Today it was sunny and very blustery! We decided to take a hike near Clennell up the valley along the River Alwin then we looped back by walking up and along one of the huge hills. What gorgeous views we had! Of course I brought my field kit for watercolors with me hoping to find a quick sketch, as usual we pushed on without much lingering for painting or we’d never do the loop before dark. I did get some pencil sketches done that I later colored with watercolor as you’ll see.
Along the Alwin River
This is the valley we hiked along for a few miles, flat and easy except for the driving wind blowing on us at the start. It settled down as we got into the valley more. You can see on the far left a dust cloud with a huge truck in it, that’s a logging truck coming down the road we’re walking on, we’ll be headed around the base of that hill soon.
River Alwin into the Kidlandlee Dean
As we walked occasionally a Grey heron would be spooked from the river and fly upstream a bit. We had the valley all to ourselves except for the sheep and maybe one passing truck. The Kidlandlee Dean is the forest area ahead; a Dean is a small ravine, a word that comes from the Anglo Saxon’s. At the base of those pine trees we’ll turn our path up to the right and go up onto the hill we’ve been hiking along side.
RIver Alwin and "The Dodd" (hill)
Here I was able to convince Gary to stop long enough to let me catch my breath and sneak in a quick pencil sketch. This is just before we started to walk up the huge hill and I’m looking across the River Alwin and the Kidlandlee Dean is just to my left. The hill I sketched I found out later is called “The Dodd”. Later at home I painted the colors in with my waterbrush and watercolors while looking at the laptop photos. I put notes at the bottom of the colors I used.
River Alwin below
You can see we’ve been walking along the hillside, this is looking back towards the spot where I sat and sketched. We walked all along that ribbon of road down there! Along the way there are sheep that give you a look before running off into the grass, these two were right on the edge of the hill, it was pretty steep.
Hills called "The Dodd" and "Old Rookland"
Looking back again; though the hills look bleak the colors on them of the bracken, grasses and grey-blue stone are really beautiful, but most especially when the sun hits it and creates dramatic shadows!
An old Drovers road also called "Border County Ride"
This is a view looking back along the road that we picked up on top of the hill. Gary says that it probably an old Drovers road, a drover being someone who’d be hired to drive cattle to market by the farmers 200 years ago or more. So they are English Cowboys I guess! Some 400 years ago they would have been using this road and would have to defend the cattle against the Border Rievers who could steal the cattle.
View of Clennell Hill
This is a view looking across the valley (at the steep edge the sheep are on) to Clennell, we walked up that valley along the river. The wind was whipping but you can see the views were spectacular, so vast.
View over Clennell towards Rothbury
We sat here upon the top of this hill looking out over Clennell and Rothbury would be further on in the distance, Alwinton would be to our right. A farmer was burning some wood piles down below and it could be imagined that in ancient times when the Celts had their settlements there, there would be similar fires burning. Just below us to the right, on top of a smaller hill is the remains of a Celtic ring fort, at one time it would have had small fires burning in the crisp fall air.
Watercolor sketch "Views over Clennell"
We threw the waterproof picnic blanket on the ground and I sat to do a quick sketch. I just used my pencil and ‘zoomed’ in on a view that you see in the photo previous. It was so windy and cold I had a heavy wool blanket over my shoulders as I sat to help block the wind. Come to think of it, lucky I had on my rain pants too, they block the wind quite a bit. All the paint marks you see in the upper left I did on the spot as color notes. I used my big flat waterbrush and labeled colors, yes I know it is right on my watercolor sketch but it’s a ‘working sketchbook’ too and I wanted to do color notes on the spot. So when I got home I painted it in while looking at my laptop, using my big waterbrush (pictured on my equipment page).
I hope you enjoyed coming along on this hike with me, you didn’t have the feel of the wind on your face or smell the fires burning but maybe someday you can come on a real hike with me and learn how to paint in the field too. I welcome your comments below!
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