Take a pencil and purr

 
Draw A Big Cat

A Lost Cats of Derbyshire activity

With a growl and a snarl, claws flex, a tail twitches and a long lean body pours over the rocks

The big cats are back.

 

A few thousand years after they last prowled the hills of Derbyshire, we’re bringing scimitar-toothed cats, lynx and cave lions back to the Peak District

 

They will arrive as cave lion masks, lynx flags, scimitar puppets. They will hide in shop windows, purr from shadowed corners, smile toothy grins in classrooms….but we started with drawings. With Big cats: big drawings at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery earlier this month, visitors took time to draw. With cats as pictures to inspire us, models to handle and museum exhibits to wonder at; visitors sketched and scribbled, coloured, shaded, smudged and created a renewed world of big cats.

 

We thought you might like to have a go yourselves with the guides we used to help shape those drawings. We used a worksheet with simple suggestions. These follow here but if you’d like to download a copy, use this link for a pdf that should give better quality than the pictures here: Big Cat Drawings worksheet

 

We were working on A2 sheets of paper to give us room for our cats to stretch and started with pencils before sometimes going on to use oil pastels, felt pens and chunky water-colour pencils

 

Faces

Working from a circle for a face-on “I’m looking at you” moment. This way can give quite round faces so you might want to pull those feline cheeks in a bit

 

In profile

Still starting with a circle but now adding a rectangle, we get the strong profile (watch those teeth) of a Homotherium

 

Sitting

A pear shape becomes a cat posed with her front paws neatly placed together. But she might not be smiling so much as waiting….

 

some mammoths snuck in....

Prowling

And then with a stretch and a yawn, our cats can set off on a hunt

 

Simple ideas to get you started…why not have a go, add your own ideas, and send us a photo of your lost cat drawings?

we didn't mind hyenas either

 

Lost Cats is a Buxton Museum and Art Gallery project with Buxton Our Street coordinated by Creeping Toad. Lost Cats is part of the Wild Escape initiative, encouraging people to use museum collections to inspire their own explorations of the world around them

With many thanks to all our Big Cats: Big Drawings artists!

Next event: Big Cat Puppets, Thursday 23rd February 2023

Words on town streets

 

WORD ON THE STREET
Resident? Visitor? Tourist, troubadour or ghost, 

we’re looking for poems, snippets and short stories that celebrate 

(or haunt, or disturb) Buxton’s Spring Gardens

Deadline: 31^st January 2023

Send as word doc to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

 

As part of the ongoing “Our Street” initiative in Spring Gardens, we’re collecting poems inspired by Spring Gardens – and the town as a whole. From elegant arcades to a lost theatre, from Ladybird Book window displays to bath chairs gathered at the foot of Terrace Road, we have galleries of photos to inspire writing and provoke conversation. Or just take a walk along Spring Gardens as it is now, peer into windows, listen to voices, think about the river that runs below the street and find a rhythm in your shopping list. We’re open to poems, short stories or just pieces of creative writing

 

Work will be collected and published on this blog and feature in an exhibition during a public event in the Pump Room on Sunday 19th February (details to follow). The project is coordinated by Gordon MacLellan of Creeping Toad who local children and families will know from events in the Museum, in Pavilion Gardens and through the woods of Buxton.

 

There are a number of blog posts that might help you

 

a) an introduction to the whole project

b) there are two galleries of photographs(with many thanks to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery!) of the Gardens over the last 100 or so years

here and here

c) we have started posting some contributions: these can be found here and here

d) then for some frivolous examples to get your word-thoughts running, why not try reciting some of our acrostics, nonsense rhymes and limericks posted here

 

An arrogant man on Bath Road,

Once called an old woman a toad.

She smiled a grin,

A toothless grin,

And, hopping, he reaped what he’d sowed.

 

OR MAYBE....

Bakewell puddings and Buxton cake

Are well known rivals at a bake

But the cooks were a’frighted

And the ovens ignited

When a rat danced a waltz on a rake.

Limericks and nonsense

Nonsense rhymes and limericks

Ideas for "Word on the Street" poems

Miller's Modern Bar, 1938

Here in Buxton, we’re inviting people to look at, think about and respond to Spring Gardens, our pedestrian shopping street, and the area around it. This is the third of a series of blogs about "the Word on the Street" project, with others including an introduction to the project as a whole, and two different galleries of photos (gallery 1, gallery 2) ….Photos from the history of the Gardens with buildings now gone and shop windows full of older stories

Rather than repeating all that information again, in this post, we’d like to throw some ridiculous ideas at you, inviting you to do better (which is, it has to be said, fairly easy)

So, maybe take a stroll past the shops and loiter over cakes in a cafe of today or, if you don’t live in the town, why not spin some wonder from one of those older photos

Suggestions….the misadventures that follow are all part of the “Forgotten incidents in the Life of Buxton”

How about a bit of nonsense?

1. Crossing the market causes problems

And people tend to mutter and mumble

As over the cobbles they clatter.

And bath chairs may rumble

When balancing crumble,

But try not to fumble

On the Terrace Road slopes

Or the crumble may take a tumble

Or there is that tale of unlaced Victorian virtue:

2. In bombazine and crepe,

Public attention she’d crave.

So magazines she courted

And with photographers flirted.

Outrageous she stood,

As she posed in the nude,

But with no guide at her side

Her fame outlasted her pride.

Or you might try an acrostic…

3. SPRING GARDENS

Should we plant

Pear trees and pink

Roses

In tubs and beds

Neatly along the

Gardens?

 

Gathering 

Apples and 

Red, ripe raspberries might

Delight

Everyone, inviting them to

Nibble delightedly until

Stuffed.

Or just go straight for the limerick life of the town….

4. An arrogant man on Bath Road,

Once called an old woman a toad.

She smiled a grin,

A toothless grin,

And, hopping, he reaped what he’d sowed.

5. With sausage and puddings, we’re smart,

And we have sponges down to an art,

But we’ll betray our own town,

And run all the way down,

To Bakewell for a good tart!

 

6. Bakewell puddings and Buxton cake

Are well known rivals at a bake

But the cooks were a’frighted

And the ovens ignited

When a rat danced a waltz on a rake.

7. The snow on the hills is quite deep,

And Terrace Road really quite steep.

The sliding began,

And away we all ran,

And crashed into The Grove in a heap.

There are more, but good taste has its limits….we’d love to hear yours - please keep them printable - so nothing too lewd or disgusting for public consumption. Send as Word docs to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

 

A street through time

Spring Gardens scenes

Resident? Visitor? Tourist, troubadour or ghost, we’re looking for poems, snippets and short stories that celebrate ( or haunt, or disturb) Buxton’s Spring Gardens

Deadline: 31^st January 2023

Send as word doc to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

The main project outline can be found, here

What matters to you when you walk along the Gardens: a shopping list, a café, this shop or that shop, a friend you’re going to meet, a pigeon sitting on an awning watching you?

 

The first contributions for this project are coming in and we’ll publish a few in the next day or so….

Just now, here are some more images (first gallery, here) of Spring Gardens over the years to whet your whistles, tempt your fate, dangle some bait (add a cliche of your choice)….why not pause, look, think, take a wander and pen to paper or finger to keyboard or voice to note….where we have names and dates they will be in the photo caption

WH Smith window 1967	WH Smith window 1963	JH Greenwood
John Mark & Co	MacFisheries 1941	Millers Modern Bar 1938
Greenlees Shoe Shop, 1931	Gymnasium, 1912	Hardwick Hotel window, 1930
	Millers Cafe, 1960	Shufflebotham's, 1960
	the Picture House at night

Why not take a wander along the 21st century Spring Gardens. Find these shops or their replacements or the spaces where they aren't any more....

Walking down a street

 

WORD ON THE STREET

Resident? Visitor? Tourist, troubador or ghost, we’re looking for poems, snippets and short stories that celebrate ( or haunt, or disturb) Buxton’s Spring Gardens

Deadline: 31^st January 2023

Send as word doc to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Main project information on this blog, here

This post is to share images of Spring Gardens…..old photos a painting and generally though-provoking scenes…where we have dates, they’ll be dated

These images are here to intrigue, provoke, and hopefully inspire! If you live in Buxton, try standing in the same place as the photo and reflect on the changes you can see, feel, imagine....this is a rather random selection. We'll post more streamlined selections over the next few weeks

1820, view along Spring Gardens - Sheffield turnpike road	Grove Hotel and bottom of Terrace Road	Lawson's Vaults, No 2 Spring Gardens
Miller's Cafe, Spring Gardens, 1928	Milton's Head pub	corner of Spring Gardens and Terrace Road
looking towards the Crescent and the Slopes, including Winster Place and Royal Hotel	a parade in the rain	Shakespeare Hotel

All teeth and claws

 The Lost Cats of Derbyshire
a new project, public events and a wonderful procession

cave lion skull in Buxton Museum

Once upon a time, big cats roamed the hills round Buxton. Scimitar-toothed cats* (Victory Quarry, Dove Holes) were here when humans wandered into the Peaks about 30,000 years ago, while cave lions lingered until about 12,000 years ago, (Hindlow Cave, near Earl Sterndale). Lynx loitered longer than anyone realised and might have been prowling Scottish forests into this millennium. Then there are our domestic moggies now, offering affection and purrs and sometimes causing chaos among our small birds and mammals

And, of course, at the moment, we have Mysterious Big Cats being reported like shadowy ghosts from across the county!

 

We’re celebrating cats! Especially the Lost Cats of our hills, cats who knew this land in different climates, with warmer– or colder – days and using their stories to look at the world around us as it changes again

 

cave lion reconstruction

As part of the Our Street programme with Buxton’s Heritage Action Zone, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery are bringing these lost cats back to the town. We’ll look at the animals that used to live here, reflecting on their lives as climates changed and wondering what they might make of our modern world and how our cats will respond to current climate changes. Connecting with the Art Fund’s The Wild Escape initiative, this project will use museum collections (we have amazing fossils and bones in Buxton Museum) to inspire people to reach out from those Museums and explore the world around us in new ways

 

Homotherium reconstruction

A partnership between the Museum, and Our Street, Lost Cats will draw together other local groups as well. Buxton Civic Association, the Babbling Vagabonds, Stone and Water and ourselves here at Creeping Toad are all involved. There will be a programme of events encouraging public participation. As the project develops further, there might be art exhibitions, origami cat workshops and a mysterious cat trail along Spring Gardens with the Our Street Youth Board. 

 

Events will be posted on the Museum, Creeping Toad and Stone and Water blogs and through the social media of all the partners (links below)

 

Getting started

drawing a tiger's eye

Big Cats: Big Pictures: our first event on Thursday January 5^th at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery….details to follow. This will be a free event, inviting people to look at the Collection’s fossils and bones, handle models, sketch, draw, colour and while we can’t do lifesize pictures of scimitar-toothed cats, we can probably manage a picture as big as a cave lion’s face….

 

Look out for:

• Another event on Thursday 23^rd February
• d-i-y guide to making your own Big Cat Puppet to join the procession
• more events in March and April
• workshops for local schools

 

All this activity, will build up to a procession, the Carnival of the Cats on Earth Day, Saturday 22^nd April 2023. A parade of big cats, small cats, cat-masked children, ancient ghost cat puppets will prowl along Spring Gardens and into Pavilion Gardens.There in the gardens, we’ll invite people to bring along their own snacks for a Kitty-cat Picnic (what would you bring for such a picnic? Mouse-shaped cakes? Sabre-tooth baguettes? Crunchy cat claws?). 

 

From museum displays, through the shopping streets of our town and into the Gardens that grow in the heart of Buxton, we’ll bring lost cats, forgotten cats, modern cats and maybe even future felines and have a celebration of the wildlife of Derbyshire.

 

*Our cats are Homotherium: their teeth aren't as big as those of "sabre-tooth" cats so they are usually labelled scimitars!

Images: 

• photos are from Buxton Museum and Art Gallery's collection
• "Tiger's eye" and "scribbled lion" are by Gordon MacLellan
• Cave lion and Homotherium reconstructions are from online sources with thanks and apologies to the artists responsible