Saturday 17 May 2014

Testing Out My New Feet...


Having problems with your feet is rubbish - I've not been able to do a proper walk in the hills in as long as I can remember. But over the last year I've had two foot ops: one in August and another in January (both of which I recorded in my sketchbook, naturally) and, now the weather has started to pick up, we have been for a couple of test runs. 


We started with an impulse day-off on a sunny day a few weeks back. I wanted to start easy: just a gentle walk for a few hours, through the farmland around Monyash in Derbyshire. All went well (hurrah!), so a scone at a cafe seemed appropriate, then I sat on the grass just off the footpath and drew the lovely tree above.

We thought we ought to give things a more thorough try-out next. We were in the Lake District, visiting friends, so got up early next morning and drove to Ennerdale. It's one of my favourite lakes, as it is so peaceful. No roads, no houses: just hills, sky, birdsong and water. 



It's still very straight-forward walking, largely on the flat, but it's got to be about a 15 mile round walk if you go all the way up the river at the far end as well and, more importantly for my problem, part of the terrain is very uneven and rocky underfoot

It was the visit where I forgot my sketchbook (duh) but, as you know, I bought emergency supplies. I really missed having the means to slosh watercolour about and it was hard not having any real colour, but I tried to capture the feel of the place with the 3 pencils I'd got. Having the bigger A4 pad was certainly nice and allowed me to 'draw from the elbow' more than usual:




We never stopped for long, so all the sketches are quickies: about 10 minutes I reckon. We didn't even pack a lunch, just ate an apple on the move, so it was far more testing than the Derbyshire walk. 

And the verdict? My foot was quite tender by the end and still felt a little lumpy from the internal scar tissue (which should gradually go), but I suffered none of the pain I'd been having with the Morton's Neuromas. Thank goodness.



We treated ourselves to a meal in Keswick to celebrate (and make up for that missed lunch), before driving home. A great success - Chapman in back! 

Next stop Himalayas... 

You can see all my recent landscape sketchbook work on my website and watch me create one in this short film from my YouTube channel:


4 comments:

Julie Clay Illustration said...

I'm impressed if you walked the 15miles!! Thanks for leaving me the note about the paper you used (last post) Hope you have loads more lovely walks avec the sketch book and watercolours :)

Unknown said...

Such lovely lines. I love your work!

Unknown said...

Glad things are healing well and you are literally back on your feet.

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