Tag Archives: Daily Mail

Terrified Army Horses Gallop through London.

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Terrified Army Horses. Continuous line with colour. Mick Burton.

Seven Army horses and six riders were on an exercise in Kensington in April 2024, to help them get used to traffic and other noises in the City.  Near Hyde Park Corner at 8.30am the horses were frightened by a slab of concrete being dropped by Builders.  Four Army personnel were thrown from their horses and five horses dashed off into rush hour traffic.  Three soldiers had non-life threatening injuries.

There were collisions with vehicles which caused injuries to some of the horses and one horse hit a cyclist who was injured and taken to hospital.  Two horses were eventually apprehended almost six miles away at Limehouse by Police officers.  That evening, all horses were being cared for by vets.

I later read that it was two or three months before the horses were considered fully fit to patrol again.

The Daily Mail article included the following photograph, which I used as the basis for my continuous line drawing of two of the horses.

Daily Mail photograph 25.4.24. “Two panic-stricken horses, one of them bloodied, gallop across Central London.”  Photograph, Jordan Pettitt / PA Wire.

Whenever I have drawn horses before, I have used the general shape and structure of the animal to provide the design and I have never included a rider.  

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023

Colour Sequence on Continuous Line Drawing

Of course there are no riders this time because they had been thrown off, but I decided that it was important to include the saddle, harnesses etc.

Regarding adding colour to the drawing, in the painting at the top of the post, I decided to use the fact the one horse was black and the other white.  Having a dark background to the right highlights the white horse.  The blood on the white horse produced the Black, White and Red combination I have used several times before. 

It occurred to me that the impression was like portraying “A bat out of Hell”, which could reflect how these poor horses felt.

Continuous line drawing of Terrified Horses in London. Mick Burton.

These two pictures are to be exhibited at the  Stainbeck Arts Club Annual Exhibition on Saturday 31 August 2024 at Chapel Allerton Methodist Centre, Leeds, LS7 4NB.  This is part of the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival.

Stainbeck Arts Club Exhibition, 31 August 2024, Chapel Allerton Arts Festival, Leeds.

https://stainbeckarts.co.uk

 

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023

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Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023. Ripley Town Hall, 25-26 November 2023.

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club hold two exhibitions a year, Spring and Autumn.  The club has over 60 members and meets on Thursday evenings at Harrogate Grammar School during terms.  There are visiting demonstrators or talks at about half of meetings.

I will be exhibiting 7 pictures at the Autumn Exhibition, including two continuous line drawings of animals based upon photographs.

Daniel, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite Windsor Grey carriage horse, in 2017 when he retired to the Horse Trust.  Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

I have always liked shire horses and I based this continuous line drawing on a photograph in the Daily Mail article by Lucy Holden on 3 August 2017.  Danial, retired Royal carriage horse, is romping around in the paddock at Horse Trust.  I have added “fluffy feet”.

My main reason for producing this drawing is the memory of taking my kids to Bradford Industrial Museum and seeing the shire horses arrive back from a procession in full regalia around Bradford.  The staff suggested that we watch the horses when they were released into the paddock after a hard days work.  The horses immediately started dashing around, prancing and rolling on the ground and leaping up again.  We were shocked, surely these heavy animals would break something!

Here is a photograph of Daniel having a roll at the Horse Trust.

Daniel the Royal carriage horse having a roll in the Horse Trust paddock. Daily Mail, Lucy Holden article, 3 August 2017.

Daniel was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite carriage horse for 15 years up to his retirement in 2017 at the age of 22.  His face appeared on a Royal Mail stamp in 2014 and a life size bronze sculpture of him, and another of colleague Storm, appear to trot across the grass on the roundabout near the Long Walk in Windsor. Sculptor Robert Rattray, who was commissioned by residents to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, said “Daniel is an old stalwart and rather cantankerous”.

Bald Eagle, swooping down for a fish. Mick Burton, continuous line Artist.

I based this continuous line drawing of a Bald Eagle on a Getty Image shown below.  I found that progressing overlapping loops worked well with the feathers.

Bald Eagle, Getty Image.

I also did a preliminary drawing in pen and colour pencil.

Bald Eagle in pen and coloured pencil. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

 

 

 

Red Alert, Continuous Line Detected on Train Tracks Puzzle.

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I started doing Train Tracks puzzles in the Daily Mail a few months ago and then moved onto Medium puzzles (dimensions up to 10 x10) on puzzlemadness.co.uk and a month ago tried Large difficulty (dimensions up to 12 x 12).

You start off with a grid which states the number of cells which occur vertically or horizontally and they give you some bits of track initially, including start and end track at the edge.

Train tracks from puzzlemadness.co.uk Large difficulty 12.12.2020. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

There are many attractive elements to this sort of puzzle, including the possibility of solving them totally without trial and error.  The first thing to do is to add initial offshoots for all these start tracks.  Next look for any rows which already meet the number of cells containing track, such as the right hand vertical which has the required two including the offshoot.  This allows you to allocate spaces to the remaining 10 cells. 

Being an artist, I know the value of space in a picture and it is particularly important here.  Then you have to consider the various types of track and on you go.  Constantly checking and rechecking is the key as you add pieces.  Bear in mind that the aim is to end up with one route from start to finish, avoiding dead ends, and use that to your advantage.  Finding dead ends is also useful as you can allocate spaces.

It is best to start off with smaller easier Train Tracks puzzles to get used to the process.

I attempt my puzzles on paper where I draw the grid and enter the numbers and given track pieces.  My fingers are too wide and clumsy to do much prodding on my mobile phone and if I complete the puzzle I then tap in the answer.  Here is my initial drawing of the above puzzle.

Initial attempt at the rail track puzzle (large difficulty) of 12.12.2020. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

When I loaded this on my phone, I expected that as I tapped in the last piece the completed puzzle would disappear to be replaced by congratulations across the screen, for completing a route from start to finish.  Instead I saw the Red Alert.  It is not normally an offence to produce a continuous line in this blog.

I am good at mending this sort of thing of course and here is the final result – there is a X (space indicator) so that you see the complete shape before the last piece goes in causing the whole thing to disappear.

Correct completion of Train Tracks puzzle, with just the last bit to go in. Mick Burton, continuous line artist.

I am interested in various stand alone structures which have an environmental feel to them, where all the different elements can produce a surprising result.  

As it has been Lockdown etc,  I have completed 94 in about 10 weeks scoring 17,925 points, which put me at position 272 out of 863 listed.  Top is Stirlingkincaid with 2,766,965 !

On the monthly list I am 91st with 7,650 points.  Stirlingkincaid has 228,640 – does this person ever sleep?

Personally, I will probably move on now, looking for more structures which I can unlock with my continuous line knowledge.  Also, I need to finish my current work about Drawing Prime Numbers.

Show me a real Green Cat.

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Cat who slept on a heap of old green paint. Daily Mail, December 5, 2014. Mick Burton, continuous line drawing.

Cat who slept on a heap of old green paint. Daily Mail, December 5, 2014. Mick Burton, continuous line drawing.

I always thought that Green was a natural colour for a cat done with my continuous line drawing, but I never realised that one would appear. Here we are, in the Daily Mail report on a cat who is actually green and wandering around quite happily. It turns out that the cat slept in a garage on an abandoned heap of green paint.

My original Green Cat was created in 1969 as one of four animals sold to J Arthur Dixon Ltd., a greetings card company that was based on the Isle of Wight.  They produced sets of Notelets with them on, sold in little cardboard boxes.  Here are the four designs.

Green Cat, continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Green Cat, single continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Golden Horse, continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Golden Horse, single continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Blue Elephant, continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Blue Elephant, single continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Red Lion, continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

Red Lion, single continuous line drawing and alternate shading, by Mick Burton. Notelet design for J Arthur Dixon Ltd, Isle of Wight, 1969.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I continued the Green theme for a cat when I started producing my own greetings cards in 2013. This time I used colour sequence from yellow, through greens to blues.

The narrative on the card is about a cat that we had who used to get into all sorts of scrapes. His real name was Sandy and he looked a bit like the cat in the background in the Daily Mail photo above.</strong

Ragamuffin, green cat, continuous line drawing with colour sequence. Greetings Card (front) by Mick Burton.

Ragamuffin, green cat, single continuous line drawing with colour sequence. Greetings Card (front)
by Mick Burton.

Ragamuffin, continuous line drawing with alternate shading. Rear of Greeting Card by Mick Burton.

Ragamuffin, single continuous line drawing with alternate shading. Rear of Greeting Card by Mick Burton.

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