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This hike was such an adventure that I’ll never forget! It was long and had so many great views that I have quite a few photos to share with you before you see my sketch and watercolor painting at the end.
 Hike up the valley First we parked the car near an old Medieval church that in itself is very interesting and I’d like to go back to explore it and it’s graveyard with old stones. We hiked up this valley along all those pine trees you see…past all those white dots, those are sheep!
 The tough looking sheep closed in on us I’ll be a little silly here and tell you when we walked past these sheep, they kept coming closer and closer like they were ganging up on us. It’s my silly side that thinks they look like thugs in tight wool sweaters, not very attractive sheep! The one who doesn’t have to short pig-like look is a different breed, he must be wondering what he’s doing with all those thugs! haha.
 The hill we need to climb We passed the sheep and went up a very gentle sloping hill, but it was huge so it took us awhile. It may look all sunny and pretty but it was really cold and extremely windy that day. You can see the beautiful line of Scotch pines up on the hill, that’s where we’re headed to the ring fort.
 Old walls of the Celtic Ring Fort Well we made it up, the hill seemed to never have a top to it…we walked and walked but enjoyed the views. If you look at the photo above you’ll see a mound of dirt with grass on it, looks like a dune at the ocean, and there’s a spot you can walk through. That’s the Celtic Ring Fort entrance and the mounds are the walls, they used to be much taller and had deep ditches dug all around like a moat for protection. It’s such a huge site, it’s hard to imagine the layout of the fort, but if you look at it on Google Earth it’s really cool to see the image of the rings from above.
 Steep hillside defense of the ring fort This is the view off the front of the hill fort, it’s a very steep hillside which would have given them protection from enemies. At the top of the hill you can just see several mounds of dirt, those are remains of the walls.
 First stone we found Now this is the best part, there is ancient rock art on the stones found around this site. These were carved around 3,000 – 4,000 years ago by the ancient Celtic people who made the hillfort. They are generally called ‘Cup and Ring Marks’, the ones above are ring marks. It’s so beautiful to see the symetrical designs carved into the rocks but they are so worn with age and covered with lichens that they just look so natural.
 I'm measuring the rings with my sketchbook Here I’m showing how I use the ruler I drew on the back of my homemade sketchbook to measure one of the rings circumferences.
 This is the larger stone on Old Bewick This is the second rock we found and probably very photographed by hikers. If you do an image search for “Old Bewick Rock Art” you’ll come up with a lot of interesting stuff.
 Drawing rings Here I’m sketching some of the rings of the second rock, gosh it was really cold, if you could only imagine it was hard to stand still because the wind was blowing on me so hard!
 Sketch of the rings Here’s the sketches of ring marks. I tried to hold my pencil lightly and used the side of the tip so I could sort of lightly scribble the forms and build up darks as I went.
 Drawing the line of 'cup' marks Just as we were getting ready to leave I looked back at the huge stone and noticed (with my keenly trained nature sketching eyes!!) the little ‘cup’ marks along the front of the stone.
 Old Bewick field sketch I had to go back, even though we were tired and ready to go, I sat and did a quick pen sketch with permanent ink of the outline and basic cracks.I’m just getting used to using my new homemade sketchbook and I like that I can draw across two pages instead of having a spiral in the way.
 Painting of Old Bewick Rock This is the finished painting of Old Bewick Rock. Once I get home I only have my laptop to look at for reference from photos I take. As I now had time to sit in a warm house with a hot cup of tea I could see where I was a bit ‘off’ with my cracks and added maybe two extra cups marks! But it’s a field sketch, no big deal. So I had fun painting it with watercolors and you can see I left color testing notes in the upper right corner. While I sat there I did note the direction I was facing with my compass and wrote it on my paper.
I hope you enjoyed coming on a great hike with me, I’m inspired to study more of the numerous ‘rock art’ sites all around Northumberland and do some paintings.
I thought I should add a note here about the ancient sites like this, in case you ever visit one please remember they are irreplaceable. Gary and I talked about how soft the sandstone is and crumbles very easy if you just touch it. It’s my opinion that you shouldn’t really touch it too much or especially do rubbings on paper, I think it’s too much abrasion for the stone. Please never climb on it and encourage others to consider it’s delicacy too. Thanks!
 View from Gary's Another small sketch done in brown permanent ink pen (Micron) in my field sketchbook. This was done while sitting and waiting to leave for another adventure. It looks across a farmers field, where the tall pines and trees are is a Burn or stream, then behind that up the hill to more fields with a stone wall crossing it, a nice house and the wall along the top is for the B road that runs along the crags. Above it you can see the hill of crags with heather and bracken growing.
A beautiful view everyday.
Today I’ll take you to the Marina at Derwent water where I stayed overnight at The Derwent Hotel. It’s a gorgeous place to stay all newly refinished, the bedroom was just sumptuous! And oh yes, I really liked that they had internet so I could catch up with the folks at home and let them know I wasn’t lost somewhere in the English countryside!
 This is the front lobby, coming down in the early morning to have my oatmeal made with cream and oh boy was it rich!  Then I made my way across the street and just down a driveway and there you are…the marina. A small, uncomplicated, peaceful place so early in the morning. http://www.derwentwatermarina.co.uk/ Walking toward the water…I took note of birds I saw, almost all were new to me, how exciting!  I love when the mist is lower than the mountains around it, the puffs were making their way up each ‘valley’ from the lake. Small coots were chugging across the still water looking for fish…I did some small sketches of birds and wrote my bird list on the sketch page shown below.  Click the page to read my notes.  These are simple sketches done while walking around, this is typically how I draw birds in the field. Not much to them, just identification notes, and I had my Altoids watercolor kit with me and did some simple coloring. I think one of my favorite birds was the wood pidgeon; with a flash of white on his wings when he flew from the deep trees where hidden. They are quite big compared to ‘our’ rock doves or pidgeons.  Later in the day I walked up the hill behind the hotel. It was very chilly and damp as I sat and worked. I did a small sketch of the lake view over the hotel, trying to get some color notes on it so I’d remember how it looked. I think my friend Gary arrived just in time though as my fingers were getting quite stiff! Time for hot tea!  I just finished the sketch,(back home in the states) working from a dull photo because it was a dull day. I sat in a coffee/lunch area in the grocery store on a nasty snowy day and worked on it…then finished it in the comfort of my studio. I perked up the color a little trying to keep in mind the original colors I had on the paper. I signed it Lake Derwent before I learned that it’s called Derwent Water. By the way, I did the entire painting using one waterbrush and my travel palette. I’m trying to practice using the waterbrush so it’ll come naturally in the field.
I think it’s a nice little painting!
I think the painting will always mean something different to the artist who painted it in the field. As I sat and sketched, then painted…I absorbed all around me. My eyes studied the colors, my ears heard wrens and thrushes singing, the wind blowing through the pines, my fingers felt the cool rain drops and mist, my face felt the breeze and my nose smelled the wet leaves and mosses in the undergrowth behind me…and the smells of the kitchen below. As I look at that little painting…I can remember it all! THIS is what makes painting outside in nature so rewarding, and it’s why I do it. I hope you’ll join me someday in experiencing this feeling.
 Well, as you gather from my title, it is cold outside today! The past two days it’s been in the ‘teens’…today only 10 degrees F. But it’s been awhile since I did some outdoor observations so I threw my little 5 1/2″x 81/2″ sketchbook into a gallon ziplock bag and three micron pens. NO playing with color today, I knew it’d be too cold to get into that, especially with wearing big gloves and my water freezing!
I mostly drew with a .02 micron pen, wearing huge mittens! I forgot my flipback pair that my English friend encouraged me to wear, so I was stuck with the big, cumbersome old leather pair of mittens that I wear when I do barn chores in the winter. I should post a picture of them so you could have a laugh…they have duct tape around parts because of wear! haha…
So, about my drawings, the first was a small clump of weeds by the barn with snow on top of them. It was really beautiful, even the colors were nice. Then I walked over to the garden where my flowers are all standing dead but looking interesting with their bareness of form. I especially liked the Black-Eyed Susan’s because they were almost like abstract black dots against all the white.
Then I used my micron brush pen, which I think is a bit dried out, but that can be a good thing. I sketched the Blue Spruce and some trees next to it very quickly. I was running out of space here. So then I flipped the page and did a very quick rendition of a group of trees that I like to draw in the summer. I used the brush pen again for that.
 Oh a side note here, I’m always trying out new things..today it was an old thing. I had a pair of battery operated heated socks that I pulled out of the closet. The kind that you put a huge D cell battery in the top side of the sock, I wore them today but I think they don’t work! Well they’re old, I have a new pair still in the wrapper, I plugged them in when I got back inside and they seemed to work, so next time I’ll have to try them out. They’re not the most comfortable as the battery jams against your leg if you’re wearing tall boots like I do. I’ll have to test them again to see how they work.
 Today I decided to sketch some tracks before we have another snow or melt. I’d prefer a melt…but I don’t have any control over that! So I bundled up and after feeding the chickens, started drawing. My dog Ginger is a maniac, as I said in my sketchbook, but really smart. When she sees that I’m wearing my field bag, she goes nuts, she thinks we’re going for a hike! She spun around in circles, rolled in the snow, ate some snow!…Poor thing had to be content with my company in the yard, which was probably boring to her because when I draw, I stand still. Not much fun for a hyper dog. (She’s an Australian Shepherd btw)
I sketched with a permanent ink marker, (Faber Castell) so you have to be careful as it’s not erasable. I drew the tracks of a little bird from under the bird feeder and what was interesting were marks left from it’s wings when it took off. The snow was soft so there wasn’t any detail of toes, but out front on the walkway there were great tracks. Now that I’m sketching all the time, I’m in the habit of looking around me all the time! Then before Ginger jumped all over them, I drew the bunny tracks that crossed the yard. It was really cool to imagine how I think the rabbit must have been hopping, sometimes fast and long hops? , sometimes short and looking around? This is a great time of year to study tracks, every season has it’s good points, so even though it’s cold, get out and find some tracks to draw!
I brought my Derwendt Inktense color pencils with me. I tried to put just a hint of shadow in the tracks to show the depression better, but it’s really hard to control the value. You have to use a really light touch, not too much pencil because when you wet it, it gets very strong. Then I did the small landscape view of my field. Instead of my waterbrush, I used a regular watercolor brush and a small jar of water that’s attached to my field bag strap. Besides the cold of my fingers, it went ok. I added two photos, one is the field I painted, the other is looking south with the sun behind a cloud. The sky was the most intense blue, like my painting, the photo didn’t capture the intensity. Hope you enjoyed looking my day in the backyard.
 Today, I felt a great urge to be outside, the weather was terrible for painting and drawing but actually not bad for a nice cold hike! The air was fresh, the wind steady but not too strong, and Ginger was very excited to go for a run. I used permanent ink fine point markers, no pencil for sketching and even tried out my watercolors. I must be crazy on such a cold day but I really felt like capturing some of the colors with some quick watercolor sketches. You can click on pictures to see the pages of my sketchbook close up or the photos. On the first page we had made it to the ‘maze’ an area of my land that I cut like a maze, and Ginger found something. I could tell it held great interest for her, it was scat (droppings) from I think a fox. Now don’t get grossed out, but any naturalist would record and study it, so I did. It was very full of hairs, probably from the rabbit it ate.
Then I did a quick study of the open field, mostly to capture color, not detail. Detail would be almost impossible in this cold wearing the huge, stiff leather gloves I had on! A flock of geese went over…I tried to catch them through the trees, and some lichens growing on stick in the icy water of the lane.
 
I think artists should show themselves in their environment, here I was, thoughtful, studying the land…umm freezing! ha! You can see I’m wearing my heavy coat with rain coat over that, wool hat, big gloves. I kind of like the little sketch of my big old ‘sister’ oak tree on the second page of the sketchbook. I’m looking across the field, where there’s the red barked bushes in front.
 
The third page I had frozen fingers by this time, you can tell by the loose, quick grasses I did. I also show a photo of how I held the sketchbook, palette, watercups and brush. In my hand of course, I also had picked up several ‘treasures’ to take back to the studio. I’m going to design a better way to hold a few brushes or pens, and the water. I was constantly on the move and this was too hard to handle with the gloves and weather. Did you notice the sarcastic note I wrote on my sketchbook about drawing with frozen fingers? At the end I was aggravated with struggling with my watercup lids so I just dipped my brush into the icy water at my feet. I tried not to swish it in where it was muddy and as I painted, it really was cold enough that I was getting icy crystals on my paper! YES, time for cocoa!
The last page of the sketchbook was done in the studio, I took more time to work from some of the ‘treasures’ I brought back. I drew most of it with a permanent fine point marker with no pencil sketch first. When you do this, it helps to make some little marks where you think your line will go before you commit to a solid drawn line. Pay attention to negative spaces especially on things like the center weed, it helped me to look at the spaces between the stems as I laid it out. Hope you enjoyed coming for a hike with me today at Long Lane Farm! ps. I drank two cups of cocoa to thaw out!
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