Summer already seems far behind, but the past month has offered plenty of opportunity to combine two of my favourite autumnal activities - it has been the perfect time to go sketching and brambling, with a carton for the blackberries and a sketchbook and charcoal to capture whatever takes my eye. Just down the lane from me the blackberries have been the best I have seen for several years. Better still, the hedge borders fields where there are horses - a couple of statuesque greys, a number of ponies and a little bay filly with a wall eye. I often watch them munching their way contentedly through the green acres, swishing their tails, twitching their ears, and occasionally looking up when they sense someone is watching. Sometimes we frighten each other with our presence - if one of them is close to the boundary and I make a too sudden appearance at the gap in the hedge, it will kick up its heels and make off. Sometimes, while I'm harvesting the brambles, a loud and unexpected snort the other side of the hedge makes me leap out of my skin and scatter blackberries all over the verge. The diminutive ponies never seem to make much headway with grazing their field. I often see them standing up to their knees in grass that's as tall as hay, and however much time they spend chomping away, it steadily gets the better of them. One of these days I expect to walk by and see nothing but a pair of ears sticking up out of the long grass. Two of the ponies are particularly friendly, and as soon as they know I'm there they will leave off grazing, amble over and stare at me - all shaggy mane and forelock, and deep knowing eyes. Their expressions seem to say, 'Do you have anything for us to eat, apart from this interminable grass?' No, I don't. And their owner has had to resort to rigging up a cordon in front of the gate, to prevent well-meaning local children reaching over and stuffing them with unsuitable treats like cheese and banana sandwiches. The ponies look at me longingly, and I know what they're thinking. 'Aw, please - the cheese and banana ones were our favourite.' Personally, I'm more of a blackberry person myself, and with the season already past its best, my crop is all in the freezer, ready to make into piping hot crumbles - just the thing to warm me up after a winter's day out with my paints... The field sketches reproduced in this month's blog were drawn in willow charcoal on A4 copier paper.
23 Comments
|
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
All
Archives
May 2018
|