February Visit to Markshall
I made my second visit to Markshall on 6th February, on a bright morning with hazy sunshine and quite a bit of blue sky.
I knew exactly which part of the grounds I wanted to feature in my second painting! On my previous visit one of the women on the entrance desk told me to watch out for all the snowdrops in the woodland at the far end of the lakes.
I walked straight up to this wood – just stopping to feed the huge carp in the lake on my way – and I was delighted to see how thickly the snowdrops bloomed under the sparse tree cover. Can you see the pheasants feeding on the spilt bird seed in the photo?
I sat on my little stool beside the path, and made a sketch of the view I wanted to capture using watercolour and Caran D’Ache Neocolour II water-soluble wax crayons.
While I was painting a tree creeper was working its way slowly round the trunk of a large tree, poking under the loose bark with its sharp curved beak. And at one point a peacock wandered past . . . .
Although it was warmer than my January visit – the lake was no longer frozen – I still got cold sitting still, and set off to walk through the woods to warm up.
I picked up bits to draw from under the trees – a huge leaf from a turkey oak, a clutch of needles from a larch tree, and some pine cones – which I drew with pastel pencils when I got home.
February Pickings
This week I have been working on my February painting of the snowdrops under the big trees. I finished it yesterday, and you can find all the details on my 2025 Gallery page.
Essex Country Estate: February
Iron Latch Lane, Autumn
Iron Latch Lane, Autumn
This is the very last painting for my Family History painting project – which has been an on-going work for the last two years!
Iron Latch Lane is a footpath which runs from Halstead Road at Stanway through to Fordham Heath. Part of it runs alongside a nature reserve, part is through woodland, some of it is just a narrow field edge path, and some parts are a wide track.
My 5x-Great Grandparents lived in Fordham in the mid-1700s, and down the generations they lived in Fordham, Eight Ash Green and Stanway, so this path seems quite significant and one with which I am sure they would all have been familiar.
I can remember walking it as a small child with my Dad, older sister and Grandparents at different times, when we lived at Stanway for a few years.
Last week I finished the first draft of my family history book. It tells the story of the Pudney family from the first mention of the name in 1379 to my childhood. It will be illustrated with approximately 26 of my paintings, plus some photos, maps and drawings.
It still needs a bit of editing, but I am planning to self-publish it during March using blurb.com which I have used for my little Twelve Months books (which are all available to order on the Shop page).
I aim to have a few copies available at our next Anglian Arts Project show in May at Little Bentley.
Flowerings: January
Flowerings: January
The third art work from my January visit to Markshall for my Twelve Months on an Essex Country Estate painting project: you may remember that each month I was going to choose something flowering in the grounds to draw or paint. It was quite difficult to find something in January! I settled on these witch-hazel blooms because of the vibrant yellow.
The little painting – about 9 inches square – is on Saunders Waterford hot pressed paper, so a very smooth heavy paper.
I started by putting in some background colour using Schmincke Horadam Aquarell watercolours, which are super granulating – in other words they do not make an even wash of colour, but dry as a broken variegated colour. Once this was dry I used Caran D’Ache Neocolour II to draw out the twigs and flowers.
I felt the colours of the flowers and twigs weren’t bright enough, so emphasised them with mixtures of Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White and Sap Green gouache.
Finally, I used a very fine nibbed Coptic Multi liner 0.1 to add some definition to the crinkly petals!
It was all very exploratory – and definitely ended up being ‘mixed media’!
