Tuesday 8th Nov by artist leader Sara Rickard
With heavy rain early morning, it was wonderful when it stopped for our arrival in Soudley to bless us with clear blue skies and sunshine! I had already been soaked on my preparatory walk the previous day so was fully expecting a shower but the beauty of the sunlight shining on the fallen orange leaves and weaving between conifer branches made the November day quite special.
A group of 12, including three young mothers carrying their babies, was a first for my Creative Walks and a welcome addition the children were. For me, a few familiar faces but also many new creative people joined.
To start, I introduced participants to the work of Stewart Carswell, a young writer/poet from Longhope, now living in Cambridge but returning regularly to the forest. He mentions that the cycle path from Ruspidge to Soudley with bricked up tunnels and Shakemantle quarry as places that he visited in his youth and have influenced his writing. He is included in the book ‘Reading the Forest’.
Wandering along the path, equipped with notebooks and pens, I asked the group to think of words to describe some of the colours we could see in the grass, the brambles, the bracken, fir and deciduous trees. Lime green, sage, mint, pale fawn, speckled rust, ginger and cinnamon. Parts of the bracken looked pinky purple against the wealth of ever changing colours. A parting of the dense wood in the distance revealed bright blue sky against dark inky branches of conifers. Many took photographs of this surprising vista.
Using a card viewfinder we observed how they can help frame a small part of the immense landscape to help focus more closely on composition. I asked the group to try to sketch just the tree trunks and notice the darker tones of the forest floor between. A linear, negative/positive task, or to find words to reflect the view of jam packed thin tree trunks.
Within a few minutes I showed examples of paintings by Gustav Klimt painted in 1903 of tree trunks in an autumn wood with the most glorious ground of birch and burnt orange beech leaves which really related to the view we were observing. Whenever I drive the Soudley to Blackpool Bridge road I remember these paintings by Klimt.
Next… well that might spoil the walk… so to find out what we did next, come along to the next Blue Rock Trail Creative Walk in early Spring 2023!!
Check out our Creative Walks page to join us on the next one 🍂🍁
Canopy Creative Network 