Kates day 4/5/6 plus Brantwood Pressings

Day 4 - 21st:  Bill hook. A drawing, to scale, of tool used today - i wrote on the sheet : today i pulled out yards of electric fence using great grandad guys bill hook

Day 5 22nd - Farmers Guardian [with article by sister Liz on page 37] and news from Croft Farm. I wanted to add something political/current and more pointed as i was worrying that i was aesthetising the whole thing - then i thought about the ruskin quote Louise Pullens used-  I would rather teach drawing that my pupils would learn to love Nature than teach the looking at Nature that they may learn to draw’

 which made me worry a bit less, but its all still problematic.




Day 6  - 23rd -As you can see i stopped worrying too and instead just kept going to see what happened and found the last dandelion clocks of the summer, collected on our river bank and in Uffington Park. I wanted 24 to make a 24hour clock pun but there wasn't 24!

Visit to Brantwood: I had a sort out this morning and found these pressed flowers collected from Ruskin's garden, so thought they ought to go in, just after the plans page. I wanted Ruskin to imbue goodness through the press.


The problem of the pages being contrived is interesting - i think i am honestly engaging in the landscape and looking and thinking about my relationship to it and pondering what it is.....i respond to the moment and dont go out looking for the thing to add to the sheet, so for me it isnt made up, yet it is created deliberately. i hope that over time it becomes increasingly spontaneous and in fact it is already starting to feeling like a new fitness regime - but as they say do something 21 times and it becomes a habit difficult to break  [or something like that] .... However I worry we will be accused less of mining the community and more of stealing beauty!
However the big thing for me is it brings to the fore again is the ongoing problem of how to represent the landscape in a way that doesnt immediately look romantic.....