Newsletter No. 9
Walking the South Downs Way....yep, all 100 miles of it!
In this newsletter I will be swapping van life for tent life as I tell you about my mad idea of walking the entire South Downs Way, 100 miles in 8 days, which I completed last week.
My trip to demonstrate at the Patchings Art Festival in July was inspiring, so lovely to meet so many colour pencil enthusiasts and other artists using this and other media. The art supplies marquee drew me in like a magnet and I didn’t escape entirely unscathed.
From there I travelled to Scotland for my sons Graduation for a few days before returning to do a spot of teaching in Kent. At Summer School at West Dean in August I spent a week with a lovely group getting to grips with paint and paper, nature and detail. I love this week as we have plenty of time to paint and have permission to collect things from the garden. Extra activities are provided during the week making it a pretty full-on experience. These are just a few of the stunning images painted.
Tent Life
Once a year I get a mad idea. Last year it was the NC500, this year I wanted to see if I was fit enough to walk the entire South Downs Way in one go. It’s been a few years since I did any serious long-distance walking. In my head I had a picture of some casual strolling, a little bit of sketching and some mindful contemplation. The reality was very different, and after the first day I realized that not only was I under prepared, but I was also ill equipped and that the trapped nerve in my back wasn’t going to improve over the next week! The terrain involved a lot of walking on flint stones which destroyed my very old walking boots, but the views were pretty stunning and dramatic with a big mix of woodland, downs and farmland.
You could rename this walk ‘The South Ups ' as no sooner had I gone down than it was time to go up again! I was walking from Winchester to Eastbourne and was lucky to have the perfect weather all week, sunshine and a light breeze. I was on a very limited budget, so it made sense to camp and take my old rucksack with tent and food etc. But by day 3 I realized that I was never going to manage the weight of the rucksack and keep up with the 12 miles approx. per day that I needed to do. Luckily, a friend came to my rescue delivering new footwear and taking the majority of the excess from my rucksack.
I’ve had a lot of comments that I was brave to do the walk on my own, but I wasn’t alone for very long at any point and I met some lovely walking companions. Strangers soon become friends as we swapped life stories, and I’m still chuckling about the couple who told me they once took a Shetland pony on the route to carry their luggage, genius! This route is popular with cyclists too, it seemed to be the ladies who were walking and the men who were cycling!
As for the art?? Well, I have to come clean here, there wasn’t a lot. As I was walking for up to 8 hours a day, I didn’t have the time or inclination to stop and draw for long periods of time after the first couple of days.
Lesson learnt from this, in future I would add a few more days and reduce the mileage each day to spend more time to take in the scenery and sketch. The length of my days was partly determined by where the campsites were located, and this is where better planning would have helped. Added to this my back pain meant good quality sleep on a foam mat was difficult.
All in all, a huge sense of achievement when I completed the walk, I’m still trying to take in the fact that I’ve done it, but my feet are giving me a daily reminder! So, what’s next? Well, I already have plans for next year’s walk and this time I will be better planned and maybe no more tents.
Art Life
Patchings was a fabulous place to spend a few days, and I couldn’t resist buying just a little bit of paint and paper! Jackmans has some very interesting granulating colours and I treated myself to a couple. These consist of multiple pigments, perfect for painting stones and other textured items as the colours separate out when they granulate. More experimenting to be done with these.
I’m a bit of a paper hoarder and I couldn’t resist some lovely softly textured paper from Two Rivers Paper company. This is cotton rag paper, handmade, is absorbent and will be ideal for both books and botanical work. It’s not a paper I am familiar with, so I’ll be putting it through its paces in due course.
Although I did start some drawing on my walk, I didn’t get to keep the diary I was hoping to. Among the heavy things I abandoned after the first few days was my sketchbook. When this happens and art doesn’t go to plan, I try not to beat myself up about it and I looked for an alternative way to record the walk. So, I kept a couple of pages of the sketchbook and created a small booklet to doodle in…. the perfect solution!
Teaching & travel in Sept, October and beyond…
Adult Education, make the most of these few offerings from Kent Adult Education in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and online. One in September and a cluster at the end of October.
For the first time I will also be teaching a beginners colour pencil course at West Dean on November 20th to 22nd. Not a Botanical course just general techniques and a variety of subjects.
Old Bank Studios, Harwich, for a day of Botanical watercolour and Botanical colour pencil with autumn subjects on 26th and 27th October.
I’ll be joining SAGAs spirit of Adventure on 20th Sept for a trip to Canada and the USA.
I also have a few dates in November free if you want me to come and run a session at your art society or club.
Thank you for joining me here and I hope you have a lovely autumn as we head into the colder months.
Thanks for the inspiration Amber. And that you're a mum too. I've really delayed motherhood because I was afraid it would mean giving up my art and adventure. It's precious to realize that I don't have to.