Secret of Vintage Jewelry

Hello again, and welcome to Jennifer, my new follower.

This week, I have begun probably my final pastel picture, perhaps my most challenging subject to date. It is a picture of “Magna” near Rotherham, South Yorks. Magna is an industrial museum, built within a large disused steelworks plant. We took the little one there yesterday, having only a vague idea of what to expect – we’d heard it had interactive displays, and I’d seen photos of people having a go on the earth moving machinery. It has four main sections based on themes of air, fire, water and earth, plus other exhibition rooms.

It was dimly lit and, with lots of echoey sound effects, they had really gone to town on making it feel eerie. What a shame our little ‘un doesn’t like the dark - he was particularly spooked by the the first floor lift room with its display of large flashing, crackling valves. First stop was the air section, an air ship shaped room, with a wind tunnel and mini tornado in a see through tube. He doesn’t like loud noises and it was the noisiest part of the museum, so amid cries of “go home now” we headed for the water section. This was quieter, warmer and better lit, and he was happiest there, so most of our time was spent in that part.
It was the melting shop that caught my interest. It looked as if the original fittings had been left in situ from when the place closed in 1983. Everything is rusty now, dimly lit, very atmospheric and I suppose a bit nostalgic, as there’s so little steel being produced in Sheffield now – almost a relic of the past. I took my time trying to get the construction of the various plant, pipes, and machinery right. The colours I’m using are mainly burnt umber, shades of orange and yellow, white and – unexpectedly - an azure blue, for the metal surfaces around where the white heat reflected from the furnace.

At art group, we had a rather sweet little dog, a “Parsons Terrier” according to Sue, whose granddog it is – she was dog sitting for a few minutes for her daughter. The way it growled almost had me expecting it to say “sausages” - UK readers might remember the talking dog on “That’s Life”.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth visited with 6 more paintings this week, which I’ve added onto the AOD site. Her work is more subtle in tone and contrasts nicely with Maggie and Sue’s more colourful oils. Anyway that’s all for this week.

Bye for now,
Jewel