Devon
WITH RED EARTH UNDER MY NAILS
‘Way back in 1950 my parents chose Sidmouth for their honeymoon. All I had ever seen of it was through tiny black and white snaps in the family album. Stopping off in Sidmouth for the first time ever I met the landscape in full colour. I felt immediate affinity with the ancient red cliffs, clouded red sea water, creamed waves, wind-carved cliffs that seemed to retain a smouldering warmth. Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone (a Triassic geology born of desert, shifting sands and flash flood) present delicious pigments.
I also work with the warm, subtle variety of palettes in locations like Fremington Quay, Dartmoor, Westward Ho!
And of course I sourced in cliffs near Abbotsham the intensely concentrated black ‘Bideford Black’.
I like to pause to consider the age and the natural processes involved in the formation of the pigments I use. I never quite get beyond a feeling of overwhelm at the sheer complexity and deep time involved. It does however ‘put me in my place’ not as reprimand- but it situates me on the very top layer- and in the present.
Dunkery Beacon, Exmoor
Sidmouth & Ladram Bay
Wistman’s Wood
Sketchbook. local earths and gouache on grey card. November 2013
