Tag: Harrogate

The Crown

The Crown Hotel sketch

As a complete change from the graphic symmetry of the library logo on our day off in Harrogate today I’ve gone for a freeform drawing exercise, suggested by Ian Burke of the Staithes Gallery on a recent episode of Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes.

In contrast to all the planning that went into constructing the library facade for the logo, the aim here is to keep your pen on the paper and just keep drawing.

Crown Hotel
The subdued colour and rippled detail remind me of early Lucian Freud paintings (my favourite period in his work 🙂 ).

I know what you’re thinking, even for a freeform drawing isn’t that too wobbly? But I was drawing through the windows of the Palm Court Cafe above Farrar’s so I was looking through the rippled glass leaded lights of the cafe’s windows.

Links

Staithes Gallery

The Crown Hotel, Harrogate

Palm Court Cafe, Harrogate

Shopping for Clothes

shopping sketches
Jacket

Combining a shopping trip with a brief visit to Harlow Carr and a walk through the Pinewoods and Valley Gardens into Harrogate.

Lorus watch

The Boulevards of Harrogate

Pump room, Harrogate
The Pump Room, Harrogate
Drawn from Farrar’s Palm Court Cafe.

With summer temperatures and autumn colour, there’s a feeling of being in a continental city today in Harrogate. There are the now-redundant grand gates of Harlow Carr, which remind me of the walk from the top of the Spanish Steps to the Villa Medici in Rome and some solid stone-built arches near the station which reminded me of the ruins around the Forum but, as you can see from my photograph of the street guide with his tour group by the Pump Room, it was mainly Paris that came to mind. To add to the resemblance, there are several Paris-style Morris Column advertising pillars dotted around the town centre.

gunnera

The giant rhubarb leaves of gunnera add a tropical feel to the Valley Gardens.

blackbird bathing

A male blackbird bathes enthusiastically in a small puddle in The Pinewoods as we walk down from Harlow Carr. On our return walk a black spaniel pauses to lap up water from the puddle.

Speckled Wood

The dappled markings of the speckled wood, resting on a bramble leaf, echo the dappled sunlight in the welcome shade of The Pinewoods, as we walk up from the Valley Gardens, Harrogate, on the hottest day since July.

Meadow Brown

meadow brown

A slightly battered meadow brown feeds on creeping thistle flowers at the edge of the meadow in The Pinewoods between Harlow Carr and the Valley Gardens, Harrogate. They’ve been mowing the meadow this morning, leaving the hay in rows to dry in the sun.

Valley Gardens

Management in The Pinewoods and at the top end of Valley Gardens aims to increase the biodiversity of woodland, meadow and parkland but as you get nearer the town there’s a Victorian formality to the carefully tended carpet bedding.

coleus
Coleus

The displays of scarlet geraniums and variegated coleus aren’t going to win any prizes for subtlety, but, along with the restored pavilions, park shelters and the Old Magnesia Well Pump Room, they’re a nostalgic delight.

coffee and scone at the Palm Court Cafe

Not surprisingly, as we’re into the summer holidays, there’s a one-hour queue at Betty’s Tearooms (both in town and up at RHS Harlow Carr) so, following a tip-off from our friends Roger and Sue, teashop connoisseurs, we headed to the Palm Court Cafe, above Farrah’s Olde Sweet Shop, for a latte and apricot-and-almond scone, and I drew the White Hart Hotel across the road.

White Hart Hotel, Harrogate

The Majestic

I drew the magnificent pile that is the Majestic Hotel on a short break in Harrogate last month. Forty-five years ago, in August 1972, as part of my final project on the Graphic Design course at Leeds College of Art, I organised an exhibition at the Harrogate Festival about the life of Yorkshire composer William Baines (1899-1922) and a recital of his music by pianist Eric Parkin at the Majestic.

Drawn on the train from Leeds.

Harlow Carr

On our visits to Harrogate, we invariably head up through the Victorian park of the Valley Gardens and continue through The Pinewooods (left) at the top of the slope to Harlow Carr, RHS gardens.

With its vegetable and flower gardens, woodland walk, meadow area and alpine house, there’s always something to see, whatever the season. There’s even a woodland bird hide.

The Harrogate Train

Harrogate station
Harrogate station

phone manUsually, as soon as I start drawing a commuter, he or she will change position or get on to a train but I thought that I had a chance with this man, sitting nursing his luggage and thoroughly absorbed with his phone. After five minutes our train started moving away but I’d made a mental note of the colours and I quickly added them. I like plain inky drawings but usually I feel that sketches like this come to life when I add a bit of colour; there’s so much more information in a drawing which includes colour.

‘You are now entering a great crested newt site’ a notice on the trackside near Hornbeam Park informs us.

Drab, Dry and Dusty

hill houseThe countryside has a late summer look to it. Oaks near Horsforth now look drab, dry and dusty. The flowers of creeping thistle have largely turned to downy seed heads. There’s a decadent feeling that the party is almost over, frothy creamy white flowers of Russian vine and trumpets of greater bindweed are festooned over fences. The waste ground flowers that I associate with the end of the summer holidays have appeared: Himalayan balsam, rosebay willowherb, common ragwort, goldenrod and, looking rather dull and mildewed even at its freshest, mugwort.Leeds sketches

park bloomIt’s the first time that we’ve visited Harrogate for years but we’ll certainly return. We walk up through the Valley Gardens then through the pinewood on Harlow Hill. We don’t get chance to walk around the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Harlow Carr because we spend so long queuing for a leisurely lunch at the deservedly popular Betty’s Tearooms.