Fussels Old Ironworks... inexorable nature

It being half way through half term we decided to take a day off to catch up with the children today... unfortunately work doesn't stop for school holidays so we have to do our best to grab some time with them when we can.
Rain didn't entirely scupper our plans, we managed to get out between showers for an adventure in amongst the tangled green ruins of 'Fussels Old Ironworks' in the next village.
It is an extraordinary place, though potentially extrememly dangerous if you don't take special care!

This tree root below looked just like the muscular forearm of a Dragon or Griffin buried by rock or overgrown in a sleep of centuries...

Everytime I go there I am still caught with the urge to explore in wonder its tumbledown archways and tunnels, fascinated by the way industry has been almost completely reclaimed by nature.
Water rushes everywhere, through sluices and underground culvetts, roaring through the walls where the huge wheel once turned.
It drips, every tree limb and broken wall swathed in thick fringes of bearded moss, ivy trails and ferns claim every fissure of the ruins.
In many ways it reminds me of the Film Noir masterpiece 'Stalker' by Tarkovsky that I posted a short clip of some time back here...




It was a dull day for photographs today and these don't do it justice, but in the summer it glows green, so verdant, so wild, yet it was not all so long ago that this place rang and smoked and steamed industry.

I have taken many pictures here over the years and it was a particularly great place for band shots... twelve or thirteen years ago I photographed my husband's band here, though it seems like yesterday! Some moody, some silly!

My brother in law

And a very young looking husband!

These I took on my cranky old manual Minolta that I loved, and I am rather proud of these... do click on it for a better look... I wish I could work out how to recreate this with my digital, the old Minolta is long defunkt...This stairway looks more and more precarious every time I visit but I love it... My Mum did a fantastic etching of this a few years ago, and many a band photo has been taken here too!

'Old Ironworks' Etching by Heather O' Brien

This seems to have turned into a bit of an epic post! I get a bit carried away with pictures sometimes, but I just wanted to share this special and unusual place... I will go back in the summer and show you how magical it looks all dressed in that season's glowing emerald green...

A Moon-Singing Fish...

Images and words copyright of Carrie Osborne 2010

The Moon was very big and full tonight as I drove home, and made me think of the second of my dummy (or mock up) books still waiting to be finished. The writing of this story needs quite a lot of reworking still and has a long way to go with the artwork too, but this is the double page rough for the full-moon page of the story.
I have less confidence in this story than the other two I am working on, but I like the raw idea of it if I can just get it to flow better. I won't give too much away, you never know I might get a chance to submit it one day! (If someone hurrys up and invents a time stasis machine!)

A strong full moon does not agree with me very well, makes me unsettled and edgy and quite often physically under strain as well. I must be a good example of how myths of lycanthropy
might have come about! Even still there is a bewitching beauty to a full moon riding bright in a deepening sky, and I love the moon cast shadows of the trees in a quiet lane as bright almost as daylight.
Fellow blogger 'Mermaid in the Attic' has posted a hauntingly beautiful and powerful song she has written about the Moon called 'La Luna' earlier today, do pop over and have a listen. It is perfectly evocative of that elusive presence I associate with the moon... very good!
Bye for now...

Another Stony Street session...

5 minute pose

Well I managed to make it out to the life session again this week...
We had a fantastic model, really strong and great poses... but unfortunately it had been a very long day for me and I didn't have the focus or the concentration I needed to do her justice.
It's so frustrating sometimes when the model strikes a really great dynamic pose and the light and shadows are just right, but the pencil turns to a lumpy cumbersome stick and my brain and fingers are at odds! Oh well...
Here are the best of the worst from tonight...

5 minutes

15 minutes

30 minute pose (some odd proportions going on there!)

And the final 30 minute pose

I felt like I was wrestling with it tonight but its really great to get out and draw finally! Looking forward to doing some more next time...

Remembering Gary Moore...

Another great guitarist gone unexpectedly before his time, aged only 58 yrs. There's been tributes played all day on Planet Rock and some other radio stations as well. It can't be denied he had his part to play in our recent music history - notably with Thin Lizzy of course... and in this clip is playing his own tribute to the late Phil Lynnot...
And so, in my own way here I am paying my respects to Gary Moore, long live Rock n Roll...

At last, back in the Life Studio!

5 minute pose

My first life session in six months!
I admit I did feel very rusty indeed having hardly drawn at all for the last few weeks... When I don't draw everything feels stiff and difficult and ideas can't flow onto the page because I'm so conscious of my hand getting in the way of my mind if you know what I mean!

So I intend to have another decent run of life sessions to break me back in. Just seeing the other people's drawings was very inspiring in itself - especially one lady who's style I just love.
Last night she was using chinese inks with homemade bamboo quills, brush and water - wonderful, wonderful results, so flowing and intuitive - and certainly made my own drawing style feel very stiff and self conscious.
But that's what is so good about working within a group, so many other approaches to learn from and be inspired by...
Here's a few more of mine again from last night...

5 minute pose

10 minutes

30 minutes
(just couldn't nail down the foreshortening on that knee - ooh that sounds a bit brutal doesn't it, ouch!)

And 30 minutes again, though there's some very strange proportions going on here... ahem!

Looking forward to next time, though I think its time to replace my favourite charcoal pencil - it's only an inch and a half long now!