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Ashdown
This was a lousy photo of a sketch- lousy because light levels are low. I have fiddled with it digitally and it helps a little with my rather bad sheep…my excuse is that they kept moving and that I did not have very long, the landscape was lovely though, it’s such a patchwork of colours.
#233
Pembrokeshire-Newport market day
7″ x 9″ approx
This sketch was done during a coffee break in a tiny coffee shop on the street where they hold a small market in Newport Pembrokeshire. It is a beautiful place and many thanks to friend and friend of friend who made it possible for me to visit. Thanks too for the patience of the other coffee drinkers and Ted too of course. There were lots of lovely things to be had in Newport….Cawl a lovely rich homemade soup served with bread and cheese in the pub and the pollack mackerel, crab and lobster caught and swopped by other people in the house.
#231
A few days in the North
size A5
We went to Yorkshire for a few days- not exactly a holiday more a family outing extended for several nights. Diy Dad drove in his familiar, gritted teeth into the storm ( ex hurricane Bertha ),fashion. His father and I took turns navigating the various traffic standstills, passing through places I was only familiar with from the miners strike on the detours.
Aunt A, with help, had ordered a magnificent “cushion” of stuffed lamb from Mr Kendall her favourite butcher who had delivered it to her door. This we cooked and when the extended family in the area plus two Spanish visitors turned up it was demolished in short order, I wondered what the Spanish take on stuffing would be but they loved it . The apple crumble I made with crumble mix, blueberries and windfalls brought from home went the same way. Our cider went all over the table…too much excitement for one day.
We slept up on the moor in a remote house where diy Dad’s cousin lives; it is a beautiful place the wind whips across the moorland and the rain comes down only slightly below horizontal…caught out in it you need to find a vertical object for shelter rather than something actually over your head. The adjacent grouse moor is littered with feeders and there are hundreds of grouse as well as red-legged partridge…but the grouse do not often make their sharp g’back g’back call when you flush them from the heather. My memories from the other side of the Pennines forty years ago is of fewer but noisier grouse but who knows if I have an accurate memory-there is no going back to check.
The following day we took Aunt A in her wheelchair to Fountains Abbey and as the boys disappeared at great speed up the path towards the water gardens I began to regret putting too many things in my art bag and sat down to sketch. In doing so I missed out on tea and scones at the head of the water gardens but got to have a little wander round Fountains House which is small but perfect.
This is one of the sketches; I was taken with the two windows on opposite sides of the tower which I guess are identical. I drew what I saw but looking at it now it can’t be right unless the building is not symmetrical. I still like the offset clash of the two versions of the same thing.As I drew it I tried to break it down into manageable observable sections. A proper architectural artist would have a better knowledge of the structure and it would look more real as a result. However I am pleased with the effect of the two patterns overlaid even if the far side would be unbuildable from what was observed and recorded. It could of course be reworked into an etching, drypoint or collagraph.
#228
And again a bit more………….
A5 size
I have put a bit more detail and boosted some of the colour. mostly it has been about filling in the background.
There are so many things in this border…Crocosmia, Sedum, Alchimilla, Stipa, Rudbeckia or Echinacia
Then I added to it……………….
size A5
This is partly worked up I will need to consider one or two bits and tweak them. There is a certain amount of what some people call knitting that needs doing. That loosely means bits where there is something that needs filling in or covering and its fairly routine but needs to be done in a routine manner without spoiling the good bits of the initial sketch.
I did get to Great Dixter yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. They are all so lovely there; I didn’t recognise a Salvia and they went and found out what it was and whether they had it in the shop. We had a long and interesting chat to one of the stewards and when I saw another plant I did not recognise at all the head gardener went to see if he could dig some up for me from the greenhouse floor, sadly it had been pushed out by the hardy begonia! I did a sketch there in charcoal which I have added watercolour to today and also done a piece based on a begonia leaf which I washed over with textured watercolour. It is more of an illustration piece than a sketch or a painting but it’s fun.
#226
As it was staight from the garden…………
This is a sketch book page (size A5) on Langton’s not (cold pressed) paper.
It will be worked on in the studio to give a before and after. Easier to say this as No1 son has gone to see his grandparents for a few days, No2 is quietly teaching himself some computer code and someone else is cooking supper! Its turning out a better day than I thought.
I have harvested the pears from the early tree and have started to pick both the Katy apples and the Owen Thomas. There is a Worcesterish flavour apple at the community orchard ripe too.
Butterflies seem to be especially abundant this year and I have seen a Brimstone recently which is unusual, even rarer is the Fritillary has been flying strongly in the garden, we have dozens of Gatekeepers or are they Meadow browns? and a few Speckled Wood. A while back we were seeing Red Admirals and before that in June some tortoiseshells. Of course when I say abundant I do not mean in the sorts of numbers there were in London when I was a kid but relative to what I have seen here in Sussex in recent years. The most popular flower in the garden at the moment is the oregano which is covered in a busy haze of bees and bee imposters as well as the little brown and orange butterflies. An enormous Southern Hawker dragonfly was sitting on the spirea too one day.
The hot border was at an NGS garden called the Hundred House near Framfield in Sussex. I am currently planning a day trip to Great Dixter to keep DIY dad away from his multiple projects for a day. The garden here has had a big change imposed on it- the tatty summer house has been taken down and a new roof is to be made for it…..and a proper base. Anyone thinking of spending good money on a shed should pay attention here , the base is as important as the shed itself and needs to keep the shed itself up and out of the mud which will lead to rot as night follows day. Any earth which is nearby at a higher level will slump towards your shed, any tree which has leaves to drop nearby will pile its leaves on the damp earth and wick moisture up to the thin wooden walls. Animals will move in underneath if they can and make a den or nest, solitary bees will find crevices in the walls or doors to make nests. All this has to be considered when placing a shed. Then there is the maintenance…..the roof, it follows, must always keep out the rain. Our best shed/summer house is in amazing if not perfect condition …it appears in a photo of my former neighbours taken in about 1960. It must be made from red cedar as I do not believe any other wood could last so long.
Nymans 2014
size A5, 5″ x 7″ approx. SOLD
This is a watercolour sketch of one of the gates to the walled garden at Nymans a National Trust garden in Sussex UK.I was sat only 12 metres from the main path but on this side path it was quiet enough that a mouse or vole was carrying her litter of babies across the path one at a time to (presumably) a better home in the long grass to the right of the path. As I say it was very quiet until two German tourists noticed me and decided that the view must be worth a photo if I was sketching it- so he went and stood in front of the gate and she came and stood right in front of me until she had her shot, not a trace of an excuse me! So rude!
The reason I went was because it was the sort of day when it was threatening rain and there was space in the car park. Due to the new charges at Wakehurst Place many people are going to Nymans instead. This is a shame as it is a much smaller garden with a more intimate scale and too many visitors would make it difficult to sit down and sketch or appreciate the garden so well.
Going back to the sketch it has a schoolgirl error in it …can you see? I will need to do some work in the studio on it or make a copy; I also need to get some opaque paint to put in the cream roses growing over the gate….or do a copy. It has a nice feel however.
More from the Midi
This is a quick watercolour sketch that I love, it is of a bend on the Canal du Midi which was built to provide a short cut from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea 1666-1681. It was lined with plane trees to consolidate the banks making it shady and majestic. Tragically an American disease is now slowly but surely killing the plane trees and whole stretches of the canal are left bare. The colours in this really nail the warmth of the day and the feeling of endless summer. The section in the painting has pine trees on the bank, here a photo of some plane trees:
#216
Lastours the watercolour
This is the view from the Belvedere high up above the village looking over the hillside where all the castles are . The previous sketch was from the café by the stream in the centre of the village where I waited for the boys. It was so hot the masking fluid which I had off loaded from the bag to lighten it exploded in the car…at first I cursed as I thought it had leaked under pressure but actually it had blown a pea sized lump of glass from the shoulder of the bottle. Awful mess which stank but then dried into peelable rubber and neatly cleaned out the little crevices in the dashboard of dust and general grot……latex can be useful.
The weather in France was extreme, there were days of intense heat, sudden swirling winds like desert dust devils and then on the way home a ferocious thunder storm which we drove through for at least 40 kilometres. The other cars were sheltering under the motorway bridges and last weekend I found out why; that day friends of relatives had two windscreens and their roof tiles smashed by tennis ball sized hail stones only 10-20 km away from the motorway we were on. Perhaps the sheltering cars were listening to their traffic news and following advice.
After driving through the terrible storm for some time I learnt a new word “Orages”, it was on the motorway signs but I had to look it up in the dictionary, duh! you don’t need to tell drivers they are in a thunderstorm when its hammering the car roof with ice and the lightening strikes every 10 seconds all around.
#214
Lastours
This is from the sketch book I took to France which is now full.
We went to the Midi which is very lovely. It is a long way south but quite harsh in some ways, it lacks the softness of many other places so close to the Mediterranean; no wonder really, the temperature in the village we stayed in went down to -15c last winter and just like the UK they say “it was ridiculous! we did not cope, the pipes burst and so did the water mains”. This explains why they don’t bother trying to grow lemon trees in their gardens even in the walled gardens of the villages, Figs and olives yes but lemons no and no straggly five foot high Pelargoniums either.
#210
Lemon a day 
