Drawing with the left hand

Drawing with the left hand Water colour drawings, mainly of places I like to visit in the West Country, the Yorkshire Dales and Scotland.

The pictures on Facebook are a lossy .jpg file to a standard size of 1333 x 1000 pixels. The original is to a far higher resolution, scanned to 1200 dpi, more than 10 times the size.

My latest painting is a street scene of Pidvalna St, in Lviv, western Ukraine. Lviv, Львів, Lwów. Lemberg, לעמבעריק, Льв...
03/11/2023

My latest painting is a street scene of Pidvalna St, in Lviv, western Ukraine. Lviv, Львів, Lwów. Lemberg, לעמבעריק, Львов has been part of the Kievan Rus’, the largest state in Europe in the early mediaeval period, the kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Empire, a brief period of Ukrainian independence in 1918, the Ukrainian SSR, and finally part of the Ukrainian state after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The two churches in the background, next to eachother, show the diverse cultures which have made the city.

My thanks for the original photo to the Forgotten Galicia page.

My composition shows the city in autumn colours, with cars old and new and people enjoying a bit of autumn sunshine before the cold of winter.


#Львів


#לעמבעריק

#Львов

#Україна






Sometimes, even quite a short walk can be full of interest.Yesterday afternoon I walked along the River Cam at Cameley.C...
30/10/2023

Sometimes, even quite a short walk can be full of interest.
Yesterday afternoon I walked along the River Cam at Cameley.
Cam is ancient British Celtic and the same as Cambridge, Camborne and the Campsie Fells. It means crooked, and the River Cam certainly does take a winding course on its way from the source at Hinton Blewett to where it meets the Wellow Brook at Midford.
The banks are too densely tree-lined to get near the river but there is plenty else to see.
I made friends with belted Galloways in a field near Mill Farm. The breed is originally from South-West Scotland but there are several herds in the South West and they have gained in popularity because they are extremely hardy and happy to live outside all year, long-lived and the fat content of their meat is extremely low.
Then in the churchyard of the twelth century Parish Church I was treated to a close encounter with the ghosts of the Rees-Moggs. The current incumbent really should send one of his flunkeys to give their stones a good wash and brush-up!
The church is near the historic centre of the village but since the building of the New Bristol Road from Wells to Bristol early in the nineteenth century the village has gradually shifted to the A37 and there are very few houses near the church.
I did wonder when I took shot 9 why people don’t pick their apples any more?
And then, a mysterious hole in the middle of a field surrounded by Heras fencing. It is the opening to an old coal pit. I cannot find it in any list of old pits in Somerset, but it is on the edge of the Somerset coalfield and the Coal Authority have taken charge of it, so the hole is probably a relic from long-bygone centuries when there was no control on mining and if you found coal in your land you could just dig a hole without needing permission from anybody, and then pay your workers tuppence ha’penny a day to dig out the coal.











It's the end of October and the clocks go back tonight.Spooks and ghouls abound so here is one of the nastiest of them a...
28/10/2023

It's the end of October and the clocks go back tonight.
Spooks and ghouls abound so here is one of the nastiest of them all.









A new mountainscape with an unusual view of Blà Bheinn from the top of Garbh-Bheinn.The usual limited palette typical of...
26/10/2023

A new mountainscape with an unusual view of Blà Bheinn from the top of Garbh-Bheinn.

The usual limited palette typical of the rugged gabbro of Skye’s mountains. Not a single speck of green in sight, but forty shades of grey and brown. The only grass on Blà Bheinn is the famous Putting Green, not visible in this view.

I never tire of Scottish mountains, and as soon as I finish one I start thinking about another. No, I haven’t counted how many I have done, I just look forward to doing the next.















As I post it has started to rain again and is set for more dismal weather in the next few days.A few flowers survive her...
24/10/2023

As I post it has started to rain again and is set for more dismal weather in the next few days.

A few flowers survive here and there and these are two I spotted when I went for a walk after work yesterday. These are actually cultivated roses which have not been looked after too much and have been allowed to grow slightly wild, and you can just see the out-of-focus hips in the corner of one of the pictures. The hips are valuable winter food for birds such as thrushes and blackbirds. The true wild rose just has five petals in a single rosette and are usually only pink, white or yellow.

These roses are in a very privileged position, they grow up a south-facing stone wall and get plenty of sun, and will probably continue to flower into November or the first frost. Further along this wall down the lane is the spot where I usually see snowdrops for the first time, commonly only a few weeks after Christmas.










Today, a sextet of old Landies!I thought when I was looking through my photo collection I would only select those which ...
22/10/2023

Today, a sextet of old Landies!

I thought when I was looking through my photo collection I would only select those which are at least twenty years old. But five of the six have actually exceeded their half century, and the intruder from Yorkshire is also elderly by the standards of any other motor vehicle.

Here’s to wondering how many of them will still be around when they reach 100, and whether the fuel to power them will still be legal.

One day I will post on the hideously expensive Ineos replacement for the Defender, but not until I see one which is properly work-worn, with the odd dent here and there and a few owner enhancements. Preferably in the middle of a muddy field, because I don’t think I have yet seen one off a metalled road.

Posted with the distinctive clatter of the engine from past generations of Landies in my head.















Making the most of a grey day on Harris, at Luskentyre beach.Miles of soft sand, and hardly anybody on it.Winter or summ...
17/10/2023

Making the most of a grey day on Harris, at Luskentyre beach.

Miles of soft sand, and hardly anybody on it.

Winter or summer there is usually a stiff breeze – so the solitary lady going for a paddle was dressed warmly from the waist upwards. Luskentyre is protected by the island of Taransay, but even so it gets its fair share of wild Hebridean wind and there is hardly a tree to be seen except in the most sheltered inland spots.

Most of my pictures are from Tràigh Rosamol, which is right at the end of the road beyond the village.

A little trickery on shot 7, as it was not really getting dark when I left, and on shot 8 as the sky was really grey rather than blue.

The professionals two paces from the road, in the last shot, did not actually seem that pleased to see an intruder hop out of his car, take a few shots and then clear off. My effort is in shot 9, but I am much more happy with the still capture of the breaking waves in 2 and 4.

Meanwhile, a scene of Harris is somewhere on this desk, and will be on its way in the next few weeks.











An interesting half-day Corbett in Glen Lochay, in the Southern Highlands, on a slightly moody September day.Subh means ...
15/10/2023

An interesting half-day Corbett in Glen Lochay, in the Southern Highlands, on a slightly moody September day.

Subh means raspberry, but I never saw any wild raspberry bushes here. Although, the upper reaches of the mountain are densely vegetated with tiny plants which make for a walking experience like treading on a soft, if very rumpled carpet.

Meall nan Subh has two tops, the south the easiest to reach first, but the north is considerably higher. It is pretty much on its' own, not really giving anything away in interest to the nearby Munros. Also, near the south top, the OS has the unusual label of ‘concrete block’. I didn’t photograph it and don’t know why it was put there. Quite possibly part of the hydro schemes of the 1950s (the Lubreoch dam, where the road down the glen reaches Glen Lyon, is in the fifth shot).

This mountain is not frequently walked, however I hear that there is now a large car part at Kenknock farm, further down the minor road into Glen Lochay. A reminder that there are many Munros up the glen.














Today, my completed painting of Loch Shiel.I see photos looking south down the loch from Glenfinnan several times a week...
12/10/2023

Today, my completed painting of Loch Shiel.

I see photos looking south down the loch from Glenfinnan several times a week, and I regularly see captions like ‘The Harry Potter Viaduct’ and ‘Top Harry Potter filming locations’. Loch Shiel has become ‘Hogwarts Lake’ (not Loch Hogwart!) Visitors are not just from the UK and last time I looked there was ‘Die “Harry Potter” Brücke’.

My view is from half way down the loch. All the Harry Potteriness is confined to the proper context, a tiny oasis of green woods and blue loch surrounded by mountains. Look carefully and the railway viaduct and the monument are both there.

So, what you see here, from the left, is Odhar Mhor, Sgurr an Utha (with a little bit of cloud swathed around the top), the little bit of Harry Potteriness somewhere in the middle with Beinn an Tuim behind, and to the right, Meall na h-Airigh. The bit of mountain in the foreground is Sgurr Guibhsachain. Several red deer does are grazing on the hill, blending in to their surroundings so perfectly that you are only likely to see them when they move.

I expect next time I go there nothing else will have changed, except the car park by the road will be even bigger.

My last thought is, would this post attract more likes and comment if I had painted a schoolboy with dark hair and round glasses on his way up the mountain? Perhaps he wouldn’t need to bother walking, he could just hop on his broomstick and fly up to the top of any mountain he pleases.














More odd history.Last time I was in this part of South Yorkshire I visited the Hoober Stand. From there I could see acro...
10/10/2023

More odd history.

Last time I was in this part of South Yorkshire I visited the Hoober Stand. From there I could see across the valley, almost entirely occupied by the Wentworth Woodhouse estate and I could see another tower on the northern edge of Rotherham. So one look at my map and was off to see the Keppel Column. There, someone walking their dog in the field told me I should go and see the Needle’s Eye, so it was back to the other side of the estate, to have a look at that as well.

The Fitzwilliam family who owned the estate and a large proportion of the coal industry in South Yorkshire, had a hand in all three. In fact there are not just three monuments up and down the estate but twenty one.

And here is a different story for each one.

The Hoober Stand was built to commemorate the crushing of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. The location is locally notorious for after-dark pagan and occult activities and paranormal events.

The Keppel Column commemorates the acquittal of Admiral Augustus Keppel, after the indecisive performance of the Western Squadron of the Royal Navy against the French at Ushant. The Column also has a tale, about visitations by the spirit of a lady who fell to her death from the viewing platform at the top.

And on to the Needle’s Eye, which was built by the same family to win a wager that the Viscount Rockingham could drive a coach and four through the eye of a needle. Hence the wheel stops at the corners of the ‘needle’.

In a previous post I wrote about the Labour minister Manny Shinwell. Apparently nothing was ever going to happen to the estate because it is virtually the only part of South Yorkshire where there is no good coal beneath the surface of the ground. The Fitzwilliams were never going to pass up the chance to earn good money by building their big house on land where they could have sunk another pit.

I can see a good walk some time in the future to take in all three. And maybe tell some more stories about the other eighteen monuments up and down the estate.










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