A Walk on the Moor

 I have been drawing a group of objects which I collected from a walk on the local Moor.  It is very different to what I normally do,  because I painted on a dark brown paper so that my objects could be placed against my painting of  my white tissue handkerchief.  Let me tell you the story of my walk and it might all make more sense.

We walked uphill to the edge of the moor,  here we are looking back down to our village and out to sea.   You can see the green fields fed with so much water, true English green pastures, a  cluster of dark trees and the grey stone walls which  mark out the boundaries of  the fields. The grey sky hangs over the estuary and it all feels damp and cold.

We follow the old cart tracks between the heather, dead rusty bracken and wet boggy ground. The large boulders and scattered stones,  once old sheep huts now derelict, are littered on the landscape.   There are now "new inhabitants" on the landscape.   Twelve huge towers dominate,  and that is where we are heading.

Every foot step sinks into the soft wet ground and water seeps up and around our feet,  a sound of  wet squashing foot steps. This moor is the source of many of the rivers in the village which make their way down to the sea.

The small figure to the right is me. you can see just how huge they are!   I am sorry to say I have never liked  them.  When I first saw them appear on the sky line many years ago it felt like someone had invaded my world, causing me some distress.  The view I loved would never be the same.  It is like much of life, we get used to it,  we have to.  At this present time there are hundreds of them being built in the sea,  just offshore,  now impacting on the sea view.

This is a place we walked to and played in our younger days,  hiding in the high bracken,  paddling in the icy cold waters in the beck.  We have sat  here  many, many times just looking at the views and pointing out familiar land marks.  Up here on the Moor we have  the Slate quarry,  the natural resource from which the whole village is built from, farms, walls, cottages, barns, the school and the churches. The quarry has been active for over four hundred years, and has been central to the life of villagers.

   The giant quarry hole where the slate and stone is
quarried. It is hard to believe just how large this crater is.  How many generations of workers walked each day up to the quarry, working  long days in cold conditions.
We heard some large bangs as they blasted  for more stone ....to be slate to be used for roofing slate, work tops and all manner of things these days. We glanced down into this vast hole where men and vehicles looked like the size of ants,  from the footpath behind the fence.
"Danger Quarry "  many sign posts warned  people of the Quarry.

It was here that I picked up the stone with the orange stripes and a little curled piece of fern and the tag blown into the heather.  I did not have a bag so I carefully wrapped the fern in a new folded tissue from my pocket.  I saw different coloured toadstools but as I doubted I would manage to get them home in one piece, I left them to grow.  My collection already consisted of the pieces of china and two red berries.

 

  A view from higher up shows the bleakness and raw beauty of this place at this time of year. We were well wrapped up and I enjoyed my walk and views over the estuary,  seeing it from a birds eye view as we had reached about 800 feet above sea level.

And back to green fields and the view of the church, below to the left,  the river which started on the moor and the buildings of stone from the village quarry.   The sea ,where the river will end,  and we can see  the tide coming into the estuary.

Back home,  when I gathered my finds from my walk,  I unwrapped the  tissue and placed all my treasures together on  the white square ...my picture was there.  I recorded it just as it was, the tag, two berries, blue china and the rusty brown bracken.  I liked  the tissue,  it was like a little tablecloth and I had just set the table.

So first I drew and  painted the white tissue in water colour paint against the brown paper background.

 The painting was done using the fine brush and acrylic inks.

I had fun doing something a little different.  Hope you enjoyed my walk and the drawing from the objects.
 Thank you for your comments and  Welcome to the new followers too.  The snow has arrived here,  just going to start a new drawing and I will show you some snow photographs next time I see you.
Keep Warm !                              Millyx
All photographs taken by my husband, so thank you to him for all his help.