Staffordshire | Drawing the Street

Aquarius of Burslem can be found high up on the Wedgwood Institute on Queen Street, Burslem in the first alcove dedicated to the month of January. This is the month that shows a woman holding her infant – the symbolic infant new year with hand held high, gazing into the future.

It was 2014 that I took these photos – getting as much detail as I could so that I could draw them one day. It’s only taken me seven years but I am so happy to say that I have done it! I have drawn all the Wedgwood signs of the zodiac and the months and I am really excited to let you know that Barewall Burslem will be selling the original artwork. It felt fitting that the original artwork go back to the Mother Town and hopefully find homes with people who connect with and love this place.

It was back last September that I mentioned this body of work so let’s have a little refresher as to what I did for all my arty pals that read here.

Back in Staffordshire, I chose to work on some really weighty watercolour paper using natural pigments and gum arabic – making my own watercolour paint as I already have a selection of rich earth and mineral pigments.

Pencil sketched images from the Wedgwood roundels and building up using thin layers of pigment washes. The first one here is in English Yellow Ochre, then various red ochres added to build up the mosaic texture.

This is the point where I left them and moved up north.

The blues and greens of mineral pigment – the semi-precious stones crushed up to make colour is so fresh and bright – it felt fitting to use these to represent this mosaic artist’s beautiful work from back sometime around 1865.

I masked out the earlier work to frame the roundel in a deep rich red brick colour, adding texture by stippling on a darker red.

Here’s the full set of the astrological symbols. I added highlights of 23 carat shell gold to the mosaics to catch small sparkles of light.

These are all mounted and ready to fit a standard 12 inch square frame.

Each original artwork will shortly be on sale at £195 each from Barewall. If you are interested in one, please email me at ronnie.cruwys@btinternet.com or kindly get in touch with Amanda at Barewall Gallery, Burslem.

I have also stocked my Etsy shop with some packs of greetings cards which you can buy here.

Thanks for reading and will post more on the months very soon!

Ronnie 🙂

No 2 to 30a High Street, Eccleshall Staffordshire — Inking up the length of High Street Eccleshall

I am gradually picking up from where I left off before my recent accident. I am much more mobile now and keen to get back to normal activities so settling down to draw the second stage of Eccleshall has been a tonic.

Drawing of Star Pizza High and London House, Street, Eccleshall — Star Pizza and London House, High Street, Eccleshall.

This is a wonderful street to draw as it is full of life, colour and history.

colour on drawing of Star Pizza and London House — Star Pizza and London House with colour washes

As an example, London House was once the shop and home of a ‘mercer’ – a dealer in textiles, built for £50, and is now home to a restaurant.

Pen and ink and pencil drawing of Eccleshall High Street — Inking up Eccleshall Pharmacy, Wine Etc and Spencer the Jewellers, all listed buildings.

Eccleshall High Street lies in the heart of the conservation area where there are 61 listed buildings. Further descriptions of these buildings can be found on British Listed Buildings Online. The timber framed building now occupied by Wines Etc was originally built as a market hall in 1884, and is now listed grade 2 along with the others in this cluster.

colour drawing of Katherine House, Eccleshall Pharmacy, Wines Etc — Colour washes applied to the sepia drawing.

colour wash in egg tempera over Eccleshall Library — Eccleshall library and clock

The 1.6m long drawing is almost complete with some finishing touches to add along with the lettering. Once finished, I will scan and load the finished image on to the website Drawing the Street.

long view of whole drawing of Eccleshall High Street — Almost complete, just the lettering to add.

Limited edition, (set of 60) signed, fine art quality giclee prints will soon be available to buy at three different sizes: 30 small prints (60 cm) at £65 each, 20 medium (1.2 mm) at £125 and 10 large (1.5m) at £195, including postage and packing. Please contact me at RonnieCruwys@drawingthestreet.co.uk if you would like to reserve a print. If you are a trader who would like to stock these prints, or licence parts of the image for merchandise, I would be delighted to hear from you. Last of all, something for Cherry of Mercian Scribes:

Monty Grey Cat — The now All-Seeing-All-Knowing Monty-Grey Cat

drawing out the best in our streets

Drawing the Street

Category Archives: Staffordshire

Aquarius of Burslem

Adding colour to the High Street, Eccleshall

drawing out the best in our streets