11th September 2020
A late visit to walk George and attempt a quick painting before the light went found me on the old Market Weighton railway track, looking down towards Low Gardham. The thistles have all gone to seed with the exception of a lone, late flowering head. Marjoram, hawthorn berries, pale grass, and a optimistically tall flowering umbral seeming to be very white against a dark green background. The elderberries have masses of black fruit while red, well formed shiny rosehips decorate vicious, unruly arching stems. The rail cinder track is now overgrow, yet it still allows one walk side by side in some places. Wild Rose of Sharon plants, bright yellow, shout out in the dark grass. I really must collect some of this marjoram and dry the leaves. A bright brush of rag wort stands tall as I walk past.I quickly set up the pochade box and start to paint.
Dog walkers pass and we share smiles, at a safe distance. George was off his lead happily running up and down the track before settling at my feet on a bed of marjoram. Brambles covered the path edges where Rosebay willowherb, now gone to seed, stand on tall, misty, daggered stems. The light is going quickly as I walk away, along a hawthorn field boundary. It is just after 7:30 pm, I’d brought some coffee and cake, in the car and was looking forward to having it. A noisy machine was working industrially in the falling light. A tractor with headlights on was busy doing something. As I get closer I realise it is slowly traveling alongside the far side of a hedge with a cutter bar on an extended arm. I stop as it approaches the end of the hedge abutting the path. The tractor slowly turns round the hedge onto the path which I am walking on, then it straightens up parallel to the path. I try to look past its headlights which are brightly glaring into my face. I peek at the driver and I said something like "it’s a bit late" and though we couldn’t really hear each other because of the noise of the tractor, we smiled, thumbs up, as he slowly trundled away towards Gardham, passing beneath the railway bridge.
I see two hares nibbling the stubble in one field, they stop, look, and then resume eating. They crouch down and only their tall ears give them away. Walking on towards the road, I saw, in the dim light, a shadow, no more than a feint suggestion of a very fast moving creature, I assumed it was another hare though it could’ve been something else. Looking at my watch it is about 10 to 8 and the light has really gone. I head back to the car and make myself a coffee.
12 x10 inch
Oil on canvas board.
Available Email me here
setting up
outline and beginning to add colour
Fixing certain elements, then on to the sky.
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