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Monday 31 August 2015

Man


Just playing with lines and textures.

Sunday 30 August 2015

After lunch

It isn't often I draw a still life. Today an opportunity interested me whilst sitting in the cafe at Wrest Park when a family sitting on the table next to me had finished their meal. I rather liked the collection of tea things, bottles, kids lunch boxes and other odds and ends. I managed to quickly take a photo on the iPad before it was all cleared away and then I worked over the image very quickly to just try and capture the scene.

Landscape Detective at Higham Gobion

From what I can remember the place in which I am now sitting is labelled 'fishponds' on the map. In front of me is a fairly large, flat triangular area of grass, perhaps about an acre in area, and surrounded by a grassy bank about six feet high at its highest. In the middle of the grass is a small rounded mound overgrown with berry laden hawthorn and blackthorn bushes. A single willow tree at one edge possibly indicates that there might be rather damp area there. With no knowledge of this place it does indeed look it might once have been a man-made fishing lake with a central island but I don't think it has seen water for many years. The field in which it lies is enclosed by a mature mixed hedgerow and the grass is unmown with loads of thistles. There is no sgn of any young scrub developing so perhaps this has been grazed in recent years. It looks quite a well established permanent pasture.

When I set out on my bike this morning I hadn't got a plan of exactly how I was going to go to Wrest Park but this place was on the way and I felt drawn to it. A heron was circling overhead when I arrived, then there was the carcophonous barking from a local kennels and then the ringing of Shillington church bells. It is grey, overcast, warm and just beginning to drizzle a little.

Dried cow pats confirm the existence of recent grazing cattle and there is sheep wool caught on lower branches of hawthorn. In some places the grass and earth appears to have been scratched away - I wonder if there are badgers about?

There are streams on three sides of the field. One is just a bit of damp soil but one on the possibly higher side could have been a feeder stream. This had a small flow of water. Along the bottom edge of the field is a larger stream about five feet below field level from which I disturb a heron just a few feet in front of me. This looks like it has been dredged in the past year or so.

There are three small rectangular depressions in the ground at the top corner of the field and these must have been smaller pools. Whereas the grasses surrounding them are a late summer brownish colour, these old depressions are filled with dark green silverweed and some rushes indicating rather damp soil. There are two badger setts beneath some hawthorn scrub with mounds of deep freshly dug orangey-brown earth outside them. Walking up and down the banks reminds me of hillfort ramparts on the Welsh border. These though are on flat ground rather than on the top of a hill.

Blue and great tits in hawthorn bushes; occasional calls from a green woodpecker; pigeons; pheasant in ground level hawthorn branch. Hear a distinctive trill-like call coming from some distant trees and then see two largish brown shapes fly off. Must be some bird of prey but not sure what.

On returning home I find out that this was probably some medieval fish ponds. Some accounts suggest this was originally thought of as a 'camp' but it is not now thought to have been a residential settlement. This isn't really a landscape in which there are many pools or ponds. Wouldn't have thought the chalk geology was suitable unless there was some clay subsoil here. Now it is possible to walk right through the area and hardly notice what lies here.

The birds of prey were probably kestrels.

Friday 28 August 2015

Grey Poplars

There is a footpath I walk along near to where I work that I use fairly regularly. For some reason it was this week that I actually really noticed the tall mature grey poplar trees that lined part of the hedgerow. I was walking past them and suddenly thought 'Hello' I wonder what you are?' In the light breeze the silver undersided leaves shimmered and rustled. They held my attention and I went back today to clarify my identification of them and to take a few photos in the beautifully clear and bright summer sunlight. I could have sat and looked at them for hours. I noticed in one of them there were, high above me, two large woodpecker holes. In another, a branch about a foot in diameter from two close growing trunks had completely merged into its neighbour.

Monday 24 August 2015

Rain

Quick 10 minute sketch. Rained alot today.

Sunday 23 August 2015

Cream Tea

Sometimes drawing on the iPad can very frustrating because of the small screen size and stylus dynamics. It isn't therefore always easy when doing a sketch like this to get things looking quite how I would like, but it can be rewarding when something vaguely fits together. This was drawn in the cafe at Wrest Park today, one of my favourite hunting grounds for models.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Italian Garden, Heligan

The Italian Garden at the Lost Gardens of Heligan. I was quite pleased with this sketch which took about an hour or so to do. I had a good comfy seat away from the bright sunlight which made using the iPad much easier and I could settle down to work at my leisure.

Mevagissey

Sketches from Mevagissey in Cornwall: people eating chips on the quayside; a fishing boat; and the view from our holiday cottage patio.


Gorran Haven

Sketches made in the picturesque seaside village of Gorran Haven in Cornwall. A gorgeous place with very steep roads and tiny paths between the houses.

Deep in the woods

Deep in the woods
Where pouring rain darkens the light
I walk along puddled track
Ancient trees provide welcome shelter.

Rain everywhere
Tress dripping.
Deep in the woods.

A face at a window.

I've never seen a cottage
Painted black
With face at a window.
A solid black cottage
Trimmed with bright orange window and door fames
There, in the rain
Deep in the wood.
With ground floor window open
She stares out at my rain soaked figure walking past.
I can hardly make her face out
Is there really someone there
In the shadows of the blackness inside
The black house?

"Morning" she calls out
I acknowledge with a similar reply
And walk on in the rain.

Deep in the woods
She sits at the window
Staring out at the rain soaked world.

Monday 3 August 2015

Provision

Reflection on the sermon at Stopsley Baptist Church (2 Aug 2015) and the YouTube video by Matthew Fox: 'Recovering the sacredness of the earth'.

"If God gives me all that I need, what am I striving for?"

Having pondered this question for the past day or so, two words keeps popping into my mind: understanding and survival. I think it is a slight misjudgement for me to feel that if I am loved by God and he/she gives me all I need then I need not strive for anything. What is important is the intention behind the actions that govern what I say or do. I could just sit back and dwell in the 'love of God' and not really utilise the fact that I am a unique person with gifts and abilities and the conscious ability to change my interaction with the environment around me. I have a responsibility to be the human being that I am and I think that to be aware of who, what and where I am is key to my spiritual life. I need to be thankful for what I have and it is all to easy to let the days go by without really appreciating all that I have around me: family, food, house, work, garden, fresh air, some degree of freedom to be who I want to be etc. But life is about getting out and about and doing something. I am not one for petitioning God for everything either, I believe I am expected to try and sort out lots of things myself and not to try and hide behind a glib "God will sort it all out" that invalidates any reason for my existence.

My attempt to be a spiritual person means that I am striving for understanding, not to do so would be an insult to God, and my understanding is often based on the awe I have for Nature.

"Radical amazement is the beginning of authentic religious feeling."

"The world in all its grandeur is full of spiritual radiance."

"Awareness of the Divine begins with Awe."

"Many people think of God as they would a cow: what can they get out of it?"

I happily admit that I strive for things and that is because I have to in order to stay alive and have some sort of pleasant existence on this earth. I am not going to go into details about this here as this is just a general comment. Intention is important though and I will happily admit that perhaps I push too hard for somethings and should let more things just "be". Deciding on where to strike the right balance is a key issue. There are many positive times in life when you have to find the energy and motivation to succeed. I recently had to take on a bigger piece of responsibility at work which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then there are times when all the hard work I put into growing vegetables in the garden seems in vain until the summer rains come and then everything suddenly flourishes. I would love to have the luxury of a more relaxed lifestyle. Yes, perhaps God would provide, but I am not at the moment willing to put that to the test I am not always sure it is a matter of faith making decisions like that.

To summarise, I do believe that I have all the resources around me that I need for being who I am and perhaps I need need to be more aware of how to utilise what motivates and inspires me.



Saturday 1 August 2015

Wrest Park sketches

Some iPad sketches made today. Visitors to the cafe and the inside of the West Half House in the garden.



Old bridge, Wrest Park



Over the past few years I have crossed this little bridge at Buckle Grove near Wrest Park several times but have never actually seen it. Until earlier this year it was completely obscured by undergrowth such as brambles and blackthorn. Now the stream has been dredged and all the trees and shrubs cut back along the field margin where the stream runs. The bridleway it carries has been built up with chalk hardcore and road planings - in preparation by the farmer for using the nearby woodland for pheasant rearing. It was quite a surprise to come across such a beautiful old stone structure that has remained hidden for many years. The banks of the stream were too steep for me to descend to have a closer look but it did look a little fragile and I am not sure quite how long it will stand up to modern farm traffic. It must be very old. It reminded me of an old stone bridge I knew as a child in Herefordshire which was a much larger structure and had dippers nesting underneath it. From what I can remember that has now been replaced by a modern structure. 

I had been planning to visit this spot today in particular and it was a pleasure to meet a local man walking his dog whilst I was here. We chatted for quite a while about the countryside around here and shared similar observations.