Years ago I walked from my home in Nelson over the moors road to Heptonstall and Mytholmroyd, and whilst I was drawing Burnley Road School (seen from the fields), a man approached and told me that the former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes had once been a pupil.
I came across this news item from 1948 with the original photograph. Aged 14 at the time, I am still learning, but the painting demonstrates my interest in local buildings even at that age. This one is of Padiham Technical Institute.
The travelling fair used to come every year to waste ground near to Victoria Park, opposite the football ground in Nelson. My family would visit every year, but sadly it no longer comes. However I saw an advert this morning for a fair in Colne. As it is August Bank holiday next week and people will traditionally be visiting fun fairs, I am highlighting some of the paintings and drawings from the carnival section.
This is about my father John William Lonsdale born in Nelson, Lancashire on 7th July, 1896. The story might be of interest to anyone from the area, especially those who used to work in the mills nearby the baker’s shop on Southfield Street, up until the mid 1950s.
Here is a pencil drawing made from imagination in 1976 which was shown at a mixed exhibition at the Manchester Evening News display centre in 1986, but NFS.
Continue reading “The Cat Lover”
When I was a student at the Royal College of Art I would visit the various museums in the area and occasionally sketch interesting exhibits. Here are a few drawings from that era, circa 1956. Continue reading “Drawings at The Science Museum”
I found a few other paintings that depict the way that news was disseminated in the past.
A street news seller goes about his daily business hawking newspapers with shouts that were barely intelligible. In this memory I have highlighted the Suez Crisis of 1956 – often the sight of the news placard or the hawker holding up a freshly printed evening news was the first anyone heard of what was happening in the world when they came off shift in the mills.
From Aug 1971 – Aug 1981 as Head of Art at Burnley Grammar School for Boys, Byron Street, I had a wonderful view from the art room – which many of my pupils might remember. Here is an oil pastel I made of that view in 1973. The vibrancy of this medium remains fresh nearly 45 years later.
Two colour sketches, one in pastel and a more finished piece in oil, based on observations made whilst on the balcony of the Hippodrome Theatre in New Market Street, Colne.
