Waders and sketchbook

I took some linen down to the river today and buried it. I’m hoping it will hold marks made by the water and stones, soil and other bits of debris from the riverbed. The current can be quite strong, especially after rain, so hopefully the linen will still be there when I go back!

I also tied up some bulldog clips and some chain. They’ll be washed twice daily, being exposed to the air at low tide and submerged when the tide comes in. I plan to hang some of my work using these as fixings and want them to be as much a part of the river as the drawings themselves.

I’ve a strange sense after making these small interventions that the river belongs to me more – marking territory.

With all the rain we have had this month, this was the first week I wanted to brave the river – the flow has been really fast and high.

Not much marginal plant life at this time of year – the river banks are pretty bare. But the river walls keep on giving – I am drawn to the small plants hanging on for life, that seem to keep on going through the winter months. I have taken photos of these to draw at my studio, but made a note to myself to bring paper and inks to draw them on site next visit.

Ivy forms a curtain along the steep banks and I have taken a stem for my next painting on plywood. I painted this trailing bellflower (below) in August on a piece of recycled plywood and would like to do a series of marginal plants on similar sized plywood. Having just returned from the Garden Museum I feel inspired by Frank Walter’s paintings. They are all painted on old cardboard, wood, backs of photos – anything he could use.

Trailing Bellflower, oil on recycled plywood, 60x30cm

I’ve been thinking about making my own ink using oak galls and materials from the river for a while and then the other day I came across some oak galls and decided to get started. I couldn’t believe how easy – and miraculous – it was.

Ink made from oak trees has been used since the 12th Century. It is waterproof and gets darker with age. Oak galls occur when a gall wasp lays eggs in buds, acorns or roots and the tree protects itself by enclosing the developing larvae in abnormal growths. Around May, the lava eats its way out and the adult wasp emerges in June/July. The galls I collected had a small hole where the lava had escaped.

Oak gall ink recipe

2 oz crushed oak galls

1 oz ferrous sulphate (available from garden centres)*

1/2 oz gum arabic (available from art shops)

*An alternative to ferrous sulphate can be made by hand by soaking rusty old iron in white vinegar for a few days.

To make the ink, cover the oak galls with water in a pan and simmer for half an hour. The water goes a dark brown. Strain through a piece of muslin or thin cotton and leave to cool. Then add the ferrous sulphate and gum arabic (binding agent) and watch the water turn black! Pure alchemy!**

For my ink I took rusted metal from the river and soaked it in vinegar to get an iron rust solution, and I used river water to boil the oak galls in. The galls came from a tree near the A3 but I hope to find some from oaks beside the river. I want to make paper using river water too and will document my process.

I love the story that this creates and the sense of where everything comes from.

**I have to thank my friend and artist, Lizzie Brewer, who has been making her own ink and paper for her beautiful books for years and gave me the help and confidence to try!!

Brought over in 1839 for its exquisite flowers, Himalayan Balsam is now ravaging our river banks. It grows rapidly and spreads quickly, smothering other plants as it goes. As you walk along the River Crane, you see it standing in pockets of dense thickets on either side, despite hard efforts to keep it at bay.

I am in two minds about whether to draw it. It’s a beautiful plant, growing taller than head height, with large leaves and orchid-like flowers that attract the bees. But it is the bully of the river banks, depriving smaller native plants of light, nutrients and pollinators necessary for survival. When it dies back, it leaves the river banks bare and depleted, where normally plants that flower at other times of year would be able to grow. Insects and birds that feed on these other plants also lose out.

But I think “I’ll just try and pull one up and see“. They are not usually easy to just pull up and if I manage, large leafed weeds often wilt within minutes and don’t recover. That’s been my experience with other large weeds – so disappointing!

It has vicious looking red roots…

To my surprise it comes up easily, bringing a clump of earth with it. I wade back with it in a compost sack, aware I might be spreading its seeds further afield. One plant can produce 800 seeds which, often carried by the river, go on to germinate downstream.

By the time it is in back my studio it has wilted. But I plant it in a bucket, water it and go home, hoping for the best.

The next day it has recovered completely! It just has to be drawn!

Now I feel a sense of guilt. Like my forebears, I couldn’t resist this beautiful plant!

(Though perhaps if they had just drawn it, rather than bringing it back to England, our river banks would be in a much better state!)