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| Great Gable from innonimate tarn Haystacks Watercolour |
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| Great gable from Innonimate Tarn 2 |
Light that is only just light, more a kind of mid dark, it has been that sort of Summer or that kind of August at least; Here are a couple of medium sized watercolours on French Arches 200lb paper, painted mostly from memory in terms of the sky and atmosphere, in terms of the topography helped by my sketches from a recent walk. Working on this Lakes project has made me more in awe of Turner and his peers who ventured out in all kinds of weather with watercolour paper and paint and in awe of my own young adventures with my brothers.
Holidays spent in Buttermere as a young youth with my brothers Nick and Andy. Causey Pike was conquered in a heat wave but now a few days later we were at Haystacks, this was the first fell that we assailed, my brothers and I, on our own in bad weather, now some some 43 years ago. Our yellow plastic cycle capes bought from Blackburn's Millets store flapped and cracked blowing in the strong wind, most times covering our heads and obscuring our vision, wearing our shorts and sturdy shoes we wandered for what seemed a lifetime amongst the pelting rain, low cloud, tarns and rocky outcrops of Hay stacks, we had never seen rain blown upwards before.. Concerned for our safety and lost, we peered over one precipitous fierce crag edge, and than another and then another, whatever the direction we took and looked we faced an abyss until a shaft of clear bright lit up the Gables unmistakable shape, across Ennerdale, this gave us an idea of the terrain around us and we were quickly able to take a bearing and with that found our way to Innominate Tarn and hence home. Home, a squelching, field, the flooded tent, the sodden sleeping bags that mum had made us, the wet fire wood, no hot meal tonight, the damp matches and a Buttermere thunder storm throughout the night. We were geographers, explorers, travelling in Nicks 10 year old Austin A30 which we pushed up every pass as we camped our way across the Western fells Tierra Del Gatesgarth.
