Paul Magrs's Blog, page 40

Now it's really Spring in Levenshulme

Saturday Tea Time drawings...

Yesterday, just for fun, I left aside drawing-straight-from-life and did three pictures that I hoped would summon up the very essence of Saturday Tea-Time...

Manchester Drawings from last week

 Tea at the Midland Hotel

 Levenshulme Market

 Royal Exchange Cafe

 The Northern Quarter

Levenshulme Market

Drawing Alice...!

This was a curious result of World Book Day. Somehow... as if by magic, I found myself drawing some Alice in Wonderland illustrations very late at night.

It's something I've always wanted to do - to illustrate Alice. I first tried when I was about six years old. As this year's the book's 150th anniversary, it seemed like a fun thing to get into. Here are the first four pictures I've completed.

My Own Private World Book Day

It's World Book Day and my newsfeed is full of people either dressed up as something or other, or going off to read their work out to people. Since no one has asked me to do either of those things.. (!) I'm off to visit my favourite bookshops, and a library or two - and to read and write and draw in a few favourite cafes. I'm on the hunt for graphic novels today, I think. Bronze Age Marvel comics are what I'd love to read today. 

And I'm also lugging the new Anne Tyler with me, as well as all my drawing things. And I'm thinking of actually going for it - at last - and illustrating my own kids' book for the first time (what do you think..?). 

But in the mean time - here's a photo to gladden the heart of any bookshop-hound. It's the painted stone stairs into the cellar at the High Street Bookshop, New Mills - which we discovered for the first time yesterday. It's a wonderful place, with an upstairs filled with annuals and novels and 1970s comics and a basement of old vinyl. It's a very good shop, where everything feels lovingly curated, rather than stocked...

(Of course, it's not only bookshops and libraries where you find the best stories. Look at this, found last week, in a corner at the very top of Manchester Museum. (So he *was* real...?!))

A few more pictures

 City Gallery Cafe - with the nice cat I saw on the way home.

 Corner House cafe. Writing is hard...

 First daffodil.

 Fred's Ale House, Levenshulme (with a switch of medium, into acrylics and felt tips.)

 Nemo.

Shine Hair (another try - using acrylics.)

This week's drawings from Manchester...

 The cafe at the Contact Theatre

 Tea at Mrs Gaskell's House

 Levy Baths from Outside

 Downstairs at the Molly House


Stan the T Rex at Manchester Museum

Latest batch of cards...!

A new batch of cards has arrived, featuring twenty four different drawings by me. They're available in packs of four for £10. Please email pmagrs@gmail.com for details.

Busy Weekend in Manchester

 ...from the about-to-close-and-be-knocked-down Cornerhouse - the iconic art cinema and cafe on Oxford Road...


...to Saturday night at the newly refurbished and wonderfully convivial Pod deli in Levenshulme...


...to the recently-reopened Whitworth Gallery... it was a busy weekend for us in Manchester.

The sun came out in Levenshulme

The sun came out in Levenshulme this week, and here's what it did to my pictures...