Another Short Walk in the Ouseburn Valley

A beautiful day on the Tyne today, with wispy white clouds high above in the bright blue sky. At last a day out with the Urban Sketchers Tyne and Wear after months of Lockdown! Last year, as my Regular Reader may remember, I attempted to meet up with the other Urban Sketchers to get some drawing done in the Ouseburn Valley. As luck would have it, I didn't manage to meet any of them and got no drawing done.

This time was better. On arrival at The Cycle Hub, I found Richard on the cafe terrace, drawing Mark who was sitting in front of him apparently drawing the Blue Circle Cement factory across the river. 

After a bit of catching up, I figured I should make an effort to first of all find some of the others and maybe try to overcome what I recognised as the growing inertia that would probably stop me from even opening my sketch book. So, next stop: Allan, who'd already done a very nice drawing of some railings and was just started on another. After catching up with him, I felt guilty about stopping him from getting on with his new drawing, so I moved on up the burn, making a detour up some steps into a little area of commercial units. I was really taken with the colours and ridged metal walls of the units and I can see me making paintings of these fairly soon.

Coming out of the commercial unit area, I found I was on a grassy bank above the path that runs by the burn, and sitting on the grass, his back up against a convenient tree, was Andy, working away at a sketch of a boat on the water, with some of the run down buildings on the opposite bank. Cue : Catching Up.

And so, onwards upstream to my favourite musing bench, opposite the Ouseburn Farm with the wonderful Byker Viaducts in the background, where I sat for a short while listening to the ducks and the running water.

Were I in a properly-established sketching regime, I'd probably have just opened my sketchbook and started on this interesting subject, but it's a complicated thing and I wasn't ready for it. Up again then and I headed up to the area below some of the concrete supports of the Metro Viaduct. 

I knew there was a couple of stone slabs there that might provide a seat while I drew something simple like those concrete supports and when I rounded the corner, I spotted someone already sitting there who I thought at first might be one the sketchers I've not yet met. I smiled at him. He didn't smile back. It took me a moment or two to realise that the paper in his hand wasn't a sketchbook but possibly a bunch of betting slips and the bottle of Hobgoblin by his side, coupled with his continued stare, suggested that he might prefer to be left alone.

I turned away as if distracted by my phone beeping, then crossed the path to busy myself with a photo of some sheep grazing under the concrete supports I'd intended to draw. Kevin, who had indeed just made my phone beep, suddenly appeared round the bend in the path and it was time to wander back downstream.

What was left of the day? Only the chance to lean over the railings and photograph a swan sleeping on its not very elaborate nest on the muddy banks of the Ouseburn, and a brief goodbye to those still sketching at The Cycle Hub.

 Kevin and I tried to get a pint on the Quayside, but the pubs were either heaving with thirsty Geordies or set up for table bookings, so no luck there. 

Nonetheless, I great way to spend a few hours away from home and hey! rediscover the art of talking to people after this traumatic year.