Hitchin

One of several ipad sketches made in Hitchin today.

Hop Picking

I have never had a liking for beers or ales but, after a recent trip to Kent, I have developed a taste for it and will happily sample any that come from small local breweries. 

Hop picking machines have to be one of the most amazing pieces of farm machinery and it is interesting that, although the company that made them ceased to exist many years ago, the Bruff hop picking machines are still going strong in remaining hop farms.  My Mother worked for Bruff in Suckley, Worcestershire, for a year or so when we lived nearby for a while.

I have always loved the smell of hops and several family friends in the past have been hop growers. Two farms I visited frequently as a child were in the Teme Valley east of Tenbury Wells. Back in 1990 I painted a picture for one of the farmers but I haven't got a copy of the original. I do have a copy of an initial picture I created (shown here) but I had to re-paint it because the farmer didn't want the name on the apple box to be visible. I have searched high and low for the photos I thought I had taken at the time but can't track them down. Trying to capture the scale and perspective of the huge machine was rather difficult and I couldn't get it all in. The other pictures here are photo-collages of a hop picking machine at the other farm that I took in October 2001. Again, the pictures don't quite get it all in and miss out all the adjoining drying kilns.

Hopton TItterhill

A conifer plantation: tall maturing trees, widely spaced with little to impede a walk through the towering silent softwoods. No breeze, a soft overcast light.  I can hear a buzzard (or some bird of prey), small birds, an occasional distant car and some mountain bikers whose voices echo across the hillside. I sit on a carpet of pine needles and small wood sorrel plants that cover the ground like a dusting of green snow.

I like sensing the three dimensional space that surrounds me. Although I am just sitting with my back against a tree I focus on objects around me and try and imagine what they feel like with respect to temperature, moisture, texture etc and their place in the landscape. It is as though I am imagining myself being everywhere around me and not just within.

I have written before about finding space, peace and separation from technology in places like this over the years so I am trying to find new things to write about. With quick fleeting visits to these places that isn't always easy.

Over my life I have explored many woods like this and, generally they are quite safe places as long as one takes a few precautions. Forestry tracks can suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere or deviate from maps so having a good sense of direction is important. Fortunately, in this area of the country there aren't any vicious wild animals or venomous snakes that can cause harm. The only things that really worry me are ticks. They aren't too prevalent around here as in some parts of the country but I always check myself over when I get home. I was never too worried about falling branches until I watched a tv programme about american loggers who had armour plated logging machines. So far, in 50 years, I have never had a branch fall next to from high up and I generally avoid woodland in strong winds. Oh, and it is generally a good idea to avoid wood ants and gamekeepers.

Hopton Castle

It is 7am on a Saturday morning in early September and I am parked at Hopton Castle in South Shropshire. According to the information board this is thought to have once been a high status tower house rather than an actual castle due to rather undefendable position in the bottom of a valley. It is cloudy wth a slight drizzle with mist on the hills. Pigeons coo around me. I hear the occasional tit, crow, wren, chiffchaff and cow. A stream gently murmers nearby.

I didn't enjoy the drive up yesterday afternoon as motorway congestion held me up for an hour but once I was near Tenbury Wells I was happier. The hop harvest seems well underway with tell-tale tractor tracks of the rich red soil mark roads leading from the roadside hop yards to the picking machines.

Up on black hill near Clun I stop at one of my favourite views for tea. After a glorious summer of warmth and sunshine I seem to have travelled up here to see the arrival of autumn. Here, the hills of the Welsh border stretch out westwards into mix of rain bearing cloud and mist. It is surprisingly windy up here and the car is buffeted by the gusts and my gas stove struggles to heat my beef casserole. On my way up here I didn't notice any uncombined fields. Here though, on a nearby hill about a mile away, a green combine slowly completes one final field under the threat of the looming dark clouds. Nearby the road is lined rowan trees laden with deep red berries and there is a beautiful mix of dead grasses, docks and other foliage along the roadside.

I spent the evening just listening to the wind around me in the trees where I had parked up for the night. Just for a few hours I can create a space where I can forget about time and the pressure it places on my daily life and work.

The rain arrived sometime in the middle of the night and once the dawn arrived I moved on to Hopton Castle from where I could begin my day.

Cathedral of trees

I wrote this back in May when I was visiting Croft Castle. It was meant to be part of an illustration project but that has yet to materialise as I have moved onto other things. I had forgotten about it until now.

Cathedral of trees

Evensong: choirs of birds

I dance in the aisles

Here, ancients sang songs

Distant hills silhouetted

Golden sun setting

Stretching out my arms

Fingers touch gentle sounds

This land of my dreams

Dusk buzzard circling

Yellowhammers and lambs; calm

Long valley shadows

Slow, silently, step

Woodland senses awaken

Others show themselves

Leaving card

Someone in the cafe is leaving today.

Tomatoes

It is now quite common to find heaps of sewage sludge piled in the corner of fields awaiting future spreading. As it has all been processed only a faint residual whiff hints of its human origins. I passed a large heap today and was amazed to see it covered with a huge mass of tomato plants. Perhaps, of all the seeds we regularly eat, these pass through our digestive tract undigested and the find themselves in a nutrient rich environment in which to grow. I am reminded how nettles are an indicator species of human habitation in that they too like nutrient rich soils derived from human or animal waste. I am not quite sure if I will be going back in a few weeks time to gather a tasty crop though!

Poppies

The garden has settled down after all the upheaval and landscaping earlier in the year. Many of the flowers are now in full bloom. With a rare warm evening today I actually sat outside to draw one of the many poppies that I have left to flower rather than remove them as weeds.

Clouds

Perhaps I am just naive in wishing for a vaguely utopian lifestyle. I know it is unachievable but I do try my hardest to be positive, appreciative of fun and laughter and always trying to look on the bright side of life. I am not a social partygoer or the life and soul of conversation though I do enjoy being around people. I value people and do my best to get on and build relationships even if they are just superficial. I aim to be happy and content knowing that I have a faith that requires me to try and improve the environment around me. It is hard work and I know I get it wrong at times because I find it hard to do.

This week I wondered if there has been an external metaphorical dark cloud of negativity that has been following me around for many years. I could almost say that something has been trying to thwart my positive efforts - particularly in a work setting. I am not going to give details but I feel as though I don't often seem able to have people around me whom I enjoy a positive and uplifting rapport. I can only name a couple of people or so who have been a huge positive influence on me and really fired up my energy levels. At the moment I feel I have a challenge on my hands to get rid of this cloud or at least reduce its influence on me. It is so easy for me to be dragged down by the influence this cloud has and I just wish it would blow away. I know I shouldn't allow the thoughts and behaviours of others to influence me but that is easier said than done. I am wondering what to do.

Coca-cola

For me, drawing has to be fun. If I manage to draw a picture that makes me smile then I feel it is a success. The portrait here may not be an exact representation of the subject, but something made me work very quickly and play with various brushes on the ipad. I may not always be able to comment on what pictures I post because sometimes things appear that may just be inspired by a line, a scribble or a fleeting glimpse of a foot, nose, gesture or pose.

Lunchtime

Businessman having lunch.

Sketches

Some recent iPad sketches.

EU Referendum

Ask a group of people a question about which there is no clear answer and I am sure the result would be a 50:50 split either way. Which is what we have. They might just as well have asked all those who work in my office which seemed fairly split down the middle. If people are complaining about bias toward certain groups of people voting particular ways then that is what you will get with a simple yes or no vote in a democracy.

A Place and a Song

Walking over the downs and through the woods. A warm, but overcast summers day. A rare chance to be outside in the countryside this year - it is very welcome. Many walkers are on the hills keeping to well worn paths and following the tread of others. Off the beaten track I scramble up into the wood to join the deer and silence. I sit and sketch an old beech tree then wander on through through various old mixed woodland and newer conifers. I follow the paths made by deer until I find myself at a lower corner with fields and my destination beyond.

It is just a corner of the wood, nothing visually special. Just trees and elder around me, dog's mercury on the floor and a couple of badger setts. Forgot to look at exactly what trees were there.

Even after nearly a week I am still thinking about this place. It was like walking into... well, I don't know what. I was just captivated by a sense of place. It caught me unexpectedly, as though I had entered a room that held something of great beauty, awe or wonder. Or was it just peace? I can't really explain it. But I left with something that I have not been able to let go.

********

Late evening on the campsite. The evening light is giving way to darkness. Noise all around: Friends beside me talking, children shouting and running around, people having fun, the hum of cars on the main road. My attention is caught by what was probably a song thrush singing in a tree. It's melody piercing the space around it. Bold and clear it sang - too loud and strong to be a blackbird or a robin that far away. I wonder if anybody else noticed it. I thought about interrupting the conversations around me to point it out but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Canal Dreams

A friend wants to go and live on a narrow boat...

Toasted Sandwich

Quotes

The following snippets of conversation were overheard from a table next to me in a cafe recently. It is always fun to go somewhere where there are interesting people to draw and listen to. I could create a picture from each of these quotes!

'I cut the hedge using scissors yesterday.'

'I'm off the Met (opera).'

'I'd prefer a nice soothing requiem.'

'They've got a penguin pie.'

'You always have such lovely dresses.'

'Oooh, I love scallops.'

'The Venerable Bede is my favourite author.'

'I must take these glasses (spectacles) back to the church.'

'Our grandson has named his cat Orion.'

'She said "our child's a boy, he does NOT read beatrix potter!"'

'I've got sixteen starlings.'

Letchworth sketching trip

Had some time to spare around Letchworth yesterday so did a bit of scribbling in various places.

Robin

A robin seemed to ne following me around the garden today. It was often perched on a fence or nearby tree and would dart down to the ground every so often to presumably catch a little snack. This isn't supposed to be me bytheway. It was the hottest day of the year so far today and a coat would certainly not have been appropriate in the heat. Took three car loads of rubble to the dump, built a small stick wigwam for sweetpeas, moved the swing, fine tuned the placement of a few plants and watered all the new plants.

Ecopsychology and the Garden

I have been reminding myself of my interest in ecopsychology that seems have been placed on the back burner for too long. This is idea that humans, over the course of a good few thousand years, have gradually distanced themselves from the natural world. Where once the tribal hunter gatherer societies had an intimate connection with the plants, animals and landscape around them, we have now progressed (in a broad generalisation) to a digital society whereby all our food, clothing, consumer items and culture can be obtained via a single internet connection. Why sould we pay any attention to the earth around us? As long as someone else can get their hands dirty, grow crops, work in unsavoury conditions and keep the supply chain going then we are quite happy.

This spring, for me, has been a time of focussing on the garden. This is the only thing I can do at the moment that works with the natural world. Here I can aid the earth in doing what it does best: growing plants. I am working with the soil, using natural materials were possible and providing a new place in which I can allow beauty to develop. It takes time and effort but eventually it evolves. It is a reflection of me in that I am being the creator of the garden. Plants will inevitable do their own thing, but I am trying to provide a framework within which the garden can develop. It is like painting a picture, it isn't always possible to see what will appear until it is finished, but in some ways this is easier and a more healthy and natural way to be creative.

Points of View

As the world of social media and the internet takes over more and more of the way I gather information, I begin to observe more and more that I find myself struggling to have an opinion on things. My father was quite an opinionated person in that he always had a view on the government, politics and things that were happening in the world. Even as a teenager I remember listening to him and having a sinking feeling in my stomach that I really couldn't engage in a meaningful conversation with him. Perhaps some of it was due to him being a farmer and being surrounded by other very strong minded people. I just never seemed to develop an ability to talk about the sort of things that keep conversation lively, interesting, contemporary and challenging. My mind just wants to go blank and seems just unable to know what to say next.

I was catching up with something on Facebook the other day that had been circulating last year - as often happens I feel part of my being ambles on at a rather leisurely pace. I'm not going to expand on it here because it is all covered elsewhere on the web but it revolved around some Christians trying to break down some stereotypical assumptions of how they thought they were viewed by others. For example: "I'm a Christian but I am not homophobic". Great I thought. Then, as I delved deeper, I again realised how easy it is for people nowadays to come down on simple statements like a ton of bricks and either wholeheartedly support something or completely shred it to bits.

For my father, whatever opinions he had he could really think what he liked because there was freedom to do so without everyone else feeling they had a duty to chip in and say what they think too. Today it seems as though even simple comments can suddenly turn the media spotlight on someone and out comes a deluge of support or hate.

Perhaps I am getting old, but sometimes I don't even quite follow what it is that people are on about on the web or in the news. I wonder if the increasing speed of being able to present information is meaning it's clarity is being lost. I can't quite give an example but often it is related to the above - about what people say. I find myself thinking 'what was wrong with that...?'.

As I have an interest in art, perhaps that has become my coping mechanism. I am free to explore and express myself in ways that don't require a spoken explanation. My art frames the way I feel comfortable communicating. Perhaps I should recognise that more. I do though, get very frustrated at not doing deep and meaningful conversations... but then perhaps I haven't got the appropriate people around me with whom I would naturally build a rapport with or share like-minded interests with - like my father had.

Blue Dress

Man on train

A day trip to Brighton could have been a good opportunity to do some sketching but I didn't do much. The sun was too bright to use the iPad and it wasn't until the end of the day that I found a place in which I would have felt comfortable. Enjoyed time looking in shops and walking along the beach instead. Managed a few sketches in the train but they were not really of value to show, except this one.

Spring in the Garden

Unusually for me, I have hardly been out walking in any countryside this spring. I have only caught fleeting moments of the smell of oilseed rape flowers whilst driving along the motorway with my window open and it has been my family that has gone exploring bluebell woods and not me.

Most if my weekends over the past few months have been occupied in rearranging our garden. Flower beds and vegetable patches have been reshaped, paths realigned or created and wooden structures like an arch and pergola built. Sometimes I feel as though I have a tinge of OCD in that I always seem to find something to do. For instance: yesterday's only task was to spend the morning planting a few salad seeds and then spend a restful afternoon enjoying the garden in the spring warmth and sunshine (a rare occurrence so far this year). However, by the time I was ready for an afternoon cup of tea, I had also tidied up all the path and lawn edges, mowed the lawn and created a new wooden rustic fence up by the summerhouse. Once I get going I can't stop. I think I have now completed all the hard landscaping tasks and now just have a few plants to get.

I have tried to do as much work as possible without spending anything. I had to buy some wood from which I could make an arch and get plants. Otherwise I made use of paving blocks and woodchip being discarded by some builders and used some wood left over from when I cut down some conifers a couple of years ago. I had a supply of nails left over from my father and just planned simple things that needed just a bit of will power and muscle to complete.

The garden now 'flows' better and feels more like ours. Walking up to the top is a much easier and more enjoyable experience. There is more height and more interest. It just needs some planting to bring it to life.

For the first time this year I am sitting writing in the garden shed. So far it has been too cold to entice me out in the evenings but now things may be on the turn as warmer weather is forcast.

Industrial Archaeology 2

Following on from yesterday's notes, I spent some time thinking about the actual places in the landscape that had interested me. Often they would be overgrown quarries, tumbled down watermills beside streams, tree covered disused railway lines and other places that would be hidden in the countryside. Here, the relics of our industrial past would lie in ruins with nature taking over and reclaiming such places with new habitats. In farmland it is often places like old quarries that remain uncultivated as a small clump of trees in the middle of a cornfield. Industrial buildings that have fallen into disuse and uneconomical to demolish or renovate become hidden gems deep in woods or beside rivers. It is almost as if there is a message in the fact that natural places that were once at the mercy of industrial activity have been returned to their natural way of being. The force of nature's recolonisation is so strong and seems to be the ultimate intention behind the evolution of the earth.

Although we tend to think of conserving the wildest parts of the countryside as the richest natural habitats, I wonder how many of our truly vibrant ecological sites were once places where human activity radically disturbed the landscape? I would imagine it would be quite a significant proportion. It is almost as if nature thrives more in places where is takes over from mankind's efforts to dominate it.

Industrial Archaeology

Throughout my life I have always been aware of the changes that have been imposed upon the landscape in this country since the industrial revolution. I have always had a a curious side to me that has sought to hunt out disused railway lines and roads, old quarries and mines, lime kilns, derelict watermills, old farms, barns and much more. I have also always been interested in vintage machinery which always looked fascinating without all the safety guards that now cover up all the cogs, wheels and drive belts. Perhaps I should have been an industrial archaeologist - I'd never though about that before now.

It may just be a sense of nostalgia but recently I have been acutely aware of just how much of our countryside changed as industry has developed and altered the course of our urban and rural history. Over the past half a year or so there have been significant changes to our mining and manufacturing industries with the closure of the last deep coal mine and several steel works closing or facing closure. There has been a huge shift over years away from the hard manufacturing that changed much of our countryside with the advent of railways, canals, coal mining and agricultural improvements. For the environment and the quality of our air it may well be good news, but I feel a loss of many things that built up close communities and the sense of what made this country and countryside what it is today.

Modern industry seems so uncreative when compared to that of Victorian times. On my drive to work I pass huge box like warehouses and acres of land awaiting a perfectly flat floor of concrete. We just do things so differently now and I wonder how industrial archaeologists will view us in a hundred years time? What can be deduced from a flat bed of concrete? It just isn't as interesting.

Of course we have to move on as a developed country. What I feel I am missing is the fact that so many jobs nowadays seem far removed from being outdoors and, like mine, are just office based and require hours stuck in front of a computer screen. I know I could change things but somehow my journey as yet has't taken me that way. 

Cupcake dilemma

Onion

One of our few remaining onions from last year's harvest. New sets were planted last weekend.

Where to go?

I was chatting to my wife the other evening about the thought of perhaps giving up this blog. I enjoy posting things to it every now and then but in many ways I feel as though I might just be talking to a brick wall. She replied with the comment "Are you doing it for yourself or for other people?". Initially I did it just for myself and now, as the years have passed and social media has grown to dominate much of the way society works, I feel it hasn't really moved into that way of interaction with others. This is probably my fault for not promoting it amongst those to whom it may be of significant interest. I don't feel that I have people around me for whom it has a deeper connection, but then I am not really into building relationships with people over the internet.

My decision is to continue with it because I am doing it for myself. It is about my journey though art and spirituality. These two things don't quite merge neatly and thus the blog does have two rather distinct stands of though that switch between each other from time to time. I will aim to be more proactive in posting on both these things. That is what interests me and I need to have a place to explore a few of the things I think about.

I wonder what will happen?

Message

Came across this interesting quote today: 'The way to find your message is to paint the things you're afraid others won't like or understand'. (creativebloq.com)

Robin

Wheelbarrow, Clun

I have been struggling with this picture for several weeks. I have sat down at several lunchtimes and tried to get this going but have either been distracted by other things or just not quite known what to do with it. The scene was taken from a photo I took in the village of Clun in Shropshire a few weeks ago. In the end I just sat down and filled in a few basic lines and decided to leave it at that. I don't like leaving things unfinished and now I feel I can move on to something else.

Selfie

This is me having walked up an incredibly steep hillside from Obley up onto Black Hill recently. It was windy, cold and wet! This is one of my favourite parts of the countryside around Clun.

Disc Harrow

I found this old MF26 disc harrow just inside a gateway on a hill near Clun a couple of weeks ago. I think it had been there for a few years or so but it wasn't overgrown with brambles. I'm not sure if a small harrow like this with a width of only about 6 ft would be economical to use these days. It may well have been used within the cultivated field in which I found it or it may have just been dumped here having been used for some other purpose - such as blocking the gateway (as old heavy equipment is often used for). I liked the red paint that was still quite vibrant amidst the rusty browns and wanted to experiment with finding an interesting composition within its structure that I would enjoy painting.

Sowdley Wood, Clunton

This JCB had been working all day recently up on the hill below Clunton in south Shropshire.  When the driver had gone home I took a couple of photos of the machine and then later worked them up into this sketch. All that I am basically doing is working over a photo on the iPad which is a technique I enjoy. It does produce an almost photo realistic image even though the paintwork is quite basic. It has enabled me to more quickly develop a style of working that I can apply to other images I use in my day job where I am having to create Christmas themed illustrations from scratch.

The JCB had been tidying up the left over branches and wood left after a mecahnical tree felling machine had cleared the former conifer plantation of timber. All the loose material was being piled up into large windrows across the hillside in between which new saplings could be planted on the cleared ground. The remaining tree stumps are left in the ground to rot away naturally.

Bookshop

Someone reading in a Hay-on-Wye bookshop.

Eating Ice Cream

An elderly gentleman eating an ice cream cone with a fork in a cafe in Hay-on-Wye.

Clunton, Shropshire

Clunton, amidst the South Shropshire hills. A sunny mid-February day with about 50% cloud cover. A cold wind blows but in sheltered spots there is some warmth.

I've walked up the side of a steep hill on the north side of the Clun valley. The footpath follows the course of an old trackway through sheep pasture. The base of the track is about three or four feet below the surrounding grassland and is lined by a hedge of mature trees on one side. Erosion on this side has exposed the tree roots penetrating the rocky soil. Today it is no more than a grassy depresssion and as I climb upwards it shallows out and eventually disappears completely in the more open higher pastures. Fresh tractor tracks in the surrounding grass up here shows that this is a route used regularly by a farmer to tend his sheep this winter, but not frequent enough to wear down any significant ruts. I come to a place used as a feeding point for sheep. There is an old trailer that has been parked here for many years. It carries a modern white plastic water tank that leads via a bright blue pipe to a blue water trough. There is also a metal hay rack nearby and in a hedge corner a very old and rather flattened wheeled sheep hay rack half buried in the soil. In the hedgerow beside the trailer is a crab apple tree and on the ground many tiny green apples can be seen trampled into the earth by cloven hooves. I also found some old metal railings tangled up in a hedge. Just beyond this is a dense hedge of holly and above that, on a fairly steepish gradient is a field that had been sown with corn last year. On another of a hedge I see a very old wooden wheeled sheep hay rack. A robin sings in a hawthorn bush beside me. I disturb a flock of perhaps a hundred redwings/fieldfares and see a few other small tits and associated little cheepy things that I can't identify.

My main thought here was whether, at some stage in the past, there had been a habitation or barn near the holly trees - though in reality this may be no more than my wishful imagination. It is a south facing site and in a small dip on the hillside so it would have been quite sheltered. I found no evidence of any structure and it would have been ploughed out anyway. But with the old track, the seemingly long established feeding point, the crab apple and hollies I just wondered if there had been something here once. 

I like places like this. They seem to generate a sense of nostalgia that I like in the landscape and harks back to my farming roots not far from here. Trying to read the landscape is an interesting task and in this case I would only know if I were right by looking at some old maps or doing some local research. I have always been interested in small places that hold memories of an agricultural past. This place may be no more than just a convenient place in which to feed sheep over the years based on the field structure, access, shelter etc.

Further up the hill there is depression in a pasture, several metres square, and full of water and boggy grass.. The outlet of a spring. About a quarter of a mile away, off the footpath, is a group of three old farm buildings forming a 'C' shape and a well is marked on the map. This is probably the farmstead I was looking for. Judging by the number of mole hills around here and the fact that several more fields on the hill top have been cultivated suggests that the soil around here might be of a reasonable depth.

I wonder why the hills are cultivated more around here than the valley bottom and flood plains where I might assume the soil was of better quality? Perhaps, with the shade that the hills give over the valley pastures, the higher soils dry out and warm up bettter in the spring and are less prone to potential flood damage. The soil looks quite good up here, if a little rocky - perhaps better than the chalk flint filled shallow soils of  the more intensively farmed areas around home in Bedfordshire.

Two treecreepers, yellow hammer, heard a buzzard. Celandine, primrose, dog's mercury, snowdrops, daffodils, cyclamen, dandelion.

Blue Scarf

Blue Man

Usually when sketching on the iPad I start off with a white background. Must try and use different colours - it does make the screen less bright for one thing. Usuing a tonal background does make adding highlights more interesting rather than just an afterthought. This was such a sketch of someone this lunchtime.

Croft Castle Illustration Project

In October 2015 I worked on an illustration project based around the National Trust property of Croft Castle in north Herefordshire. I visited the property over two days and recorded in words and pictures all the things that inspired me: people, the garden, wildlife, trees, and much more. This was a self-initiated piece of work that I had digitally printed as a 12 page A4 booklet. 60 copies were printed and given as Christmas presents to friends, family and the National Trust. Five sample pages are shown here.

Figures

Some quick lunchtime sketches.

Armchair and Milkshake

The last of my doodles from 2015. An armchair and someone with a chocolate milkshake at a cafe... somewhere...