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winter comes back

Posted jane -->on 7th Mar 2021

at last I have a usable studio. there is stuff in it – boxes of pots and paintings – that will go in the small shed I have ordered and will receive this Thursday – but I have been able to work in there. it’s been very cold again so as I can’t afford to spend lots of money keeping it warm I haven’t had a lot of time, but things have started. Also there is an issue with the bottom of the door – a large gap as the joiner didn’t make the new floor extend over the step enough.

I have 2 trestle tables, the one on the left will have even more space to lay out all my paints etc when I have resolved the problem of where certain other things should go. the logistics of moving from a place with masses of sheds …

it’s great having walls that are smooth enough to bluetack the work onto. before I only had flint cobble, or shiplap wood. So I’ve been working on paper as it feels safe, I’ve got rather used to it over the last 6 months.

it can be tidied away into folders or plan chest drawers, and it’s very cheap compared to canvases. I have lots of blank canvases which I am ignoring for the time being.

the old paintings, from the 90’s which we edited down to a smaller stack in the summer, will go in that shed, and then I will have room to bring in the studio easels, and to use the piece of wall opposite the table I’m painting on, as a painting wall.

meanwhile I am also walking to paint, doing research with my feet, taking little notebooks out in my pocket

to scribble in and try to find the essence of the local landscape

Cairngreen wood is one of these focii

from my door to walk to it and around it is almost six miles, with some steep bits.

it has a wonderful shape on the map, which I am intending to work on as the basis of some paintings

you can see by the concentration of contour lines the “steep bits”.

parts are conifer plantation, other parts, higher up around the quarry, are sparse skinny birch and sycamore between rocks, the rocks and the bases of the trees thick with bright green moss.

these paintings on paper are beginning to express the ideas of landscape, paths, textures, shapes.

another place I am focusing on is Garliebank. I can see this side of it, the very steep side, from my house. pity that streetlight is always in the way.

but if I walk up to Ceres moor

and turn right

I am up on top of Garliebank, with a view across to the hill of Tarvit

where a magnificent fox crossed the ploughed field in a leisurely fashion the other morning

the notebook received several swoopy lines and scribbled-in areas

these books are made of paper folded and cut

and then scrap paper of all sorts folded and stitched inside each of the three main folds (In this case the “spine” has four sections, a “four winds book” from India Flint’s Nomad school of arts course taken through February)

and they are included in my “morning pages” routine, before I get up with a cup of tea and the dog waiting … I am finding them extraordinarily fruitful.

the papers themselves will suggest pattern which can be co-opted in a painting

the faster I do them, the better – here while walking down the steep hill below that foxy wood

and the scalloped edge of the ploughed and the unploughed field

yellowhammers sing up here, they like the gorse and the open sky.

larks too,

though the promise of these catkins has been put on hold and spring seems far away. the municipal daffodils are still fast in bud.

 

 

working with pen and ink

Posted jane -->on 25th Feb 2020

this week instead of painting our own things at art group in the village hall we had a drawing workshop with Fionn Rawnsley who used to teach on the foundation course at Norwich Art School. this was actually really good. I have been lazy about drawing, especially since I started painting abstracts. Fionn used techniques to make us draw like poetry and work inside out

firstly to draw one’s face by feel. I took pen and ink because I’m awkward, but also because I love that medium. I fell in love with it the first time I saw illustrations by Charles Keeping as a child.

I still have all the books I treasured then

his style changed a bit, loosening up,

but the drama of them mixed with the kind of drawing, angular, expressionistic, yet tamed to fit around the page was irresistible.

the book design is exciting in itself, plus Sutcliff’s novels are far beyond much of her contemporaries’ writing for children.

so I am up for whatever can be got out of a pen nib and a bottle of ink.

I just had to replace the nib on this pen as yesterday I crossed it, trying to draw with my left hand

I was given this line ruling pen by a friend, on a mark-making course we both did a few years ago. we made folded aluminium pens and used frayed canes and various other found things. I don’t think I was ready for that course in fact.

if you swerve a pen around, using your wrist and elbow, you can get it to do some quite wild things.

tip it and let it judder over the paper

or if you tip the triangular pen, having dipped it too deep, the handle catches on the paper and you get a thick line as well

for these smudgy lines I used a chinese ink stick, dipped in spit (sorry), in my left hand, then swapped over.

this was the second exercise, to draw someone else and try to draw the details and contours inside the obvious outline, not relying on the outline, and trying not to look at the drawing too much …

then we applied these ideas to still life drawing – I brought three of my pots, some wiggly hazel twigs, and some dead hydrangea heads, and Victoria brought spring flowers and a very handsome earthenware jug.

three hours of concentrated drawing

my head was buzzing

I hope this gives me some new ways into my paintings

but drawing is worthwhile for its own sake

I think I will be trying to fit in a daily drawing now

 

more and more air and water

Posted jane -->on 23rd Feb 2020

and I’ve been even worse at keeping up this blog in the new year. still I have a stash of photos of more wet and watery so here we are.

just walking up the Sharrington road yesterday morning early with plenty of air blasting around my ears – and the clouds going at who knows how many miles per hour up there. the gusts down here were supposed to be around fifty three miles per hour; they felt pretty vicious, and it wasn’t even a named storm.

the soggy fields won’t absorb any more water so there’s plenty of this

and this

this

and this. some soaks away just a little – until the next rainstorm. however we don’t have big enough rivers in north Norfolk for flooding to be serious.

this morning the Glaven was looking twice as big as normal, after heavy rain in the early morning,

but here it has room to overflow into a wide valley of reed beds, sallows, sedges and rough grass which sops up much of the excess since dredging was stopped and raised banks got rid of.

several trees down; this is an alder

mayhem here in the river bed, with two more alders gone, one earlier in the year and one after Dennis. on Monday one had to duck under it but it’s been cleared up now.

but it makes the river gurgle and chuckle pleasantly, and the wren sings along. the cut alder wood is a bright orange-red. I wonder if it would dye fibre.

at the ford the level is very high. more wren song too.

but for most of it it seems the deeper it flows, the quieter.

up in the woods at Bayfield, the trees very dark and slick with rain, which had only just stopped as we got out of the car.

the sky clearing as the front swept on south east. the farrowing huts are all full again – the sows don’t seem to mind the weather – it’s quite exposed up here. in the distance you can see the woods that edge Holkham.

at home I’ve had a wonderful winter for snowdrops. they are almost over now, but this time last year they were brown with the sun and warm weather we had in February. this year it’s the wind that’s browned them I think.

wild daffodils were looking like this a week ago, they are fully out now. and all the nettles are coming up. some work is needed.

meanwhile Bims and I go to Holkham for her runs, where it’s quiet if we follow the horse entrance to the beach. there’s been a canine gastro-enteritis virus around, it’s really severe, with dogs needing veterinary care for several days, best avoided if possible. she doesn’t mind the light plastic basket muzzle at all. it means she can’t poke little dogs and make them squeak, and she can’t eat anything untoward which we know does sometimes fetch up on the beaches here – fish with paralytic shellfish poisoning, and palm-oil solids.

it’s more beautiful over on that side of the bay too

on Thursday the wind was ruffling the little waves.

and I found an asemic poem made by some lug worm ….

 

 

back to norfolk

Posted jane -->on 28th Aug 2019

after another early morning walk on West Sands

although it would be warm later in St Andrews

the mist was only just burning off, and there were only one or two runners and not many dog walkers

I thought it would be a kindness to Bims to let her have a run before the long journey home

and a paddle. but it turned out that her adrenalin levels were quite raised, and she was not happy in the car, it took her at least a couple of hours to settle. stress equals adrenalin even when it seems like she’s having a nice time. we of course had air conditioning to insulate us from the 33 degree heat on the drive, but the heat of the following two days has got us in a rhythm of very early walks – straight out of bed on waking and off before seven, even six fifteen yesterday.

our norfolk fields are very beautiful then

the stubbles full of frolicking hares

pink horizons

and sea-wards a lingering mist

those hares got B’s stress levels up again – in fact it takes days for the levels to go right down, and she seems quite over-alert even three days later.

sun on my back and a bit warm already by six forty-five ..

not a creature to be seen along by Bale wood, where the huge field (named the prairie by the neighbour) has had its oilseed rape harvested – however much B hoped to see another hare

the silver-washed fritillaries long gone

and the thistles now beneficial to birds rather than insects.

this morning we are cooler, and slightly damp – what a relief!

but at Bullfer Grove there is devastation

all the non-National Trust part of the wood is being cut for selected timber removal

and a right mess the machines make getting in and out

I would guess that Albanwise are harvesting mature oak trees all round here

there are I’d estimate at least a hundred trees piled up here where there’s access from the main road

each side of the NT gate

really it’s a shock to find this many trees felled

and they have been in to all of it and taken the large oaks

leaving smashed up branches

and stumps. so the question is, are they going to replant? and does this have anything to do with a 2013 statement

that they were then thinking of more intensively managing their 300 hectares of woodland, possibly using the product for woodchip fuel

whatever the intention, it’s horrifying to see trees cut down that would have been viable for at least another two hundred years, and helped to keep our carbon dioxide emissions just a little lower, at the same time as we are seeing apocalyptic film of the Amazon forest burning, and fires in the Arctic boreal forests out of control in Siberia, canada and Alaska.

 

holt lowes – a favourite place

Posted jane -->on 14th Aug 2019

a few years ago I stopped going to this place, because under the aegis of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust all the mature silver birches were grubbed up, and a lot of soil removed back to flinty ashy subsoil

in an attempt to get it back to the four thousand year old heathland it had once been.

the idea is to encourage the heathers – bell heather like this –

and ordinary like this –

and to cut the gorse back.

the trees got in the way and changed the biome.

but nature is irrepressible, and a few Dartmoor ponies put in to encourage the grass will not keep back the growth of trees. Once it was common land with rights of grazing and furze cutting for households in Holt, and presumably there were hosts of goats, cows, geese, sheep and people using the land. now it’s dog-walker territory, with some rare flora and fauna – sphagnum moss and natterjack toads, more common on Dartmoor than in Norfolk. the birch seedlings sprout everywhere.

not many people walk here either, it’s very quiet,

the ponies are fat and peaceful,

a little mischievous perhaps,

appearing and disappearing mysteriously amongst the remaining trees.

I’d thought we were going to get a wet walk but the morning warmed up,

there were gatekeepers and painted ladies flitting about,

and the regrowth of the gorse makes the paths sheltered.

one could have done with a sit down,

but Em and Bims got a paddle at least.

the flinty dry upper heath is cut in two by a damp trickle and pools – a small wetland.

this pool’s trees are full of willow warblers in early summer.

it’s the time of year for heather –

here the gorse cutter has succeeded in making it look like a heath.

it’s a place that’s good for winter walking with these dry peaty, sandy paths. of course, you can’t let dogs off the lead near the ponies – but I wouldn’t have Bims off anyway.

 

a little bit of norfolk squit from Bullfer Grove

Posted jane -->on 22nd Apr 2019

Gods and Goddesses

here I’m surrounded by little gods

the ones that don’t need me – wren

and thrush worship them, voices across

field and tree. My dog is inhabited

by them, her long glossy neck and

cocked ears tell me so, she’s listening

to them, head in the sun. The climbing roses

and wild ones that loop sharp stems

have them in their buds, just swelling,

and in their thorns. We meet them in the

green lane when there’s no-one about

dressed in bridal flowers and trembling

new leaves, in the wood they tower

tossing wild cherry blossom down

and on the ground they mist among

the bluebells, ringing hanging heads

heavy with dew.

Scottish woods are different

Posted jane -->on 25th Jan 2019

(more…)

folded woods in January

Posted jane -->on 21st Jan 2019

I’ve not been able to get to the village hall painting group this month due to a succession of horrible colds in the head and a lingering cough, so once my head cleared a bit I took strips off my lovely roll of cartridge paper and worked on some folded books.

I made myself go to the writing outside sessions despite the feebleness encroaching –

the first one was on the shingle ridge at Cley in a bright sunny gale. I found a nest of marram grass clumps sheltered from the forty mile an hour north westerly wind and was overawed by the brightness of sun and reflection of light in the flooded marsh after a very high tide.

as well as the piece of writing, a piece of stitching resulted, on a strip of old wool blanket, in the same form as the tsunobokuro bags we made in Orkney

it’s still waiting for plant material and a bundling.

winter skies dominate here, particularly on the coast.

coming back to watercolour and paper, after the writing outside session in the wood last week –

looping branches, bark texture, leaf-litter, light, colour, all inspired the large painting, which folded down into a book.

I’m also using them as notebooks out on the walks we do. this one is folded from a strip of the paper underfoot in our improvised studio in Orkney, so all the paint on it is actually contributed by the group.

I’m finding the separate interstices of this type of book really inspiring for making these sorts of notes.

I bought a set of kid’s rubber stamp letters and made text in the book folded from the painting in the first image, words and phrases taken from what I wrote after walking in the woods last week.

you would have to be very clever to make this quite crude alphabet come out looking like properly printed text. I like the way it jumps up and down and some letters are bigger than others. lack of control is good.

today was very misty

it thickened as we walked down to Bale wood, and I just caught this photo as the sun almost came out again. in the etherial light there was a curlew calling, shadowing us as we walked up the green lane, behind the hedge.

wandering in a winter wood

Posted jane -->on 19th Dec 2018

most of the trees have dropped all their leaves now but this oak still has plenty. it’s on the edge of the wood by the bottom of the green lane

the hazels have their catkins all ready to expand as soon as february or before if it’s mild

there’s a section of the wood that seems in a state of collapse. it is mostly elm and ash; the elms get to a certain height then the bark boring beetles find them and spread the fungal disease Ascomycota. the tree reacts by plugging its own xylem tissue with gum and tyloses, bladder-like extensions of the xylem cell wall. As the xylem (one of the two types of vascular tissue produced by the vascular cambium, the other being the phloem) delivers water and nutrients to the rest of the plant, these plugs prevent them from travelling up the trunk of the tree, starving the tree of water and nutrients, therefore, eventually killing it. but the roots are still alive and send up new shoots, so there is a continuous cycle of growth and death in the wood.

 at the moment there seems more death, and rafts of dead trees block the old paths.

on the other side of the wood the spring-fed pools are still dry. at the end of the winter last year this was a large pond. the water bubbles up from the bottom when the spring runs.

the bare branches catching low sunlight. there were long-tailed tits, and then another bird I wasn’t sure of, possibly pied wagtails, running along the high branches, with a “plink plink” call.

oaks

and beech predominate – there are some monsters

holly in the lower storeys,

making domed hallways

while hazel grows in these bushy forms, flexible and sometimes trapped into archways

and ancient carcasses sprawl across the woodland floor. but no ash in this main part of the wood.

the wet nature of this land with its springs, sumps, swamps and little stream 

means it’s not suitable for agriculture, though I worry the owner may want to exploit it for growing trees for biomass – hopefully the expense of draining would prevent that. terrible idea anyway.

it’s quite easy to get lost in here, paths entice and bring you only to bramble patches and more fallen trees

as there are so many deer – red, roe and muntjac – I wanted to see if young trees were growing. I recently read an extract of Oliver Rackham’s book on the ash tree, in which he said that woodland oaks were not reproducing due to oak mildew, and hazels due to squirrels. deer nip off young growth too.

I found several young beech trees but no oaks, and plenty of hazels. 

our hedgerow oaks had bumper crops of acorns this year. most oaks grow from forgotten jay stashes.

I’m standing in the soft peaty earth and leaf litter of the dry pond.

there are many standing elms, some dead and some alive, protected by the other trees. 

down here in the almost forgotten centre of the labyrinth I try to find my slow way home.

a Welsh setting

Posted jane -->on 28th Oct 2018

and a quite extraordinary week for me, really quite out of my depth.

this is Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre for Wales, also, David Lloyd George’s last home. he lived there for the last three years of his life and died in the library in 1945, overlooking Cardigan Bay; he is buried a little way down the road into Llanystumdwy near the river Dwyfor.

it’s a beautiful place, both the lane and the river, and the woods that surround them.

tall sessile oaks and ashes line the drive

the garden is full of trees – here a huge maple

and the light everywhere mellowed by autumn leaves

it seemed to me a very colourful landscape

here enhanced a bit by the hipstamatic app on my phone

but still, there was a glow that I’m not finding back in Norfolk.

the course I was on, Heightened Speech, was sub-titled “a Spell on the Tongue” and was just one in an annual series of storytelling courses that have been going on for about twenty years, led by Eric Maddern and Hugh Lupton. almost everyone had been on one before, some people have been attending them for years, and are professional story tellers.

as I haven’t even got one poem by heart I did feel a little bit of a fake.

here’s the back of the house, looking out over the lawn to a small gate where there’s a footpath to the sea, about a mile and a half away. some of the accommodation is under the same roof as offices, libraries, kitchen, dining room – which is the medieval heart of the house, the old hall where we did a lot of the work – warming up body and voice, and taking the oral tradition up its “ladder to the moon” from riddle and nursery rhyme, to the heights of invocation and praise-singing

via Lloyd George himself, other speechmakers like Martin Luther King

curses, charms and spells,

prophesies, song, poetry

and storytelling. stories were told from the Welsh Mabinogion, from native American and First Nation Traditions, Aboriginal Australian, from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, from India, and further east.

the course was a rich smorgasbord of magical worlds and the voices are still in my head

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