Sketch Crawl - The Hoppings, Newcastle Town Moor

Closed Teapot Ride

(0.5 marker in A5 sketchbook)

With the return of the annual Hoppings to Newcastle's Town Moor last month, I thought it was an opportunity to invite a few Tyne and Wear Urban Sketchers to a mid-week sketch crawl. Unusually for Hoppings week, we had glorious sunshine and although drawing in the middle of the day before the funfair opened at 2 o'clock meant few people were about, it also meant a serious absence of shade. 

To be honest, I'd forgotten what a visual overload the Hoppings presents, with complicated rides and stalls, all garishly decorated. The challenge was to find the basic shapes and include only sufficient decoration to make the drawing work.

After a short walk around, I stood in the shade of a closed stall and drew a teapot ride, also closed. I saw it later after it had opened up for business and realised how difficult it would have been to draw then.

Prizes

(0.5 marker in A5 sketchbook)

A little later, I decided it might be fun to capture some of the prizes hanging up on the stalls. Standing again in the shade of a closed stall, I drew these stuffed animals on offer as prizes on a "lucky number" stall. After a while, the man who'd been hanging up these soft toys, walked past me and I could sense he was standing behind. I ignored him and a few minutes later he went back to his job, shaking his head.

Helter Skelter

(0.5 marker, brushpen and coloured pencils in A5 sketchbook)

After a break for regrouping, a sit down with chips and fizzy drinks (by which time our original seven or eight had reduced to three), I set off with Luigi to take a look at the top end of the funfair before setting off for home. I'd just about decided that the long hot afternoon had worn me out but decided at the last minute to give the helter skelter a go. Standing in the shade of the back of a burger van, I did this last drawing. I got so involved with it that I found I was prepared to take the time to add colour with a red brushpen and some coloured pencils.

Then back home, reflecting on the fact that unlike my boyhood visits to the Hoppings when coconuts and goldfish were the prizes on most stalls, the goldfish were thankfully gone and there was a stall advertising that it was the only place to get a coconut, which you had to pay for.

No boxing booth, naked ladies or freak shows either, but we live in different times.

Bonfire of the Vanities 2

Madonna of the Toboggan (Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in)
DESTROYED

Destroying this painting took more thought than destroying the previous ones. It was based on a photograph I took at The Hoppings on Newcastle's Town Moor, but the photograph was always better than the painting which dates from 2004.

I'd considered destroying or painting over the Madonna in the past. but decided against it when I allowed the parts that appealed to me to sway my decision. And then I found a use for it in a show last year, where it added to the overall theme of isolation and what I thought of as "people in containers". For similar reasons, I thought about keeping some of the cut up painting but as the best parts were the bits of brightly coloured machinery in the background, you can probably see that there wasn't much that could stand alone.

To be honest, I destroyed better paintings while at University, so when it came to it I didn't really regret the loss.

The stress! It's wonderful!!

I've just put a note out for the milkman, asking him to resume my Saturday delivery which, unaccountably, has failed to appear for two weeks.

It was the act of communicating with someone in the 21st century by putting a message in a bottle that suddenly seemed so bizarre. Long may it continue.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of letting you know that the blogging method of communication may falter in the days ahead. I fear I'm about to enter painting purdah. While I was in London, I learned that three other painters and myself have been given the go-ahead for a show in the Long Gallery at Newcastle University which will last until the end of July.

This is really great, given that we've been trying to find a venue for the best part of a year.

However, we're hanging the show next Saturday and I have to make desperate decisions about what I want in it. I have more than enough pictures at home to fill the Gallery myself, but I saw this as an opportunity to show something a little different in a group context.

Accordingly, I've spent the last couple of days sorting through my Hoppings photographs and fiddling with them on Photoshop, to see if I might have a theme.

And I do have a theme. So much so, that I must now select which of the images I want to take forward. Much of Saturday was taken up with beginning a new painting. It's very Hopperesque and called, provisionally, The Cigarette Break. Today,Sunday, I spent assembling stretchers and beginning the stretching of canvas on them. Tomorrow I'll finish the stretching, get them primed (usually three coats of acrylic gesso) and maybe start the basic laying in.

Frankly this is my favourite part of the process. There are no worries about making mistakes. Indeed, mistakes can be welcome. They add to the look of the picture, give an idea of the history of its making.

At the most, I guess I'm going to be working on three new pictures, in addition to The Cigarette Break, but that's a lot of work, even if it goes well. In between working, I have a dentist's appointment, probably a doctor's appointment (my foot is no better), a visit from Mo who needs to take a photograph of one of the, as yet, incomplete paintings for the show's publicity, and a meeting with the rest of the group to agree the wording of said publicity, budgetary matters, mailing list and arrangements for the Private View.

It may mean that I shan't be able to keep blogging as regularly as I'd like, but I will try to keep you up to date as often as I can.

Even if I have to send a message in a bottle.

Round and round she goes.....

Modern technology has made great strides forward. This is more than can be said for Doctor Pam and me as we inched our way round the Hoppings Quagmire, but I couldn't help reflecting on how much worse things would have been in the past.

There'd been a lot of rain, but I never felt that I was in danger of having the mud cascade over the tops of my walking boots.

The difference clearly lies in the tools and materials available to local councils to deal with this kind of unfortunate weather. In the past, the Council would have used straw and sawdust to soak up the excess water. Not terribly effective, but sawdust you could get from sawmills and there's always loads of straw about.

Now, however, there's no shortage of wood chipping machines. Every council has them for use in the parks and gardens. And when the heavens opened this time, they were able to chip as much wood chip as they needed. The more it rained, the more they chipped.

Very effective. We were often walking in a thick film of mud, but it was floating on a good foundation of woodchip.

We had a good time walking in the mud-slicks, but the punters hadn't turned out in the numbers really necessary to provide the genuine Hoppings experience. For a Friday night Hoppings, this was quite quiet.

But that didn't stop us going round several times, taking in a good coffee (proper coffee stalls - another innovation!) and some rather fine donuts. We passed on the liquorice whips (7 for £1) and the stall selling "flumps" (only 80p) - mainly because neither of us knows what a flump is.

Yes, we could have asked, but when Doctor Pam asked if the bottles of Coke were cold, she got a "Yes, love". And they weren't. Serves her right. Horrible stuff.

After waiting 20 years to come to the Hoppings, I guess Doctor Pam really needed to go on one of the rides. But she doesn't like going upside down, being spun round or being shaken about. Doesn't leave much, really.

So it was, as the rides and shows were closing down for lack of patronage, she decided she'd go on the traditional Merry-Go-Round; all gaily painted horses going sedately up and down to the sounds of a calliope.

"I'll go and find a horse with my name on it," she said, "and if there isn't one, I'll look for the next most suitable."

As the ride powered up and the horses came towards me, I strained my eyes for sight of her horse's name as she turned the corner. And there it was! And the tune changed, then, too!

Doctor Pam galloped past on a horse named Bimbo, while the calliope played God Save the Queen.

Garden Treats

Doctor Pam's arrival found the weather trying to make amends for its former behaviour, but the prospect for the Hoppings still looked poor.

My Gardeners' World aspirations got the better of me on Friday afternoon and we tootled off to a garden centre in Birtley, Thing about garden centre stuff is that it tends to be very heavy, so the availability of Doctor Pam's car enabled me to hammer the plastic on all sorts of stuff.

I got:

* two really nice big blue earthenware planters,
* one bird table (sans pole to support it),
* one huge bamboo pole (which might support the bird table or get a rose up it),
* two lots of dianthus (Corona Cherry Magic) for the gaps in the tubs at the front door),
* one pack seed and insect suet feast (for wild birds),
* one pack berry treat feast (for wild birds),
* one "Seven Friendly Men" garden decoration.

The last is interesting. As you may remember, my intention on the garden decoration front, is to make various ludicrous objects from some kind of All Bran & Concrete Secret Recipe (when I find it - still looking).

But I couldn't resist this Seven Friendly Men thing (there was a bigger one called "Five Friendly Men"). There were quite a lot of them, so they were cheap, but they were obviously hand-made. There are seven men standing in a circle, looking in over, their arms round each other's shoulders. Their faces have a curious Inuit look to them. In the centre is a small bowl. (Wonder if Marja-Leena has come across anything like this?)

Anyway, whatever their origin, they look really cool standing in the middle of the lawn. I try not to think they may be pissing into the bowl.

Doctor Pam reckons she's never been to a garden centre before. It was, therefore, a revelation to her how much fun you can have there (including the wealth of wonderful real food available at the farm shop) without feeling you've fallen too deeply into the shocking ways of the Middle Classes.

The rain it raineth ev'ry day....

A Yellow Raincoat (Oil on canvas 36 x 36 ins)

The photograph has done some odd things to the colours of this painting, but it seemed appropriate. Not only is the underpass pictured near the Town Moor, but it has, rather obviously, a raincoat in it.

In fact, the rain lashed down all day on Thursday. It got to the point where I emailed Doctor Pam and pointed out the likelihood of the Hoppings being washed out. Since she's been waiting for 20 years to come up and visit the Hoppings, you can see that the purpose of her trip might be defeated.

However, she rang back and said that the car was already loaded so she might as well come.

In a sense this reminded me of the time I had what was thought to be a broken bone in my foot. (In these days of the Grand Limp, a memory ever on my mind.) They put a plaster cast on my foot, right up to my knee. Then they checked their X-rays again and found I didn't have a broken bone in my foot, just a hairline fracture.

"Still, since you've got the cast on, you might as well keep it for a month," said the doctor, smiling beatifically. Waste not, want not. A motto that made the NHS what it is today...

By the time Doctor Pam arrived, the rain had stopped. So provided there is a fiercely hot Equatorial sun today, baking the Town Moor mud dry, and the Council workmen haven't spent all night drowning their sorrows over England's Darkest Hour in Euro 2004, but labour like labouring has come into fashion and get the wood chips down on what's left of the puddles, all will be well.

Jack in the Box

Hoppings sketch (A4 sketchbook, watercolour and pencil)

Both the Frootbat and I are interested in photography; he for material from which to make darkly surreal collages, I for base material for my paintings. That was our main reason for going to the Hoppings yesterday afternoon.

I've battled with the Hoppings as subject matter for years. At one time, I was attracted to the colours and decoration of the sideshows and rides; still am, to a degree. But I came to realise that the colours are so garish, especially now that they've moved away from traditional decoration, that it's practically impossible to create coherent paintings from them.

I had a go at the frantic bustle and movement of the place - hence the sketch above - but that didn't really do it for me.

My most encouraging development in the last year has been a set of paintings, all unfinished, dealing with the people there. They had their origins in the only successful painting from the last attempt - see the detail in All the Fun of the Fair. Last time I went, I started to notice the cashiers in their little booths, sitting looking absolutely bored. This is, of course, especially the case during the slack period of the afternoon. There's something rather poignant, I think, about solitary figures enclosed in often highly decorated boxes, waiting out their time.

I hope I've got more material this time, but I can never tell until the film is developed and I get to fiddle with it in Photoshop. It would be good to be able to expand this series. My friend Mo tells me she may have wangled us a show in the Long Gallery at the University. It would be nice to have the Hoppings Series done for that.

Meanwhile, Doctor Pam is coming tomorrow night to stay the weekend. She's always wanted to see the Hoppings, so we'll be out on Friday night. Night time photography! Could prove even more useful.

All the Fun of the Fair

Untitled - detail (Oil on board)

Maybe walking for two hours on a sore foot wasn't a good idea, but, hey, the Hoppings are in town!

The largest travelling funfair in Europe, the Hoppings comes to Newcastle's Town Moor for a week at the end of June every year. As a child, it was always something I looked forward to with huge anticipation and the visits there, especially at night, were filled with excitement and wonder.

I still remember the time my parents steered me clear of any stall where I might have won a goldfish. Our last goldfish had recently died and they didn't want another. He'd lived on for years after killing off all other competitors in the tank and I think they were glad to see the back of him. Anyway, just as we were leaving the Moor, their attention was diverted just long enough for a lovely couple to come up to me and say, "Here, sonny, would you like this goldfish?" That one lived even longer than the previous one.

The days of giving away goldfish are gone, of course, and it's clear that most of the tat given away now comes from pretty much the same warehouse. Most of it made in China, I should imagine.

I met the Frootbat beside the bandstand in the Exhibition Park at about 3.30 and we set off up to the Moor. There's always a sense of bewilderment, I find, when I get to the Hoppings. A sort of "Where do I start?" This is compounded by the fact that the Hoppings now grows appreciably year by year. For years it consisted of two long rows but these have increased to four.

The answer to where to start is actually the same every year. Walk up the first row to the top, walk down the next, up the next and so on. And despite the increased entertainment, it's always laid out more or less the same every year.

First of all, there are the fortune tellers - the innumerable daughters of the one and only, the original Gypsy Rose Lee and the occasional Gypsy Rose Higginbotham. They were always an attraction to young women and I guess it's still the same now. Why is it young men never want to know how their lives will turn out, I wonder?

During the afternoon, of course, there's not a lot of activity, and the lady clairvoyants, evidently unable to tell when their next punter will turn up, sit about in the sunshine outside their caravans, trying to catch an eye.

Sunshine! There's an innovation of recent years. For some reason (connected perhaps with the Fair's origins in the Temperance movement) the week of the Hoppings always coincided with the most torrential downpours imaginable. Wellies were always de rigeur when I was a kid, and at least one visit was a complete washout.

But global warming seems to have brought about a change in the fortunes of the showmen. OK, so it rained once or twice this week, but the ground was still firm and only the occasional slough of bark-covered water lay here and there to trap the unwary. But then if you're daft enough to not watch where you're going, you're just as likely to walk into a mess of discarded noodles, a heap of fallen chips or a slippery ice cream cornet. All part of the fun.

After the fortune tellers, there are rows of hoopla stalls, hook-a-duck stalls, penny arcades, darts stalls and shooting galleries and even a few of the old lucky number stalls (where you pick a straw and push out the ticket from inside).

Rounding the top of the Moor, you start to come down the row of sideshows. In my youth there were real sideshows - boxing booths, ghastly old women doing "artistic tableaux" to the strains of "The Swan" by Saint-Saens, dwarfs and three legged sheep and halls of mirrors.

The crooked mirrors still survive as part of the Houses of Fun - those places where the floor shakes back and forth and blasts of air blow up girls' skirts. Some things never change, though the number of girls in skirts has, I suppose.

Many of the sideshows now are developments of two basic entertainments. The Ghost Train in various forms still seems to pack 'em in and people still come out looking slightly breathless and rearranging their clothing. The Rotor seems to have made a big comeback, although the original, which was doing no business the last few times I saw it there, has gone. But there are lots of new ones declaring their "sticky walls." The Rotor, in case you don't know it, is the ride where you go into a room which slowly spins, then picks up speed until you're stuck to the wall....and then the floor drops away.

Down the middle of the ground are the big rides. Waltzers, dodgems, helter-skelters and one or two old fashioned merry-go-rounds with properly painted horses. I even saw a set of shuggy boats for the kids. But mostly the really big bits of technology have taken centre stage here. There's a colossal Big Wheel, the biggest I can remember at the Hoppings. How the hell do they transport such a thing? There are a surprising number of people prepared to pay big money to get strapped into a metal ball and then get flung heavenward by two massive bungy-ropes.

So how many of these potentially suicidal rides do you suppose the Frootbat and I went on? Absolutely correct. None. We went to see the fun, not take part in it. I guess the showmen could tell that, because with one exception, none of them tried to rope us in. The exception was a guy who was either very desperate or simply the world's worst judge of character.

"Come on lads," he yelled," kick a football through the goal!"

The Frootbat! And me! Kick a football!!!