it was the early morning shock of seeing a thin film of ice on the inside of the windows that prompted a couple of snowy walkabouts this week… for some exercise, some fresh air, to warm up, an excuse perhaps to think more about and reconnect with this rural landscape…
a hill and some snow, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″
i carried with me a sketchbook (or three!) but, for a change, i took some small tubes of acrylic and a few offcuts of card. why on earth go out sketching in this inclement weather? well, the intention was to go for a bracing walk and the opportunity to do some outdoor sketching seemed like a good idea at the time… i just needed some white, brown, blue, a little yellow ochre… (you can view last week’s before the snow winter field sketches here)…
these three small sketches are about 5″ x 16″
[click to view larger]
i discovered a new footpath which i had not seen signposted before, perhaps because all the surrounding vegetation that would have concealed it had died back. some farmers, it seems, don’t like to draw attention to the public rights of way that circumnavigate their fields. this particular footpath began at the roadside – it was a quick scramble up a steepish, stepped incline through a small thicket of elder, hawthorn, briar, bramble and the like, which soon thinned out onto a small footbridge across a ditch, which opened into the corner of a large field – regimental stalks of harvested maize pricking through the blanket of snow..
winter field with stubble, 8′ x 22″
i walked a narrow path between the hedgerow and the broken lines of sown crops, minding the occasional black hole which indicated a rabbit burrow. in the snow i could see the pitter-patter pattern of animal footprints, probably a dog i thought but i could see no human companion footprints - were they the trail of a hare, a fox or muntjacs perhaps? the hedgerow seemed to have shaken off most of the recent snowfall and so it exhibited an interesting patchwork of textures and colours when viewed against the snow – from the sepia hues of damp, dead wood to the musty grey-black of dead nettles, small patches of fading green to grey, the auburn brown of tall docks, shades of bronze and tarnished copper on the edges of leaves, the prickly hawthorn branches dotted with red berries…
field and hedgerow, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″
the line of the hedgerow led slowly uphill, then turned an abrupt corner at an oak tree – and hereabouts, sheltered from the chilled midday air with a scattered carpet of acorn husks underfoot, it afforded a clear view of valley ahead. smooth white fields, lightly traced out by their boundary hedgerows, sloped gently to the south and east, a distant cluster of trees merged into a mist of many layered greys. to the north the field’s straight crop lines seemed to converge at a point near the flat horizon, with only the faintest delineation of trees to suggest where the land ended and the sky began…
winter field, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″
some people assume that suffolk is, in the main, quite flat, but this is because the most travelled routes follow more level ground. walk a little off the beaten track and the views become much more undulating and expansive – made even more appealing to the senses when there is snow on the ground. all seems for a short while quite serene, quite still. snow softens the sounds and disguises the blemishes, it sculpts and redefines, drawing out the best features of a seemingly natural geography…
perhaps on reflection it was not such a good idea to use acrylics as they did not dry properly in the ice cold air. to stop the sketchbook pages from sticking together i sandwiched them with maize leaves, powdery bark and even clumps of snowy soil, all of which had added some interesting textural effects by the time i had headed back. something of real substance to work with, so i applied more white acrylic here and there, the remains of soil and the blurry smears of paint became the tangible traces of walking. i rather like that they turned out this way, incomplete and unrefined, within each rough gesture or mark is a brief thought or memory that relates to the experience – exhibiting the very spirit of a brisk walk in the wintry, white landscape…
these two sketches are 8′ x 22″, on black card – it is (or was) a photograph album…
[click to view larger]
so, these small studies have really become remembered landscapes, they no longer exist, the snow has now vanished, but we have been warned that the snow will return…
i often remind myself that i have become something of a cave painter – i see things (discarded, redundant or dead things, mostly!) and then i retreat to the studio cave to make art out of the experience. sketching in the landscape seems to be a means to re-engage but also to step back a little, to take in the wider view…
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