WILTSHIRE
WALK.
Wiltshire Walk, and the painting of the same name.
The painting completed at 5.30 a.m., 3/3/2013.
Typically, working through evening till sometime before dawn.
At the round table in comfort and utmost silence.
With a good fire and leisurely tea breaks.
Meditative pauses, attuning to the unfolding process.
Modifying and refining to completion in only two sessions.
That's not counting the two evenings preparing the tracing.
Very methodical, progressing by increment, and quite ritualistic.
I'm not one of those people who
set up an easel on top of a hill,
like some artist in an old French movie.
But solitary inspiration in the great outdoors,
relived in silence by the grate indoors.
In this instance, five years later.
Five years previously walking up on the 'Downs' of Wiltshire.
Though why they're called Downs when they are hills,
makes no sense unless you were to stand on your head.
Even then, you'd have an even harder time convincing anybody,
that what they actually are, is 'Upside Downs'.
The painting shows a spot along the track at Milk Hill.
Just north of Stanton St. Bernard, Alton Barnes, and Honey Street,
down below, along the canal in the Vale of Pewsey.
I pitched my tent at The Barge Inn by the canal banks.
This trip being part of one of three crop circle vision quests.
The Barge Inn was the original meeting place
for crop circle enthusiasts, now also including circle debunkers.
While it is true, that many crop circles are manmade,
every year there are many that are not, and it remains a mystery.
Authentic formations include seemingly paranormal phenomena,
and draw researchers from all countries, between April and September.
Good informative and well researched documentaries include:
'Crop Circles, Quest For Truth.' by William Gazecki.
And, 'Contact.' by Bert Janssen and Janet Ossebaard,
( Who i had a very pleasant communication with while there.)
Both films address the paranormal aspect and are visually beautiful.
So, taking a break, up on the Downs, walking for days in succession.
A good snack in the Inn before setting out in hot summer sun.
Carrying only a shoulder bag, with bananas, water, and a camera.
There are public footpaths across the land where you can walk a hundred miles.
Wide open expanse of wheat-growing country to the horizon, interspersed by smooth contoured grassy shoulders of rounded rolling mounded hills. Dotted with ancient earthworks, tumuli, and megalithic Barrow-mounds. An atmosphere archaic, archetypal, and primeval in and across the land.
Wheat and honeysuckle smells on a soft summer breeze.
A giant white horse carved in the hillside, revealed by the chalky soil below.
A fresh-ploughed hilltop field where i cut across furrows tasting blackberries.
The turned soil scattered with a multitude of bizarre shaped stones.
Local flint stones like bleached bones from a megalithic grave.
White- coated black-hearted flint, infinite treasures of organic sculptural form.
Millions to choose from and still stay light, i have one at home like a sabre-tooth tusk.
If i need adventure i don't have to go to the Amazon or India.
One timeless day along the towpath beside the brim-full canal.
Slow murky barge-churned khaki-green water edged with semi-submerged rushes.
Hollow footfalls under the round-arched red brick humpback bridges.
The sudden echo as you walk under and out into the sunlight, chanting briefly.
A flash of dazzle glances off the ripple surface, breathing Cow-Parsely aromas.
It's childhood revisited magically in the still quiet present.
Innocence of the moment, collecting feathers of swans and owls.
Each bridge leads off via stony farm tracks, stables of faded red brick,
Wild woodbine, sweet hay and cattle smells, winding to a small hamlet.
Despite experience of time and what passes for maturity,
knowledge, and a wild world grown mad, the richness remains.
Meditatively minding mind's movement silence settles.
So, with the painting come to completion at 5.30 a.m.,
coated it with matt varnish steam-dried by the fire.
Only to suddenly find, ...
the blue carbon tracing lines had melted through the paint!
They showed through especially in the white clouds
which i had already spent hours blending in subtle detail.
Being well familiar with artistic catastrophe by now,
and though my latest is always my best and too sacred to lose.
I wasn't fazed, and barely uttered an "ooh" or an "eek."
But simply waited till the drum-tight taught canvas cooled.
Sat down and meticulously retouched the offending lines.
Took an hour or two, with a fine brush and magnifying glass.
Till satisfied at last no lasting harm was done.
Pretty near perfect. Saved the day. All in a night's work.
Went to bed and slept soundly. Mission accomplished.~ **********************************************************************
rainbowmaker.
Wiltshire Walk, and the painting of the same name.
The painting completed at 5.30 a.m., 3/3/2013.
Typically, working through evening till sometime before dawn.
At the round table in comfort and utmost silence.
With a good fire and leisurely tea breaks.
Meditative pauses, attuning to the unfolding process.
Modifying and refining to completion in only two sessions.
That's not counting the two evenings preparing the tracing.
Very methodical, progressing by increment, and quite ritualistic.
I'm not one of those people who
set up an easel on top of a hill,
like some artist in an old French movie.
But solitary inspiration in the great outdoors,
relived in silence by the grate indoors.
In this instance, five years later.
Five years previously walking up on the 'Downs' of Wiltshire.
Though why they're called Downs when they are hills,
makes no sense unless you were to stand on your head.
Even then, you'd have an even harder time convincing anybody,
that what they actually are, is 'Upside Downs'.
The painting shows a spot along the track at Milk Hill.
Just north of Stanton St. Bernard, Alton Barnes, and Honey Street,
down below, along the canal in the Vale of Pewsey.
I pitched my tent at The Barge Inn by the canal banks.
This trip being part of one of three crop circle vision quests.
The Barge Inn was the original meeting place
for crop circle enthusiasts, now also including circle debunkers.
While it is true, that many crop circles are manmade,
every year there are many that are not, and it remains a mystery.
Authentic formations include seemingly paranormal phenomena,
and draw researchers from all countries, between April and September.
Good informative and well researched documentaries include:
'Crop Circles, Quest For Truth.' by William Gazecki.
And, 'Contact.' by Bert Janssen and Janet Ossebaard,
( Who i had a very pleasant communication with while there.)
Both films address the paranormal aspect and are visually beautiful.
So, taking a break, up on the Downs, walking for days in succession.
A good snack in the Inn before setting out in hot summer sun.
Carrying only a shoulder bag, with bananas, water, and a camera.
There are public footpaths across the land where you can walk a hundred miles.
Wide open expanse of wheat-growing country to the horizon, interspersed by smooth contoured grassy shoulders of rounded rolling mounded hills. Dotted with ancient earthworks, tumuli, and megalithic Barrow-mounds. An atmosphere archaic, archetypal, and primeval in and across the land.
Wheat and honeysuckle smells on a soft summer breeze.
A giant white horse carved in the hillside, revealed by the chalky soil below.
A fresh-ploughed hilltop field where i cut across furrows tasting blackberries.
The turned soil scattered with a multitude of bizarre shaped stones.
Local flint stones like bleached bones from a megalithic grave.
White- coated black-hearted flint, infinite treasures of organic sculptural form.
Millions to choose from and still stay light, i have one at home like a sabre-tooth tusk.
If i need adventure i don't have to go to the Amazon or India.
One timeless day along the towpath beside the brim-full canal.
Slow murky barge-churned khaki-green water edged with semi-submerged rushes.
Hollow footfalls under the round-arched red brick humpback bridges.
The sudden echo as you walk under and out into the sunlight, chanting briefly.
A flash of dazzle glances off the ripple surface, breathing Cow-Parsely aromas.
It's childhood revisited magically in the still quiet present.
Innocence of the moment, collecting feathers of swans and owls.
Each bridge leads off via stony farm tracks, stables of faded red brick,
Wild woodbine, sweet hay and cattle smells, winding to a small hamlet.
Despite experience of time and what passes for maturity,
knowledge, and a wild world grown mad, the richness remains.
Meditatively minding mind's movement silence settles.
So, with the painting come to completion at 5.30 a.m.,
coated it with matt varnish steam-dried by the fire.
Only to suddenly find, ...
the blue carbon tracing lines had melted through the paint!
They showed through especially in the white clouds
which i had already spent hours blending in subtle detail.
Being well familiar with artistic catastrophe by now,
and though my latest is always my best and too sacred to lose.
I wasn't fazed, and barely uttered an "ooh" or an "eek."
But simply waited till the drum-tight taught canvas cooled.
Sat down and meticulously retouched the offending lines.
Took an hour or two, with a fine brush and magnifying glass.
Till satisfied at last no lasting harm was done.
Pretty near perfect. Saved the day. All in a night's work.
Went to bed and slept soundly. Mission accomplished.~ **********************************************************************
rainbowmaker.
Wiltshire Walk, martin law, 3 March, 2013
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