Waders and sketchbook

Northcote Nature Reserve is a fantastic example of community action. It was an old recreation ground that had fallen into neglect and disuse. But after nearly 10 years of hard work and sheer dogged determination, it has been transformed by local residents and the ‘Friends of Northcote Nature Reserve’ group, into an amazing sanctuary for plants and wildlife. It includes a tidal inlet from the River Crane which serves as a sheltering spot for fish at times of flood tides.

December

The reserve changes massively in character over the seasons. I visited in December and it looked like mainly ground cover, with a sparkling layer of frost.

April

By April the ‘ground cover’ was all growing upwards and flowers beginning to appear, including one of my favourites, white comfrey:

April also saw the formal opening of the Northcote Nature Reserve. Something which was dreamed up in 2016 had finally come to fruition. I have to add here that to get to this point has been a huge effort by those involved, fighting all along the way against oppositions and incompetencies. And even now it is open, managing the site in a democratic and inclusive way is an ongoing challenge.

June

By June, many plants were in full flower. However, no hope of digging any up for drawing – my spade literally only went 5mm into the sunbaked stony ground. I resorted to picking the flower head of this common knapweed as digging it out was not going to be an option.

July

By July, the reserve was a mass of wildflowers. Below shows a view through to the River Crane, with wild carrot, sow thistle and purple loosestrife on the near bank and Himalayan balsam on the opposite bank.

Wild carrot…

September

Now its September and the plants are beginning to die back, leaving beautiful skeletal frames. I have taken these two beauties back to my studio to draw.

Burdock and Dock

On the days I go to the river, its usually sunny and everything glitters. It feels like a haven, a piece of wilderness in the middle of urban London. Visiting it reminds me of a book by Rob Cowen, Common Ground, in which the author explores some waste ground near his home, only to discover endless plants and animals living a parallel life. The Crane is a well kept wilderness, thanks to the incredible work of a number of dedicated environmental groups, such as Friends of the River Crane, and the local residents, who devote weekends to maintaining and improving it as a natural habitat. But known only really to locals, it stays a well kept secret and walks along some sections of the river can be completely without another soul in sight.

Alongside my plant drawings, in my studio I have been doing some painting of the river from where I have stood in the water, trying to capture the sense of being away from the hubbub of town life: the steep banks holding it back and the verdant, overhanging plants and twinkling water creating a miniature world of escape.

Wanderings on river, oil on canvas

Where kingfishers go, oil on canvas         Down here up there, oil on canvas

I have been reading about Turner’s connections with Brentford, Isleworth and Twickenham, and came across this etching, from 1819. It’s a view of the Thames at low tide, where the River Crane feeds into it. Isleworth Ait can be seen to the right of the picture. It is called Water Cress Gatherers, Rails Head Ferry Bridge. I have yet to come across any water cress along the river but it was identified (with some surprise) in a survey by The Crane Wildflower Explorers, some of whom I have now met as their gardens back onto the river.

Water Cress Gatherers, Rails Head Rerry Bridge, Twickenham 1819 Etched by J.M.W. Turner and engraved by Thomas Lupton

In May I took plants from next to the river to print their pigment onto paper. It has rained a lot this spring and the water in the river has been deep with strong currents so, together with timing my visits around low tide, I have had fewer opportunities to visit the river than I would have hoped. But I collected these plants from the slipway down to the river.

Following some videos on Instagram, I interleaved the plants with strong Khadi paper, tied them up and boiled them in water from the river for half an hour. The results were fairly good, though not as good as the ones on Instagram. Perhaps certain plants release their pigment more readily than others. When dry I drew other plants from the river in ink that I had made with river water and local oak galls – see my September 23 post.

I have since learned that it is necessary to use a mordant to fix the natural pigments and improve their lightfastness. The oak gall ink is fairly permanent so I was able to soak the paper in the mordant at this stage. The mordant I used is called Fatakdi and is a type of salt (potassium sulphate) available from Indian groceries. You use one tablespoon for about 500ml water and soak for half an hour. The soaking did however wash away some of natural pigment (back to step 1!!) and so I followed another technique of steaming the papers with more interleaving of plants to try and get new plant prints over the top of my drawings.

After all this I would say overall I had limited success. The pigment from the first printing had almost washed away and the steaming method did not produce very good results. However, I felt the drawings had taken on a real sense of the river – its random patterns and watermarks. I am researching the medicinal use for annotating each of the plants that I drew (there are 12) and this will make a single work mounted on locally sourced recycled plywood.