longest Day
I find a quiet bench by St James’ Hospital’s historic workhouse chapel and settle down to draw the cherry tree but get distracted as two town pigeons bustle past me inspecting the turf.
A crow chases a scrawny-tailed squirrel across pedestrian crossing, up a couple of steps and behind a low wall towards birches.
On the artfully boulder-strewn roundabout a blackbird gathers beak-fulls of worms. After a long dry spell, yesterday’s persistent rain must have brought them to the surface again.
The grand Victorian architecture around the hospital attracts me but I prefer to draw something organic. There was a breeze blowing around the cherry tree leaves so, returning after a break, I draw its trunk and the sandstone block next to it.
One of the crows finds an acorn-sized brown object, which immediately interests a second crow which follows it around until the item is either eaten or discarded.
Cat’s ear, self-heal, white clover and daisy grow on the lawn, although the much larger ox-eye daisy, or marguerite, that I drew was in a flower border, alongside berginia.
We have a brief shower in the afternoon, so I head for the church. The multi-coloured round-topped arch looks more byzantine than romanesque to me. There’s another similar arch above it with a balcony overlooking the chancel. As this was a workhouse chapel, I did wonder if anyone with an infectious disease would be put up there but it’s probably more likely that it was originally an organ loft.