Sketching in the Spring Sunshine – Windgather Rocks, Taxal Edge

Yesterday, cheered up considerably by the Spring sunshine I ventured out to do a bit of sketching. In October I have an exhibition of Derbyshire landscapes planned, probably as part of by Inspiring Art Walks series where I write a blog about a walk and illustrate it with paintings, see http://inspiringartwalkswithsarahmorley.blogspot.co.uk/.

So here’s what I sketched.  This is Blackhill Gate Farm, which may feature at the start of my walk. You have to walk past it towards Taxal Edge. This is just a quick sketch done standing up on the lane approaching the farm. I took some Pan Pastels which I was kindly given to try out by the Society of All Artists ( SAA)http://www.saa.co.uk/, recently. I used these plus some charcoal and a little bit of unison pastel for the purples ( as I don’t have a pan pastel for these). I will do a blog just about the Pan Pastels soon, for anyone who is interested in trying them. Essentially they are pans of pastel, rather than sticks, so there is no breakage or mess.

After I had gone through the farm I turned right up towards Windgather Rocks. These are a fine outcrop of rocks, there are quire of few of these in Derbyshire. Yesterday there were lots of people there rock climbing off the rocks and a drone or two.

I sat down on the ground to sketch, something you might be able to see from the angle of the two sketches. Sketching so low does give a more extreme viewpoint, almost a worm’s eye view. I also take photographss from my sketching view points, but these never show what I can see from the sketch – for example when sketching the rocks I can see the different faces on the rocks – not something you can see so easily from photographs.

And here is another one of Windgather Rocks. I am hoping to paint a fairly large painting of these rocks. It will be interesting when painting to find an interesting way to treat the large expanse of grass!

After sketching the rocks for around 30 minutes I walked up to the rocks, turned right and down hill into the pine forest. The path runs for a while edged by a stone wall to the left and the pine trees to the right. In the distance you can just about see Taxal Edge.

I sat down by the side of the path, and sketched the view. Again, this one has a slightly different perspective as I am on the ground. The reds and pinks are from an uprooted tree that is just to the right, out of the sketch. I used some watercolour as well as charcoal, Pan Pastels and Unison pastels for this one. I loved the contrast in colours. I think this may make quite an interesting painting, although I might need to make the path through and the view of Taxal Edge in the distance a little more obvious. The wall also comes on the join between the two pages ( a disadvantage of only carrying a small sketch pad) but I like to fit everything into one small back pack.

I hope you have enjoyed  coming sketching with me. I am off for a couple of hours at Stanage Edge now. There may be another post later!