Back in the summer, during that small window of opportunity when the country began to open up to travel, I donned a mask and boarded a National Express coach to Wiltshire to visit my friend of over 33 years Jo Beal.
Jo & I try to take time out and draw together at least once a year, and these short bursts of intense activity always prove fruitful to our ongoing practise. We reassess our direction through drawing and discussion, and supplement these activities by looking at and being inspired by other artist’s work, visiting exhibitions and watching art documentaries together.
Wiltshire offers a wealth of stunning walks and inspirational drawing locations, and I have always been fascinated by the abundance of ancient myths and legends attached to the county, which invariably weave their way into my drawing.
Wayland’s Smithy
Our first stop was along the Ridgeway to Wayland’s Smithy, a two-phase Neolithic tomb dating back to 3590 BC. Surrounded by huge rustling trees, the whole area had an eerie atmosphere and I wanted to try and portray that slightly unearthly feeling in my drawing. I concentrated on mark making using mainly graphite but with a tiny amount of gouache too.
There is a local tale, that if you were leave your horse tethered to the long barrow, along with a coin, then the Wayland elf would magically re-shoe your horse while you were away.
Our walk down off the Ridgeway at the end of day one. It ended up being a race to get back to the car before dark.
The following morning was sweltering hot, and in order to avoid the midday sun’s burning rays we explored the shady depths of Savernake Forest. Initially I was keen to draw ‘Big Belly Oak’ the oldest oak tree in the country at an incredible 1125 years old, a sapling while Alfred the Great was King. But unfortunately this magnificent beast, now held together with a huge metal collar, grows right next to the busy A346 & I didn’t fancy parking myself adjacent to melting asphalt and being disturbed by an endless stream of traffic thundering part. Instead we walked much further into the forest and settled for a much quieter and far more secluded location, hidden amongst bracken under a canopy of leaves.
From Norman times the forest became a royal hunting ground, and so I decided to include an imagined stag into my drawing, whose antlers perfectly echoed the mass of overlapping, twisted branches that I was attempting to make sense of.
Savernake Forest
The following morning, another beautiful albeit not quite so unbearably scorching one, we drove to Jones’s Mill. In advance we had decided to draw with just ink and to apply it with an array of natural mark making materials, including feathers, twigs of various sizes, sponges and cocktail sticks. Between us we had black, white, sepia, umber, blue/grey & yellow to work with. We sat on a blanket in the middle of the Nature Reserve and responded to the continual changes to the scene in front of us - a recurrent motion caused by a gentle breeze stirring the leaves, the graceful swirling of a flock of starlings dancing above the treetops and a buzzard hastily overlaid with a red kite, both of whom swooped into my eye line over the course of the afternoon.
Jones’s Mill Nature Reserve
Our final day was spent basking in the sunshine high up on Markham Banks, looking over Clouts Wood with Swindon beyond, far into the distance. It was a perfect hot summer’s day, with welcome shade provided intermittently by sedately moving clouds. As soon as the blanket had been laid out on the long grass, we were joined by a couple of curious grasshoppers, who sat comfortably with us and posed for photographs.
We drew what was in front of us using our limited collection of inks and natural mark making materials again, and tried to build on what we had learned from the previous day.
Until next time….
Clouts Wood including Markham Banks, Kings Farm Wood and Diocese Meadows