Our creative response

Layered history. 

River, water meadows, mills

Reclaimed by nature

'Walk and Draw' workshop, Elland (see previous two posts)  - After the guided walk, we went back to the coffee lounge, where there was a wonderful array of mostly natural materials to play with. There was charcoal to draw with and lovely paints made from onion skins (brownish), beetroot (reddish), turmeric (yellow) and red cabbage (blue/purple/pink), some of which changed colour if you added bicarbonate of soda, lemon juice or salt. I found all that rather fascinating. I'm increasingly interested in 'going natural' for cleaning materials so it was an extension of that really.  We were encouraged to make a response to what we'd seen and heard on the walk. 

Mine, above, was intended to be a stone wall overlaid by the course of the river and some of the nature I'd found on the way. The turmeric wash I used turned out too bright a yellow but never mind. I'm not at all 'artistic' or skilled in a drawing/painting way but I really enjoyed playing and wasn't inclined to be too self-critical. My daughter, on the other hand, has always been very artistic (she did Art at A-level) and produced a rather attractive grid, finding some beautiful colours and shapes.  

I'm much more comfortable with photography - and words to some extent - so the top collage (and haiku) is my usual style of response. I'll probably go back again to the photos I took and see what else I can create from them.