Who will tell the birds and rabbits?

My first words when discovering that the Men in Fluorescent Jackets had started to move further around the hill to hammer in fence posts and dig out a roadway and concrete a crossing over the stream. There's also a heck of a lot of soil being shifted; they're stripping the fields to build a roundabout and road network first, and then houses.

We knew it was going to happen, just maybe not yet. We'd hoped to have the summer. 

Only a couple of weekends ago, I was happily roaming around these fields, coming home with armfuls of different grasses and weeds to draw for a sketchbook course with Helen Hallows. 

I had an absolute blast painting the pages in my book - even though it meant queuing outside the DIY shop in my mask in order to buy more tester pots of chalk paint! Here's a little video flick through the pages. 

Then I got stuck into some practice sketches, my favourite being the one where we used our non-dominant hand. 

And I've made a start on some of my pages.

But of course, everything's wilted in the jamjars and I need to go and gather more material - it's either that or perch out in the fields, amidst the thistles, and now the Men in Yellow are there I feel even less inclined to do that!

We still trespass, just after hours when they've all gone home for their tea. Yesterday we saw a black bunny, just sitting on the path. We stopped in our tracks and watched it for ages. 

Sorry there's no picture, but if you can imagine a silhouette of a bunny rabbit, sitting upright, with ears up and paws hanging down...that's what we saw. Luckily the whippet didn't...

I can't remember who said it, it might have been Brian Rutenberg, that it's important to experience a little moment of astonishment every day. Well, that was my moment for yesterday. 

Field Notes

Once again, I'm on a mission to discover exactly what it is I want to create and what it is I want to say. In fact, this whole blog, particularly the early days, is record of my attempts to do just that. After a few years, teaching took over, then producing work for Art Trail and other exhibitions, and I got caught up in the doing and demonstrating and trying to keep up with all the things I said yes to; I lost the time to reflect on what I actually want to do. So here we go again.

This week I've been paying attention to what I pay attention to...kinda circular! I've been out trespassing away, noticing what I notice. I've taken a lot of photos of weeds, and I've even sat in the middle of a field of them and sketched them.

I like the empty skies, the empty fields, the physical mass of the woods as viewed from the track approaching them. I like the sound and feel of the wind in the trees, the smell of the morning air, the airy spaciousness of it all, and the cloistered hush of the different spaces in the woods. There's one particular space, under the canopy of the tallest trees, that we've always called "the cathedral" because that's exactly what it feels like. Even the light's the same, dappled, as if through stained glass. 

field path under oak branches, looking towards the woods

But I'm also absolutely fascinated by the structure of dandelion and groundsel seedheads. Properly obsessed. I kicked myself for not having a camera with me the morning each fluffy seedhead was full of glassy droplets of dew. Also kicking myself for not starting a record of how the field is changing over the weeks. It's been abandoned, no agriculture, and it's fascinating to see how it's changing with no intervention. 

It's also very parched, because we've had no rain. It's almost desert-like. The old dried up corn stalks are like bleached bones or branches. 

There are some lovely tiny flowers, if you look closely. 

Scarlet pimpernels and speedwell. 

 I like them, but not as much as the dandelions and groundsel 

(the one I'm holding in the first photo).

For me to get as far as sketchbook pages, that's really something. Here's a little video I made.

Music: The Nest, Josh Woodward @ www.joshwoodward.com

Five on Friday - old and new

1. Old habits die hard and yes, I did visit the Knitting and Stitching show last week. But this is new - at about 3pm I stopped looking. Needed a sit down and a cup of tea. Age?!

New things did come home with me, and while I consider myself largely immune to passing fads and fancies, I did buy a gelli plate. Otherwise I was very constrained, and stuck diligently to my shopping list and usual colour and texture palettes.

2. A visit to an old favourite on Wednesday, for a possible new venture. I await news, so you must too I'm afraid (there may not be any after all). Cryptic, huh?! Hedging my bets...

3. A new creative group for Uckfield Newtown.

Last night we held the third meeting for the Newtown Art Collective. We all participate in Art Trail but wanted to continue the collaborative spirit and general supportive vibes beyond one weekend in July. We hope to have a stand at the school Christmas fair, and we have arranged to exhibit members' work at a local care home, on a monthly rotation. Allana was very brave and volunteered to be first, and then it's my turn to be Miss November! We have ambitious plans, no budget and zero experience of organising anything remotely like this, but you only learn new things by trying!

4. Old and new, I have continued to investigate and experiment with my long-held love of all things knotty and sea-y! I have been finishing up pages in my (now very old and well-travelled) holiday sketchbooks

and I drew these knots while waiting to donate an armful on Tuesday afternoon.

This morning I started gathering more colours and textures

and I painted these mountboard strips, and inadvertently painted yet another seascape!

I'm going to wrap them in my fabric, papers and fibres, creating a kinda inspirational swatch sort of thing...

5. Old. Beautiful. Slightly scary. For one day, out of a three week holiday, we ventured beyond the Pays des Abers and Pays d'Iroise, and waddyaknow - an embroidery exhibition! Cue much rolling of eyes from family, but I managed to drag the Girl around with me as the alternative was a hearty walk along the Nantes-Brest canal in the drizzle. 

I learnt the difference between Bigouden

 and Glazig

loving the colours and patterns....

but a little disturbed by the Barbie-doll heads and mannequins

which amused the Girl so she forgave me for loitering and taking zillions of photos.

The old black and white photo at the top of this post shows ladies at a Breton wool market, but could very well be the scrum at Knit and Stitch last week! I've been waiting two months to use that photo...

Five on Friday

1. We had a cake crisis last weekend i.e. there wasn't any, so I invented a quick scoffable teatime cake:

I scaled down the lemon polenta cake recipe from here by only using one egg, and added blackberries instead of blueberries. I managed to get six cupcakes out of the mix, which cooked in about 25 minutes. Oh yes, I also picked my first kilo of blackberries - at last! 

2. The Girl succeeded in her audition for the South Downs Youth Orchestra, and so now Mr G and I have to find something to do for 2½ hours in Lewes, with all its wine bars and eateries, every Friday evening. Shucks, life is hard.

3. I had the notion to do an "imagery survey" of my house. Something to do with finding my visual language. I took an empty sketchbook (well, it was almost empty, so I ripped out the two pages of chicken sketches from 6 years ago) and wandered around the house drawing whatever caught my eye.

I tried to make a record of colours, as well as shapes and details.

Then I painted the pages.

I haven't finished yet! More another time.

4. I faced my sketchbook fear, and used some of my discoveries from my survey to draw a couple of pages, just off the top of my head, no planning:

I'm very pleased with them. I can see these becoming stitched panels, without any further ado. In fact, I said to Mr G "this is easy - why do I make it so hard for myself?" to which there was no answer...

5. I've started work on sampling ideas for the teaching year ahead. This half term we are concentrating on free machining. Hopefully we will progress smoothly from appliqued owls and such, to thread painting - which sounds terrifying to those who say they can't draw or paint, but I've found that if you just keep stitching like a mad woman, all will be well:

There's probably a little bit more to it than that, but let's not scare the troops before we've even started!

'tis the season

to be busy...

but not as busy as previous years. 

What have I missed?  Why the blasé attitude? Yes, I still have to make an enormous Christmas stocking for the youngest nephew, to match the one for his cousin made this time last year and yes I still have lots of presents to order or go find and yes I still have ideas for stitched presents noodling around in my head that I haven't even begun to bring into reality yet...

Maybe it's just because it's been a busy term, and now I've only got one class left to teach, I've wound down so much I've come to a standstill!

Either way, I haven't been doing what I should have been doing, I've been doing this:

cutting up lots of colour copies to make these:

signatures for a hand-made sketchbook:

with painted pages, copies (colour and b&w) and tracing paper.

Quite pleased with this frosty effect:

I'm working myself up to some major pieces of work (!  Sounds so grand!  If only I can pull it off!) for an exhibition next year.  So I'm not really procrastinating, I'm making a start. 

I've actually been attempting to make a start since about October, but don't tell anyone.

I've been using ideas from this book by Sandra Meech.  And it hasn't felt like procrastinating, as I haven't really enjoyed the process yet...it's been a bit painful, so I must be on to something...

And finally, talking of painful.  Got in a tantrum the other evening because I never have "time to do what I want to do" but then having carved out some time, of course I didn't know what it was that I wanted to do.  So in desperation I got out my boxes of rejects and offcuts, and made a collage.  Hmph. 

So there.

Location survey: Wales

We've just returned from three days being well-fed and rested in westest wildest Wales.  Just before we left, I read on someone's blog (I'm really sorry, but I can't remember where or who...) about doing a "location survey".

And it struck a chord.  Instead of wondering what to draw, or which sketchbook to draw it in, a location survey gives a structure, a guide - like a scientific process not an "artistic" process.  So I can record textures, colours, lines, shapes, patterns.....thinking about it reminded me of my 17-year-old self chucking a quadrat square around the sand-dunes of Pembrokeshire on my Biology A level field trip, and that was a lot of fun so I thought I'd give it another go.

Unfortunately we chose the wrong week to go to Wales:

Day One - Sleet and sideways rain

So I just had to draw what I could see out of the kitchen window:

Day Two: ventured out as far as the lower field and found an interesting pile of sticks

(don't think David Hockney need be worried yet...)

and coz it's a boggy field, there are a lot of tussocks:

The sun had come out by then, so I sat on a chainsaw-sculpted log seat and drew a quick sketch of the view over the "pond"

The "pond" now isn't, because it's been drained to make a bog garden - too many toddlers toddling over the horizon to have a pond now.  The tree at an angle on the LHS is an old willow tree, and I have spent hours and days of my life sitting in the crook of the branches reading.  The tree has nearly fallen over now, and is a bit too mossy to sit in, which is a shame.  It was a great spot to sit and read - easy to keep an eye on comings and goings from the cottage, people walking or driving tractors up the track from the farm, but not too close to be interrupted or asked to do chores...

Close by, I found this tree:

with it's amazing lichen-encrusted and mossy bark:

I got a bit cold trying to draw the lichen, so I warmed myself up by walking up to the top of the hill opposite the cottage, and down the other side to the track.  The wind was coming from the north and icy-cold, so I made a very quick drawing of the view from the side of the hill and tried to capture the movement of the wind through the long grass:

Day Three: nearly time to go, so time to face my fears and draw the flowers and bits and bobs that I stuck in a jam jar to "draw later":

(larch tufts)

My sketchbook isn't looking how I thought it would - so far it's all "drawings" and not "survey results".  But I'm really pleased that I did so much, and it definitely felt easier!