Exercises

Pen Portraits

Develop your vocabulary and exercise your imagination by conjuring up a mermaid on the shore, or a train waiting at the station.

Show Photo

Coventry Patmore, by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).
By John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

More Info

Back to text

Pen Portraits

By John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

Coventry Patmore, by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).

X

Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), the English poet, sketched in 1896 by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856–1925). Patmore is best known for The Angel of the House (1854-1862), a series of meditations on marriage centred on his first wife Emily Augusta Patmore, née Andrews. Patmore was widowed twice, and married three times.

Back to text

Introduction

Choose one of the nouns below, and then collect as many words connected with it as you can. When you have gathered at least three words, see if you can compose an interesting scene or little story from them. You will find this much easier if you remember to include some sort of action.

It should go without saying, that you may choose a male or female character wherever relevant.

1. A rock musician.

2. A park.

3. A desk.

4. Woodland.

5. A railway station.

6. An artist.

Archive

If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.