Starting ‘The Ridgeway’ series

Following my lovely week spent walking some of The Ridgeway in Wiltshire, I’m planning a series of paintings a bit like the Peddars Way series that I completed in the autumn. So yesterday I started looking in detail at the drawings I’d made, matching them up with the most useful of the 300 photographs that I took (!) and planning the series.

The final choice of photos and my Wiltshire sketchbook on the kitchen floor

There will be six paintings in the series, all from the south western end of The Ridgeway, from Overton hill to Barbury Castle. Yes, I know there are seven photos here, but two are of the same place from a different distance if you look carefully. The light is better in the more distant shot, but my drawing, on which I will base the painting, is from the closer point.

Although I walked the next stretch, along Smeathe’s Ridge between Barbury castle and Ogbourne St George – and it was an exhilarating walk as the ridge is high with far reaching views, and the weather was wonderful – it wasn’t an area that I feel I could paint. The sky was clear blue – no interesting clouds; the short turf was barely marked with the ‘track’ – so there was little visual distance cue, and certainly no snaking pale chalk track-way leading away into the distance; there are no trees or foreground interest which would give structure to a painting. So although I enjoyed the hours I walked there, I  won’t be included it in the series.  I’m not sure quite when I’m going to start this new series, but I’m really looking forward to doing it.

I’ve just started another little dinghy today, which will be ‘Waiting for the Tide III’, and collected the frames for ‘Blue Fenders’ and ‘Blackwater Reflections’.

AND I have some exciting news to share tomorrow . . . . . .  🙂