Tag: Chimney

Chessmen Chimney Pots

Two chimneys, one built in brick, the other in stone, on the same roof. I haven’t checked around the front of this terrace on Station Road, Ossett, but possibly the facade is faced in stone and the back of the house built in brick.

It looks as if the chimney pots are limbering up for a game of chess. The Victorian pots on the left are king, also known as crown, chimney pots and the phalanx of more modern-looking pots on the right remind me of pawns.

I got a chance to drawn the Queen Street roof-scape a couple of weeks ago from the waiting room of Horbury dentists’. I don’t imagine that John Carr, who designed St Peter’s Church (in the background), would approve of chess-piece chimney pots; I suspect that he’d go to some effort to hide such a utilitarian feature on one of his elegant country houses, either that or disguise it as a classical feature, such as a pillar or an obelisk.

Summer Afternoon

Horbury High Street, drawn when we took my mum to the optician’s for her weekly appointment. Lamy Safari pen.

I’VE BEEN using my Lamy Safari fountain pen a lot recently but this afternoon on our walk around Newmillerdam I’ve just got my passport-sized pouch attached to my belt (I realise that’s more comfortable than having it swinging around my neck like a camera case) so, for this chimney drawn from a table at the Lakeside Kitchen, that means that I’m back to my brown 08 Pilot Drawing Pen, which has the advantage that I can add watercolour without the ink running.

The pocket-sized Hahnemuehle travel booklet that I keep in the pouch has more absorbent ‘sketch paper’ than my other sketchbooks; fountain pen tends to bleed but the Drawing Pen works fine. As you can see, it doesn’t flow like the fountain pen in the drawing of Horbury High Street.

Lamy Safari pen drawing of sweet corn in Horbury Library’s garden last Tuesday.

It’s a change for me to apply watercolour that immediately soaks in, rather than staying on the surface just a little, as it does on the fairly smooth cartridge paper that I normally use. The off white, creamy coloured paper makes a change from white too.

Chimney Tops

AS I WAS drawing chimney pots from the waiting room the other day it started to rain so heavily that the small patio, pummeled by the deluge, frothed and bubbled like a shallow Jacuzzi and my view disappeared behind windows that soon became water-features.

I turned my attention to the chair, which someone promptly came and sat in, so he got included as well.

I was drawing this bicycle at the cafe at Newmillerdam on Monday and as it’s owner, Beverley, prepared to whisk it away (that always happens when I start drawing, doesn’t it?!) she came over to chat. She works in stained glass; usually small free-standing panels with lead tracery.

Had I seen the work of her friend Mark Powell? she asked me. He draws detailed character portrait studies in Bic ballpoint pen.

Another of her creative friends, Karron Campbell lives in what appears to be an impossibly scenic corner of New Zealand. Karron and her daughter Rickie left Wakefield four years ago and not surprisingly they don’t seem in any hurry to come back!

I guess the Coromandel Peninsula offers more scenic possibilities than Wakefield’s Rhubarb Triangle.

Links; Mark Powell Biro Pen Drawings, Karron Dawn Campbell’s and her daughter Rickie Louise Hill’s Creative Workshop on MySpace.

Chimney Tops

MY MUM had a slightly longer appointment this morning at the opticians, giving me time to draw this chimney on the east end of the old building across the road. I’d guess that it dates from Georgian times and you can see that the chimney appears to have been originally in stone, like the rest of the building, but later rebuilt in brick.

I didn’t get time to finish the colour so I took a photograph and I’ve finished off the colour back here in the studio from the computer screen.

I’m going to finish with my current everyday A5 sketchbook at the end of the year, even if I haven’t filled the remaining 20 pages or so. I’ve been using it since March but I’ve never really taken to it because the cartridge paper in it is too soft for my liking. The second wash of colour that I added bled through to spoil the drawing of the hand that I drew the other day.

Barbara’s brother John had no room for a Christmas tree this year. One of his sons sent him this perfect real miniature tree, which has a dusting of gold on its branches. So now he and Margaret will have somewhere to put their presents, provided that they are very small presents.

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Rowan and Sumac

AS I WAS saying the other day, Sumac (left) seems to be out of step with the seasons; since I last drew it, some of its leaves have turned reddish, others have fallen but it has also come into frothy, cream blossom.

The Rowan (right) is changing colour too; it has already taken on an autumnal yellow cast. It doesn’t seem long since the blossom was coming out, followed by the berries, which were eaten by the local Blackbird as soon as they turned orange red.

Tilly

Tilly, the Welsh collie at the Rickaro, is getting more at ease with customers in the bookshop and spending less time hidden under the desk.