Overy Staithe is full of subjects to paint, including clusters of old fishermen’s cottages, the landmark white-fronted boathouse, and the winding creek, with its scattering of pleasure craft and small inshore fishing boats. A half hour walk along the sea bank will bring you to the beach, where, in winter, the wind whips straight in from the Arctic. To the West of the sea bank are the marshes, and to the East lie water meadows that stretch away to a soft, blue distance. I have often done this walk, sketchbook in hand, and it was while walking back one day, that I saw this subject tucked away landward of the sea bank. The place where I stood to work led directly to a gate into the water meadows, and I can’t look at this subject without remembering the time I took a summer painting group here, and how, despite my careful planning, everything ended up going pear-shaped…
There were about eight or so in the group and we met at the boathouse on a perfect summer’s day. I pointed out a number of potential subjects, and suggested they spread out and choose one that interested them. I issued a couple of caveats - one was not to strike out down the sea bank, because we were meant to be painting not hiking, and the time I was obliged to spend walking from one student to another meant less time that could be given to each one. The second was that if anyone went the landward side of the sea bank, they should not, under any circumstances, go through the gate into the water meadow beyond. It wasn’t long before everyone had found their subject and was beavering away, and I was going from one to another, helping them with techniques. After a little while I did a head count, and there was one missing. I searched up and down the staithe, along the sea bank a little way, and up and down the reed bed on the landward side. Nothing. I thought, ‘Blow it, someone has taken it into their head to just keep following the sea bank, and they’re probably sitting way out on the beach right now with their paints. If I go after them, my other seven students are going to miss out on tutorial time.’ Suddenly, I heard a scream. It was coming from the landward side of the sea bank. Another scream, followed by incoherent sounds of hysteria, pinpointed it to the other side of the gate that I had expressly said not to go through. I rushed to the gate, and there was my missing student. She was seated at an easel doing an oil painting. Around her was a small group of heifers, one of which had stretched out an extraordinary length of tongue and was busy slurping the painting clean off the canvas. By now, the student had attracted a lot of attention with her cries of alarm, and several people joined me in going to the rescue. Having consumed the painting, the cattle were easily shooed away, we got the student and her stuff from the field, and the painting group repaired to the Hero pub for lunch and stiff drinks all round. There, we exchanged notes on the morning's experience: ‘But you didn’t tell us why you didn’t want us to go in the field.’ ‘Didn’t you see the cowpats?’ someone remarked. ‘That’s usually indicative.’ ‘And they were obviously recent. Like minutes old. All sloppy and covered in flies.’ ‘Do you mind?’ said another, ‘I’m eating.’ ‘I’ll bet it was a good painting, too. What a waste, straight down a cow’s gullet.’ ‘I didn’t know cows did that. I didn’t know they were carnivorous.’ At this point I recall a man at the bar casting a startled eye in our direction. ‘It’s okay,’ I assured him, ‘ it was only the painting it ate, not the student.’ He nodded and ordered another pint, possibly to stifle the nightmare image of carnivorous cattle stalking the Norfolk landscape. Generations of painters have suffered the same fate as my student at the hands - or rather, tongues, of cows. What attracts them is the linseed oil, but heaven knows what their taste buds make of titanium white, ultramarine blue and lemon yellow! If anyone would like to join me for painting at Overy Staithe, please use the Contact page to enquire re availability. Just be warned. Do not, under any circumstances, venture through That Gate, into the cowpat strewn water meadow beyond...
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Judith Key
Judith Key is a Norfolk based artist, working in watercolour and pastel. She has exhibited with the Society of Graphic Fine Artists and New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries, London. Her paintings are in collections worldwide. Categories
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May 2018
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