Sunday 12 July 2009

Home from the Island


Lindisfarne Castle from the Harbour

I was wrong about the weather. Although there was a strong wind blowing a lot of the time, we also got a fair bit of sunshine and by the end of the two days I'd adopted my "caught by the sun" beetroot look.

As is often the case with short holidays where others make the agenda, it proved difficult to do any sketching , so I opted for taking as many photographs as possible. There are certainly potential paintings in some of those, and the walking we did round the island made up for the lack of any sketching.

On the way back from one of our walks , I noticed a thrush behaving oddly on a window sill. He was jumping around, looking in through the window and tapping on it. Moments later, an old lady came to the door with a bowl in her hand and her dog scurrying round her ankles. The thrush, rather than flying away, jumped down and ran to the door where the lady threw food to it from the bowl. The dog and the bird ignored one another. Apparently this is the fourth year the thrush has come to her house for feeding. The natural world continually surprises me.

5 comments:

Sonia said...

We have just recently returned from a couple of weeks holidaying in Berwick-on-Tweed and, of course, had to visit Lindisfarne again (our first many years ago). The weather started off well, but by lunchtime black clouds rolled in and we witnessed quite a dramatic thunderstorm (luckily from the interior of the castle itself - although we did get stuck there longer than intended). I did manage a couple of sketches of the castle, one of the causeway hut and, inevitably a fisherman's upturned-boat hut. I look forward to seeing if you develop any work from your photos.

Although I am not a particular fan of Lowry, I did enjoy exploring the Lowry Trail in Berwick and linking the actual places to several of his paintings. These areas I recorded on camera and might attempt a series using the ink resist technique, which would be similar to Lowry's style.

Sonia

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you had a good time in Lindisfarne, Harry. Am looking forward to the artwork this visit may generate.

--
Bruce T.

harry bell said...

Sonia - welcome to the blog. I enjoyed looking round your website. I rather like Lowry, but was unaware of any Brwick association and I confess I'd never thought of him as using ink resist, only pencil and oil.

Bruce -- you may have to wait a while for anything to come of this visit, but come it will, I'm sure.

Sonia said...

Harry - I didn't mean to imply that Lowry used ink resist, just that it's a technique I am familiar with and, should I get around to starting such a series, the end result might hint at his black-outlined style.

Sonia

harry bell said...

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. Be interesting to see what you produce in that way.