Mary McAndrew

Come with me on a walk up into the Ingram Valley in Northumberland England, land of unending vistas and wildlife. I know that sounds ‘corny’ but its true, Northumberland is so beautiful and wild.

Mama sheep and 2 lambs

As Gary and I began our walk, right away we met a proud and healthy mama black faced sheep with her two little lambs. Walking the hills in lambing season is so much fun, the little ones prance, bounce from all fours like they have springs in all hooves and they join up in little gangs to play king of the hill. When they can they run to their moms and push under for a feed, their tails wag like little flags of victory!

Ingram Valley -shepherd's road

We turn our attention towards the uphill walk in very chilly wind, but with the sun it was bearable. This is a small track used by the shepherd with his quad-bike, to visit the various hills with sheep on. (I’m actually taking a look ‘back’ downhill here).

Ingram Valley-old stone wall and some lone Scots Pines

This is along the way up, an old stone wall like so many you see in England, with a few lonely Scots Pines playing sentinel on the lonely hills.

mama sheep

When we went as far as we wanted to go, we watched the sheep playing and running. This ewe and her lamb were all by themselves on the other side of the fence. The lamb looked so special that we couldn’t help but wonder if the shepherd had separated them on purpose. The mother was gorgeous with a coat like no other!  (I loved them so much I created note cards of them, and the other sheep, in my shop!)

Wheatear in Ingram Valley, Northumberland

As we made our way down, I talked Gary into stopping for a sit down….of course this was my chance to try to do a watercolor study of the hills opposite! We relaxed, and sitting quietly as I worked, a little bird landed down the hill a bit and started to work it’s way up towards us. I got my camera slowly and started to shoot as he came closer and closer; the wonderful thing about nature sketching or plein air painting is because you’re so quiet, usually wildlife will come near. (keep your camera always handy!) I created note cards of this one too of course, I can’t wait to do a painting of it!

sheep on far hill

Now this is the hill we looked at on our way down and what captured my attention for painting. I wanted to show you first if you look closely, you’ll see tiny white dots on it, those are sheep! No kidding…see the picture below.

sheep on far hill-Zoomed in

This is a close up of the same hill, see the sheep walking single file along the steep hill? They are sure footed but Gary told me sometimes they do fall and get killed

The picture shows you the scale of the size of the mountain.

Ingram Valley

So I sat on one of many tussocks remaining from and old forest, (a tussock is a small hump covered with grass that remains from where a tree used to be) and used my watercolor pan and one water-brush.

Ingram Valley-watercolor

This is the finished painting; I used the photo I took and looked at it on my computer screen when I got back to finish it. It may have the wrong color cast as I don’t have a scanner to use while I’m away from home, I just shot a picture of it with my camera. Here is a note card of this painting in my shop.

I hope you enjoyed this hike with me, I enjoyed having you along! Remember when you’re out for a walk to look around with curiosity and you may discover something you never noticed before.

Remember for any of my note cards, if you order 10 or more you get a discount…and the savings increase the more you buy, they can ALL BE DIFFERENT CARDS TOO!!