Archive
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.
Red apples on the ground – a painting a day
size 10 in x 6 in , 25cmx15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper.
Today was beautiful the grass was sparkling in the sunshine this morning, the heavy dew which makes for ideal fungus hunting weather….yesterday we found about two pounds of bay boletes, today we went back and found three and a half pounds of edible fungi including three ceps, amethyst deceiver, and birch boletes. I will put some pictures in. The dessicator is now full and the Christmas soup is assured….it needs woodpigeon, ceps , cream and brandy in addition to the normal soup making things like stock and onion.
Yesterdays painting still needs to be finished, it is very wishy washy at the moment. I put off cutting the grass to get today’s painting of the early apple tree, it has got to where I can no longer rely on picking the apples that do not show from the view point so it HAD TO BE DONE. I wanted the windfalls to be in the picture too so had to pick them up in a great hurry at six this evening, in order to get the mowing done. It’s hard to believe that we have eaten pounds from the tree already, there are plenty there. The problem is now getting to be that if there is a windfallen Ellisons Orange apple I will eat that in preference.
Yesterday was our duty day at the sailing club, sadly we have been very little this year and it’s a waste of the membership really. Earlier in the summer there was a lot of work on the house to get through-there still is!
The woods where the boletes came from are a lovely mixture there are pine trees, coppiced hazels and sweetchestnuts, heathy bits and a little steep valley (a ghyll they call it in Sussex, but it’s supposed to be a Scottish word). The boys found a rope with a stick hanging from a tree , it swang over a watery hollow full of dead wood and mud. Naturally one of them fell in it.
Alison
#121 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Todays ceps
Yesterdays Bay Boletes
Sunflower and Banana plant in the new flower bed,by tomorrow the Hedychium should be out.
Lemon a day 