The Fox & Grapes, Sneinton Market, Nottingham UK, has long since returned to using that original name. I painted it a few years ago when it was called Peggers. In 1963, the landlord of the time was murdered. The crime has never been solved.
Long before my childhood therein, the village where I grew up had a small Wheat Mill. This redundant canal lock controlled the flow of the river. The drawing started on location, I think that's always essential, but completed back in the studio.
My first, second, even third drafts are always long hand. But today, at risk of losing myself amidst the A4 sheets, I’m typing out what I have so far of the third section of my intended novel. I’m sure I will discover things I haven’t done, and things I’ve overdone. Printing out what I have so far will better bring all that to the surface. I look forward to more editing.
#writing #amwriting
An on-location sketch of everybody's favorite fisherman.
We played where deep forest eyes
Took their prey by surprise,
Breathed the pine needle dust
On the breeze.
Placed our paper boat creations
In origami formation,
And from the river’s rippling edge
Cast them free.
We would race, we would stumble,
Sometimes feebly fumble,
Picking pussy willow catkins
From their trees.
We were the Kings of secret places,
Amongst the first to tie our own laces,
Amongst the last to wear boy’s trousers
Below the knee.
I sometimes visit our secret places from before,
Imagine origami shadows passing underneath bridge walls.
Your voice in the pines on the breeze.
I hear you’ve now reached your own finishing line,
Made your permanent exit, a bookmark in time.
I am alone. Those teardrops on that stone
Are from me.
(copyright ian gordon craig).
An oil painting, but the "undercoat" was in acrylics.
Colored pencil drawing Silver birch trees.
Two rather fancy looking sheep I encountered on the road to Oxton, Nottingham. They looked like they were ready for a good night out.
#Sketchbook #Drawing #Sheep.
An acrylic painting from a few years back. It shows the musicians on the small Malt Cross stage, as viewed from the floor above. I made sketchy notes, and then worked from a dim snapshot, creating the lighting effect as I wished it to be. Never use "flash" with your photos. It never captures the atmosphere that way.
This painting was a protest against the millions of plastic freebies distributed in children's comics. I used plastic toys depicting extinct (and nearly extinct) animals for obvious reasons. (The painting was exhibited and sold from the Harley Gallery.)
This is Meadow Lane Lock, on one of many canals nearby the River Trent, Nottingham UK. The reason I draw in black crayon is because it scans better than carbon pencils, which can sometimes reflect the light.
This was done sitting in the grounds of Newstead Abbey, UK, amidst the rhododendron flowers and tree roots. I enjoyed exaggerating the color and textures.
Blue Berries and Maple Syrup. Much healthier option on my porridge than sugar. (Yes, I know, north of the UK border it would be salt.)
Not sure if this is a pie or pasty. Whichever, it tasted good with a hot cup of tea.
In the 1960s the Miner’s Welfare Committee, operating in the Midlands UK, organised for its workers an annual day-trip by rail, to Skegness. What became known as “Pit Trips” actually started in 1932, but it was the 1950s / 60s which saw them thrive. Vast numbers of miners and their families would leave their villages looking like ghost towns as they boarded the trains for a day beside the seaside.
This particular photograph comes from 1964, which I believe was the final “Pit Trip” from Welbeck Colliery Village (now Meden Vale) to Skegness, before car ownership and coaches became more popular. It depicts my family. (I'm the Beatles fan in the sun glasses).
I think Elon has lost all interest in X. He paid a silly price for it, tried to defend that decision by saying it was all about protecting free speech and having a platform where people could speak their mind. A sentiment I REALLY appreciated in the UK. But what we have now, with people’s accounts being shut down without explanation, and effectively no help or support, is exactly the opposite of that.
It’s like a trial with no jury. Being accused of a “crime” without knowing what it was. It used to be a site where one could literally “twitter”, keep abreast of pop culture events, see the news as it happened via witness phone videos, hear different opinions than main stream media. It would appear that, for a significant number of us, a number that would seem to be rising, that’s all gone now. And, as far as X is concerned, so am I.
Colored pencils with water color wash. Finding time each day to STOP and really LISTEN to a complete album, beginning to end. Not "background music", not "music whilst I work". Kate Bush, Beatles, Bowie, suits me fine.