This past year my other half Craig and I have been exploring our home county of Hampshire by taking walks in the countryside inspired by an AA walking guide book. I like to take photographs on our walks and one day decided to draw from a photograph I'd taken on a walk near Hartney Wintney. The drawing was similar in composition to the WSA Window View drawings I did on my MA and I loved how drawing from the photograph brought back memories from the walk. I decided to title the drawing based on the guide books walk title with the date of the original walk.
Adventures in the Candovers - 17th October, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, pen on paper.
I chose another photograph to work from, this time from a walk by Basingtoke Canal. I cropped the photograph down quite drastically and once the drawing was complete it resembled a topographical landscape or a map.
Odiham and the Basingstoke Canal - 7th June, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, pen on paper
I've continued to draw using photographs from our walks, each one is different in its composition, a swirl of autumn leaves, a straightforward view of a bluebell wood. During the earlier walks we took before the project I didn't photograph as much and therefore finding an image to turn into a drawing will be tricky however the challenge will hopefully add variety to the drawings with unconventional views and different subject matter for me to tackle.
Whitchurch and the River Test - 21st February, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, pen on paper.
In the guide book, each walk has a story written about it, a brief history of the area or an interesting anecdote. One of the walks we did encompasses a monument where it is said a murder took place by a King, another took in beautiful scenery right by where Jane Austen lived. By following these routes I'm learning little pieces of history and drawing from the walk documents these places, cementing them in my memory.
Jane Austen's Chawton - 4th May, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, pen on paper.
There are 50 walks to tackle including some on the Isle of Wight and I hope to draw from each walk we take, perhaps one day I'll complete the book and move onto another county.
I'm tweeting and posting Instagram progress images of you'd like to follow along - Claire_Leanne88 on both.