Monday 11 March 2013

Cold, cold, cold...


It’s been freezing today. It was just the perfect weather to take fifteen students up to the Lickey Hills in Worcestershire, on a drawing trip this morning, which is what I foolishly did. Having gone to a bit of trouble organizing things I was loathe to cancel, and to be honest early this morning, the sun was shining bright and it seemed like it was going to be a nice crisp March day, just right for walking the woods sketchbook and camera in hand.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. When we got there, the milder Birmingham breeze had been replaced by a biting bitterly cold wind up on the higher ground. It was long before everyone beat a hasty retreat to the nearby Visitor Centre café to warm up.

I was really fed up with the students though, as, despite the cold weather, most of them in a typical teenage way had dressed so poorly for the outdoors in flimsy tee shirts and the thinnest of jackets, if they wore a jacket at all, that it made working impossible. I was determined to lead by example and I headed off with my sketchbook and I-pad and made these two studies, the second one finished at home from some drawings I had made. My example failed, and most of them stayed put in the café. I felt they had wasted my time and their own as we headed back onto the minibus, and like the grumpy old man that I felt, I told them so….

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