Walkden Gardens are a little known public park in Sale, Cheshire. In a suburban conservation area, they can be easily missed by passers by. The gardens were begun in the late 1940s & are run by Trafford Council & a group of volunteers. They are very well kept. Some of the ideas have beenderived from Lawrence Johnsons great garden in the Cotswolds, Hidcote Manor, with garden rooms surrounded by high beech hedges.
Poplars on the Mersey Valley at Didsbury.
There is something wonderfully nostalgic about Lombardy Poplars. I always associate them with memories of parks, galas & shows & school summer days.
Some small water colours based on trees in the landscape.
Manchester is a very lens & curator based artists community these days. Not too many people are interested in painting. There isn’t much to see, except for tired Pre-Raphealite stuff in the main Art Gallery.
I like taking photographs but I have always wanted to paint & I have no desire to diversify into curating or making films.
These are from a stand of Lombardy Poplars along the Mersey Valley in South Manchester.
They are just in sketchbooks. I love poplars.
This shows the working process in the studio. I quite often paint over old work. I have had this one in the studio for a long time & I didn’t like it. It seemed too mechanical & also as I painted it when I was very ill it just reminded me of that time. I had an undiagnosed chronic sub-dural haematoma & I was trying to finish work for an exhibition!
This shows the development of a new painting. The painting isn’t finished & I will post the next stages at a later date when it’s finished!
Collages with watercolour which I did today. They are small scale & from sketchbooks.
Abney Hall & various drawings from travelling between Stockport & Bolton.
It has been a beautiful spring day in Cheshire & it was lovely to hear the combination of birdsong & church bells in a walk around Abney Hall in Cheadle. I didn’t do any drawing, but it is in my memory now & over the (soon to be lost) Easter college break I might try & revisit as the trees are mature & the hall is wonderfully quirky It is mid Victorian & mixes both the Gothic & the Romanesque.
A couple of weeks ago I took a bus ride from Stockport to Bolton & made drawings from the windows. Here are some of them…….
Work in progress.
These are not properly resolved & some are only just started. I have already changed the orange one (not for the best) but hey that’s what painting is all about, taking risks. Watch this space for changes & developments….when I get chance to go in the studio again.
Out & about on a bus travelling from Stockport to New Mills drawing what I could glimpse from the bus windows. The colours were lovely but unfortunately I can’t paint fast enough. I sometimes take photographs but rarely use them as reference material, maybe as reminders.
