Recently I visited a local nature spot on a social distant walk with Claire Pitt to try and capture "Nature" for Draw on Halton 2 prompt.
We decided to video document the island with its canal and river view to showcase this local spot. I'm not going to lie, I started with a little heavy heart as we had picked the 8th January because it had forecast heavy snow the night before. I had visions of a white blanket covering the landscape, draping over the bare trees and frozen waters but instead it was a typical drizzly English winter day.
But as we got further into the walk, filming as we went I realised the world at this time of year could be really beautiful. The muted colour pallet of the trees, bushes and grass enabled small gems to shine through. There were small buds and flowers popping up at the end of branches and leaves still holding on to their bright red colour change in the sunlight. The two main memories from this walk that stand out to me are the deep blue of the canal, so calm and still only just frozen, and the blistering bright orange mushrooms. These mushrooms were such a blast of colour we were willing to work our way through bushes to get a closer look.
These two elements from my walk with Claire are what inspired this single narrative image. It has really surprised me that colour, over texture, is what has stood out in my mind from this day. I did have a little fight with the overall composition of this piece, I think I was trying to add too much in and just needed to keep these two strong elements in focus. I also used it to create my own brush in Procreate, which I have not done before. I managed to get what I wanted but definitely will be looking into this aspect of my digital drawing more.
I created a video of our trip around Wigg Island for Draw On Halton which you can find more about here. I really do want to go back later in the year and see how everything has changed with the seasons.
