Anglesey cliffs felt

Following my wet felt of waves click here and Aira Forcce click here I decided I'd try interpreting one of my paintings in felt. I chose a bold watercolour from a holiday on Anglesey in August 2019. It seems so long ago looking at the blog...hopefully we'll be able to travel further soon! Anyway here's the painting...the stages of wet felting and the final piece of felt. I used an embellisher to secure each stage of the picture before moving on.

The painting...I selected a portion from the left hand side as I didn't want the skyline to be too horizontal, so I tweaked it to come up to the top right. 

Laying down the sky in the opposite diagonal to the movement of the cliffs....

Adding detail...

Getting there...

Laying the colour of the sea...checking it would work! 

Finished and felted...still wet! 

..and dried...

The Ankerwycke Yew

Tom has been out and about ...while life for me has been rather hectic ...and  I will catch up and blog soon!  

On the other side of the Thames to Runnymede is Ankerwycke and the Ankerwycke Yew- a 2,500 year old male yew tree - a spectacular tree and a truly impressive size.

St Mary's Priory- a Bennedictine nunnery built in the 12th century.

Around Runnymede- walking to and from Chobham Common

...and more from Tom about his walk at the weekend: 

Going to and from Chobham Common I walked through Virginia Water, Longside Lake, Trumps Green and Longcross. While it was generally smooth sailing some of the footpaths were a deadend due to the depth of mud and waist height water which lead to some rather large detours!

The first coltsfoot at Longcross.

A new species for me: Azolla filiculoides (floating water fern). I've been trying to find this species since moving down to Surrey in September. While its current range is restricted to the Americas, and it is considered alien and highly invasive in Britain, during the Quaternary the species moved in and out of Britain with the changing climate and is an important thermophilous indicator.

Azolla filiculoides.

Alder cones and catkins. 

Female hazel flower.

Willow catkins bursting open, hazel female flowers and male catkins (finding a hazel with both male and female flowers next to each other was a task and a half) and blackthorn blossom in bud. 

Some very large earth stars. 

Honey bee on mullein- there were a good few insects on the wing today, including a bumblebee, (Bombus terrestris) as well as the odd beetle and micromoth. 

High Pike and beyond!

A cracking roundwalk yesterday, in our Northern Fells. We parked up at Calebreck and followed our usual route up High Pike. The Thamnloia ( a rare arctic alpine lichen) looked in particulalry good condition and I do wonder if that has something to do with t he fact that it has been under snow for the last couple of weeks. We then went on past Lingy hut and onto Knott, which gave splendid views across to Carrock and High Pike as well as Bassenthwaite, Binsey and across the Solway. It was a tad boggy across to Knott, to say the least! Then from Knott we went on to Great Sca Fell before skirting round to the top of Roughton Gill. We tried a dirct descent of the gill, but after an aborted attempt did find a very nice path just to the left and above the gill. From there it was down to Fellside before following the track that skirts the base of High Pike, back to Calebreck. The ascent through the mines above Nether Row on this stretch was uncalled for! A great route - 14.5 miles and one to be repeated. 

Looking back up High Pike.

Thamnolia.

High pike and Carrock Fell.

General views - wintery and washed out colour; Rocky on Great Sca Fell summit.

Roughton Gill

Back down to Fellside. 

The path back to Calebreck. 

Chobham Common

A rather long day out walking to Chobham Common (North) and back for Tom, including a check up on the marsh clubmoss and good views of the usual species- green woodpecker, red kite etc. 

Marsh clubmoss habitat.

Marsh clubmoss in its reduced winter state. Note last year's withered cone on the left hand image. 

Some spectacular cladonia.

An unidentified fungus. 

A heaving mass of wood ants emerging in the warmer weather.

Aira Force

Pleased with my wet felt earlier in the week and being as I am leading some Northern Fells Group arts workshops I thought I ought to do some....   Aira Force, Ullswater....please scroll to the bottom! The felt is 24 inches tall and 9 inches wide. 

Green Head; Brae Fell; Little Sca Fell; Yard Steel; Fellside and back to Green Head.

A refreshing walk out this morning and a good loop. Nice to see some golden plover and hear a skylark singing, but apart from the wintery views not a lot else to report - an enjoyable 7.5miles. 

Towards Skiddaw from Brae Fell.

Looking back down Brae Fell.

Skiddaw from Little Sca Fell

Overwater and Binsey.

Little Sca Fell.

The last of the snow - enjoy!

looking back up towards Roughton Gill and Yard Steel ...the way we descended before dropping down to Fellside.

Thirty second sketches..

 Some field sketches - standing up in a stiff wind - over the last couple of days at a variety of local location. The idea - trying to loosen up my drawing. I've enrolled on the Newlyn School of Art 'Abstracting the Landscape' course and this was the first exercise. 

Headend Quarry.

Headend Quarry. 

The river at the Howk.

The river at the Howk. 

Towards Longlands from Caldbeck Common.

Carrock Fell.

The Howk.

The Howk.