CTArts | Lockdown 2020 Paintings

Covid Lockdown 2020 Paintings

With Covid 19 tearing through the world and lockdown creating more time on our hands, Being now on the cusp of my three score years and ten and asthmatic, I have more time on my hands indoors. However, as usual I am never bored and I have found a new direction in developing painting with acrylics. I started on A4 size with some new brushes and palette knives of views around Settle. With better results, I am now trying A3 sized from Painting 11 where more detail is required or using larger brushes to give chance to be confident on one application. This is now a celebration of our walks around Settle, such a boon in these awful times.

Ribblesdale My first attempt should be shown to see how I progress! This is from our beloved walk along High Road above Settle out over to Langcliffe. The walk that day was a gift of astonishing cloud formations. The tools here were over used, the paint too thick but it was a start.		The High Road revisited By the time I had done ten paintings, I realised how awful the early ones were so I have revisited some and transformed them! Here I show my better use of detail and different brush techniques. Mmmm. Practice makes .......

The Wych Elm, High Road A few yards further along the High Road, I marvel at this specimen tree which must be over 150 years old. Only last year half its magnificence was taken down by high winds but it is still producing the bundles of seeds in spring that come out unusually before the leaves, a wonder, as it graces the view up to Blua Crags.		Warrendale Knots On the same walk, at the Settle and Langcliffe parish boundary wall, Warrendale Knotts were in view across the medieval field system. Another sort of cloud formation presented itself just a few minutes later. This picture has been revisited to better effect too.

Over Castle Hill Only twenty minutes later on the same walk to the other end of The High Road, with such amazing cloud systems that evening, the roof tops of Castle Hill were silhouetted against a herring bone sky. I've painted over the first attempt few times to improve the cloud system but at last I am satisfied.		Gibson Mill, Hardcastle Crags My Silver Lining gal pals went on a walk here in Lockdown without me but I remember it well when we, as a family, would go. Practising trees and reflections were done with this one.

Settle Weir Our fast moving River Ribble cascades over the old weir within 6 hours of a heavy downpour and goes down just as quickly. Herons, dippers, rats and water voles live all year allowing the salmon and sea trout to swim up every October. A long view from Settle bridge puts the weir in context.		The Locks The old Cotton Mill at Langcliffe has given us rusting workings to love, a secluded and silting-up mill pond home to mallards, moor hens and even mandarin ducks and another wonderful weir. In the evening sun, my shadow showed up on the bridge. Magic.

Malham Cove I just had to try another way of capturing Malham Cove! With the palette knife in hand, the Cove was a great start at practising using it.		Queen's Rock, Settle From the Memorial Bridge, next one down stream, we love watching the river alter its flow round Queen's Rock. Here is the line of the South-Craven Fault line, deliniating the drop of the land to the south at this point, forming millstone grit at the surface that has been eroded from the limestone country to the north. Such the geologist in me is thrilled.

Castlebergh from Watery Lane My first A3 size gives me more room for detail. Our local landmark stands proud above the town, not an actual castle of old, but a block of reef limestone with turrets. Upper Settle, Greenfoot and Watery Lane with aspicilia calcarea gracing the limestone walls like a fresh fall of snow all give such pleasure.		Scots Pines, High Road Again, along High Road is another interesting view. This copse of pines are a beautiful sight but not indigenous. They could be one of the welcome plantings for cattle drovers from Scotland after Culloden that wasted the Highland system but lined the pockets of the English opportunists. Birtwhistle of Settle made his fortune on droving cattle from Scotland to Lincoln markets via Long Preston.

Cleatops Gradually tackling more complex views, this one of Dog Meadow allotments, the Saxon lynchetts cut into by a quarry for the tannery of Upper Settle and then on to the protected woodland of Cleatops provided much practice at shading and detail.		Watershed Mill and more On a golden sunny afternoon when rays caught odd surfaces, this view of Watershed Mill, an old cotton mill now a clothes and gifts outlet but soon to close. But, if viewed closely, this painting has many of our favourite walks - Banks Lane, Josie's donkeys and whethers in Crookacre Field, Barrel Sykes link into High Road, the railway line and the river Ribble besides the beauty of our industrual heritage now, sadly, with the black cloud of Covid-19 hanging over it.

The Boardwalk, Barbados Probably my last trip abroad was taken in early March 2020 as tales of the pandemic were being told as a possible worry. Barbados! An experience not to be missed-two weeks of me finding hours on my own while Philip worked! This picture had the chance to practise a wave and rock which were added to the memory of our favourite stroll in the evenings to a great restaurant on The Boardwalk.		Settle Parish Church One bright day, Settle Parish Church shone a lovely pink, the snowdrops were out, the graveyard was fresh in my mind through my involvement with the Graveyard Project of upgrading the records and I faithfully recorded my own in paint.