Mining The Old Stuff

So in 2016 I spent a lot of the year walking the Boot & Shoe, then trying to draw something off each street. Not really an artistic project, more like learning piano scales. Walking, sketching, walking again, then sketching again. Over 80 streets done and the end sketches were definitely better as the year went on.

The drawings had to be face on, and this one was quite intimidating on first look. Very dignified in it’s disused slumber, I never fail to love it on my frequent walk pasts. Yet again in planning so fingers crossed it comes back to life.

2 of 5

So a bit of madness away from the sketch pad slowed this down. The factory is currently being refurbished into a cultural hub type of thing by the council, so glad to have captured the view. Trying to take modern Northampton and through the drawing give it a feel of old lost Northampton. Angel Lane to the right, with the coffee shop and buildings beyond does reflect on the numerous occupied cut throughs all across the town and now lost.

It’s quite amusing that as the road is on a curved hill, the factory feels like it ought to curve but doesn’t. However who says drawings reflect life.