The Hospice Gardener

hospice staff cartoon

A final round-up of hospice staff for my project and the last one, the gardener, is my favourite, probably because I’ve had so many uniforms to draw. This is my third of fourth attempt at the gardener. Originally I had him wielding a chainsaw, which wasn’t really suitable for a group photograph, then I tried him with a pair of shears, which didn’t work because he then needed a little shrub to trim, which I didn’t have room for. The potted plant, garden fork and olive body warmer work fine for my hospice staff group.

Emley Moor Transmitter, 1964

Emley Moor transmitter

I took this photograph in 1964 when the 443 ft Emley Moor television transmitter on the left was replaced by the 1,256 ft mast on the right. Five years later, in March 1969, this new mast collapsed because of strong winds and accumulated ice.

The original transmitter had been constructed in 1956 to broadcast the new commercial ITV channel. When the new mast came online it was dismantled and reconstructed at Craigkelly, Fife, to the north of Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth. It’s still in use today.

concrete block

Unfortunately one of my photograph of one of the anchors for the supporting cables is a double exposure but you might be able to make out the shape of a concrete block.

The double exposure is unfortunate but as a bonus you get a rare photograph of our bathroom windowsill in 1964. I might have accidentally pressed the shutter button as I prepared to remove the film from the camera. I developed my own films at the time – as you might guess from the uneven development of this shot – so I might have been using the airing cupboard in the bathroom as a makeshift darkroom when loading the film into the developing tank.

The Hospice Team

hospice staff

I’m aiming for a fairly generic version of the hospice staff but inevitably the individual characters keep asserting themselves.

Sandal Motte, 1964

Sandal Castle, 1964

More of my 127 mm black and white negatives (colour added in Photoshop) and this is the climb up the motte at Sandal Castle in 1964.

This is looking back to the south-east across the bailey with the ruins of the Great Hall on the left and the Presence Chamber on the right, with the houses along Manygates Lane, Sandal, beyond.

Milnthorpe Woods lay in that direction along the ridge and it has been suggested that this was the weak point for the castle, the route the Lancastrian force from Pontefract Castle was likely to have taken when they attacked the castle in the Battle of Wakefield, on 30 December, 1460.

Link

Sandal Castle

booklet

Sandal Castle my illustrated guide

Paperback, 32 pages,
black and white, £2.95, post free in the UK.

Thornes Park

Also available in the same format, £2.99:

Thornes Park, where there was once an unlicensed castle, perhaps a bit of rival to Sandal.

Chairs

The view from the waiting room is of a blank pebble-dashed wall, so I get another chance to practice drawing chairs. The blue chair was drawn using my usual method, lifting my hand from the paper frequently to check proportion and having a couple of goes at a line where necessary. The red chairs were drawn (almost) without lifting my pen from the paper. The disadvantage of this method is that for most of the time most of the drawing is covered, but I do like the wayward wobbly line that this results in.

Moth Orchid

Our Phalaenopsis orchid, also known as the moth orchid, is doing well on the kitchen windowsill. It probably appreciates the sometimes steamy atmosphere. We’ve kept it in the transparent plastic pot it came in as it’s important for the roots to be exposed to light, although the transparent pot is inside a plant holder, so it doesn’t get the full sun.

Pelargonium

Pelargonium

After a year, our zonal pelargonium is beginning to look a bit leggy.

Drawn in Procreate on the iPad using the Tinderbox virtual pen from the Inking section. Having got through all three of my PenTips 2 soft Apple Pencil tips, I’m now back to a plain Apple Pencil tip but the canvas texture of the PenTips Magnetic Matte Screenprotector is working well for me, an improvement on drawing on the iPad’s glass screen.