There goes January...
Reviving my Substack...welcome to Drawn to the Wild 🌿
I’m back, my Substack revitalised! I won’t go on about how long I’ve been away or why because that’s boring isn’t it? But here we are, at the arse end of January.
I’ve been spending a lot of time outside lately. We have horses here and for the last few months it’s been my job to take care of them, clearing the field up after them, making sure they aren’t getting too plump nor dropping too much weight. Although a vet did tell me recently that Bluie, my daughters pony, is looking rather ‘cresty’ for the time of year. As in, she’s gonna have some hard to manage weight issues when the Spring grass starts to grow all sugary and rich once the weather warms up.
All of this means that twice a day, every day I have been out in all the weathers, and aside from a desire to be rid of waterproof clothing, what it has stirred in me is a desire to get back to drawing from life.
So I have packed up a little pencil case and notebook that fit neatly in the pocket of the disgustingly grubby coat that I wear out in the rain and mud each day and I spend 10 minutes most days writing a little about the day (weather mostly!) and then sketching. The drawings aren’t great but this isn’t about making beautiful art, it’s about being still and really looking and absorbing and my goodness, it’s doing wonders for my brain!
It’s like a form of meditation, the focus of drawing and looking cuts out all of that life noise, if only just for a little bit. But even when big fat raindrops are threatening to turn my notebook into paper mache, I find even then that I am in it, in the rain, in the raindrops. I am as wet as the branch I am trying to draw. I feel connected to real life.
Pre screens I would draw from life a lot more, or piece together something too fleeting to draw from life (a bird or animal, say) from different images of them that I had found. There’s something different in drawing from life though. For one, you aren’t just copying a picture, you are getting all the nuance, the actual 3d shapes and angles, the depth that you just can’t get from a photograph. What you see right in front of you is fleeting, in the light, the subject’s movement, even whether it will still exist the next day. I think this can translate into much more interesting art with more movement, less forced line…less perfection!
Each month as well as a creative musing like drawing from life, I’ll be bringing you a slice of this outdoor life, things spotted and seen and hopefully there will be some kind of thread. Maybe some characters that appear again and again.
So, onwards with notable things experienced and spotted from our little corner of Cornwall this month:
January has been interesting! It started with snow and ice, quickly followed by Storm Goretti. My children didn’t have a full week of school until the third week of term due to power cuts and black ice. Storm Goretti battered our county, we had trees down in our fields, the clear up of which has been started at the weekends. After worrying we were running out of firewood it suddenly seems that we have enough for the next couple of years!
The wind and trees have been singing their billowing duet pretty much constantly and two more named storms have rattled their way through, thankfully with much less damage, though my poor greenhouse has fared pretty badly losing 4 panels and all of my gardening crap making it look more like a junk yard than somewhere that delicious vegetables are grown.
One of the ducks next door went missing, presumed taken by a fox. I think I saw the culprit in the field, it was barking at me and I’m pretty sure I interrupted another attack. Lucky for the remaining ducks.
The ravens have been noisy and I have got to the bottom of what I thought was a goose on our land, it was actually a raven making goose sounds from the top of the crow tree. My bird call app didn’t pick it up so until I saw the huge black bird perched up there making that noise I was baffled. Now I know, Ravens can sounds like geese.
I spotted a kite soaring high over the lake at the bottom of our field and a heron too, flying down the valley with it’s legs trailing behind. It was silhouetted against a dreamy peach sky.
Flocks of redwings flit amongst the trees, I love seeing them, one of the highlights of winter.
Meadow Pipits dance across the fields in small troupes and pied wagtails follow the horses around in pairs.
Another pair of lovers was spotted in the bottom field, two handsome partridge skulking about. I’m a little worried about them with the foxes around.
The song thrush, robins, wrens, goldfinch, greenfinch, black caps, blackbirds, blue and great tits seem to be competing in some kind of singing contest…endlessly lovely sounds! And each evening rain or shine, Vs of seagulls fly south towards the coast, going home to roost. I wonder where they have been in the day, in Truro looking for scraps of pasty, perhaps?
A wonderful treat mid month saw the return of the Aurora Borealis! This was the third time I have seen it from my garden but definitely the brightest I have seen with the naked eye…you could actually see the green glow dancing across the sky and the pinky purple haze cast in streaks all around. Incredible and vast and not something I ever thought I would see from my garden here in South Cornwall. Awe inspiring indeed!
Rosie, our eldest pony has been free range, eating down the grass in the garden and naughtily raiding the feed bins when the tack room door has been left ajar which isn’t ideal as horses famously have delicate gut systems. She’s a hardy little thing though and seems ok for her misadventure.
I’ve been planting bulbs…very late! They may surprise me this year and if not it will be a nice surprise next year when I’ve completely forgotten about them.
The sea is mighty cold now. I’ve been in almost weekly for nearly three years now. This is the first winter without my short wetsuit over my swimming costume. The last dip was at high tide and we waded out and dipped to our shoulders, the water was stabby and harsh but so invigorating…I love the tingle on my skin when I get out and the feeling of accomplishment that I willingly pushed myself to take my body into that cold. It’s a mind over matter thing and I miss that endorphin rush when I haven’t been able to go for a couple of weeks.
Talking of which I have come to realise more and more that life is lived in these moments of discomfort, where you feel more alive, more connected. The feeling after wards that you did it, you pushed through and overcame the discomfort is what makes it worth it, each time bolstering confidence in body and mind.
It not just about pushing yourself physically either and doesn’t have to be about adrenaline (NO THANKS skydiving or bungee jumping) For me it’s about pushing myself at my own pace and saying yes even though I feel the fear. The sea dips are just a part of that and I’m working on being bolder in other areas of my life too.
Good god it’s cold though! If I can get through the next couple of months without my wetsuit I’ll be amazed!
Elsewhere there are buds on some of the trees, bluebell leaves and daffodil and crocus spears arriving all over with a few sunny faces blooming in places. Snowdrops popping up too, so gorgeous and delicate, like little constellations of stars peppering the hedges. There are a few rain battered primrose dotted about too…
There is still so much to enjoy about winter, though an outside life at this time of year is an endurance test. The shorter days, all of the mud. The climbing in and out of waterproofs and wellies and the endless hoovering of dried mud crumbs from the door mats. The practical dressing all the time. The sideways rain and freezing hands trying to tie electrical fence tape. The lane that has been flooded for weeks meaning we have too go the long way around to get out of our corner of the world.
But: I am still so lucky that this is my norm, even in Winter! We have the beaches to ourselves at this time of year. Darker evenings mean rest and being cosy…and when the sun does peek through the grey clouds that winter light is stunning, so much peach and pink in the evenings and though few and far between, aren’t frosty mornings so magical?
Thanks for reading! I’ll sign off with the two polar opposite lifestyles of some of the animals in my life… Bluie in her best hippo outfit (she’s meant to be white) and our cats, Comet, Cosmo and Bailey, loving life:
Lee X
This is so lovely Lee!! Almost as good as being there. Wish I could join for a frosty morning swim!