Allonby to Mawbray

A 'refreshing' walk along the coast today! 

Allonby beck has moved even further along the coast.

A potential hoof print in the holocene sediments.

Glacial till eroded into a pedastel.

Some nice congregations of birds. 

Ennerdale at it's tranquil best

Last weekend - A gloriously warm and calm day - a walk around our favourite lake. I even managed two field sketches/paintings ready for a new oil painting....

Coltsfoot.

The river Liza.

Clarity....

Looking down the lake....

..a beach clean ...and a tennis ball! 

Looking back up the lake. 

Reduction lino cut zoom....

I have been running a series of zoom workshops for the Northern Fells Group charity and the last one was on the reduction lino cut process. In preparation for this I did this print of honesty....

While these prints formed the basis for teaching I needed to do a live demonstration ...I chose to do a small simple version and to my relief, being as I was using a card registration system rather than my normal tb pins, it registered! 

Pussy willow

From Tom ....Some spectacular pussy willow surrounding the ponds between Stroude and Prune Hill, in Surrey. 

Give it a couple of weeks and I will hopefully taking very similar pictures in Cumbria! 

Common toad spawning and mating masses

On Sunday, down by the pussy willow ponds, Tom found a mass of common toads. There were over 100 individuals, with a few impressive mating balls of around 6 toads in each ball. As they were rather focused on mating it allowed me to get quite close and get some nice photographs of an interesting phenomenon. 

I just love the copper eyes.

Common frog (left) and common toad (right) spawn.

Our owl (3)

Cobweb really is a joy to watch....

Abstracting the Landscape (1)

I have begun an online course with the Newlyn School of Art called 'Abstracting the Landscape'. Last Friday afternoon was lovely and calm so I took myself off onto the fell, together with numerous large sheets of paper and some paint. A quality afternoon! 

Stop 1 ...looking over to Fellside.

Stop 2: Aughertree - looking over Skiddaw and Ullock Pike.

The idea was to paint a scene on a sheet of paper that has been divided up with masking tape ...then remove the tape (below) .

Some of my favourite sections...