24th February 2024. It offered the prospects of a fine day, so after walking George, I drove over towards Birdsall. The warmth of the sun had not reached the rolling depressions where fog and low cloud hung in breathless stillness. Dropping down towards the church at Birdsall brought me to a mist shrouded private road leading to the church. The sunken leaf covered road was almost invisible in the bright shafts of light, an ethereal world of shadows and sunbeams as the sun tried to find a path through the treed churchyard. There will be light. Though a revelation, the scene was not for painting and I moved on, leaving this world and emerging into bright, clear weather. I parked and walked George again. I remembered the small church at Burythorpe, and decided to visit. I walked George towards the church, a subject for a later painting, it stands dramatically alone, surrounded by farmland. Walking down the track to the church, we stopped, several loose dogs made us review the idea.
Leaving Burythorpe, climbing up a steep road I stopped at a corner where the land flattened, where large regimented fields furrowed across wide expanses casting long, linear shadows. A large tree lay on the ground, huge trunk sections had been cut and lay guarding the fields beyond. This area is Lang Hill. In the distance a farmhouse sat square, below the shadowed history of surrounding hills. The shadows intrigued me. I quickly set up the pochade box and did this sketch. I watched the distant hillside, as the sun shone on it shadows emerged indicating complicated contours. Can any one reading this help me out here, are they old quarry works? Or, perhaps an old settlement? The sketch was quick, without any real blending and detailing, I will return soon with a larger canvas, perhaps even consider doing a watercolour. Continuing along the road brought me to Birdsall and more familiar territory. Then home to try and catch the rugby ( six nations ).
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