Blackburn outskirts 2 drawings by Rob Miller

The last house
Above Wilpshire by Parsenage Res
Pen and Watercolour
34cmx24cm
Rob Miller

Blackedge near Darwen
Pan and watercolour
34cmx24cm
Rob Miller

Blacksnape maybe in the West Pennines, but I think Parsenage Res, which sits just below the last hill before and above Wilpshire is probably a Ribble Valley place...Neither place is significant to me except for the fact that I did some early courting in both some 40 years ago..along with training for my schools cross country team events.( Not at the same time) It was cold and raining then as it is now when I stopped to do the sketches; this week it was sleeting down in fact and my experimentation was not quite as lust full, I was testing Van Gogh v Windsor and Newton watercolours....and pondering on the nature of this West Pennine area that I have decided to paint; the west Pennines name is a recently bestowed title by the conservationist staff of the surrounding municipality's, like the Council in Stoney Bridge Fife, name something and hey tourists appear, the moors now named as such are a much ravaged semi industrialized upland and valleys to the North West of Manchester. Lacking the rugged Hovis nature of Rossendale and the true pennines; the West Pennines by and large are dark purple heather moors which slumber under soft billowing grey skies that walk up full frontal from the Irish sea, with now and then a wait for a break in the rain;  if your lucky the clouds tumble into rows of Cumulus and patches of the sky become blue, whilst on the ground, greyhound, shadows race across the open moors before tumbling through beech copses and down into the valleys villages which blend into woodland and white dot, green pastures;..A lot of the time when the Atlantic weather system becomes bogged down the pattern becomes one thick sheet of grey, to the East a distant line of sulphur, pale yellow and buff appears lining over Manchester and to the West a creamy bright cream blending sometimes with a baby blue shows were the land and its rivers meet the sea at the coast and Blackpool tower