Stanlake Park Wine Estate

Following a very wet Saturday it was a nice surprise to see the sun shine down on the Woodley and Earley Art Group outing to Stanlake Park Wine Estate.

After a brief tour and a look at a Strawberry tree the eight of us separated out to start our sketches.

I started with a grapevine, the black grapes had caught the sunlight and were shiningwiht pinpricks of light. As I looked I found some wonderful shapes in the leaves. I started with some pastel colour to establish the light and darks (and to kill the white paper) before using a pencil to draw in some leaf detail.

After about 20 minutes I stopped and moved on. Walking round the estate I met some sheep who were giving me long hard stares so I spent about 10 minutes jotting down their shapes.

Inside the walled garden were some young vines with all the grapes dangling from the bottom of the plant. I made a small detailed drawing in pencil and then added some pastel to indicate the leaves.

After a rather loud gun shot from a bird scarier I moved on to the main court yard where I started to sketch the back of the barns that house the wine making machinery.

In my pursuit of watercolour perfection I didn’t notice the cat who had joined me on the table and finally to get my attention, laid across my sketchbook. So I felt the cat was worth a quick sketch too.

 

Dave had made some money finding car keys, but what he really dreamed of was Dorset Gold!

During our Epic coastal walk – which might have been as far as 6 miles! – you get to see all sorts of people.

Nothing amuses me more, (well other than people falling off of water skies), than watching people using metal detectors on the beach. Pecking around like chickens searching for feed, finding only bear cans and metal buttons.

The National Geographic website can only be blamed for encouraging these people, follow this link to see the most unusual finds including a model T ford – I Bet the AA even managed to restart it, after they emptied the carburettor of sand.

Skip had been following his nose all day when he realised that his master was not at his tail.

 

Skip was a little white Westie that I saw on our epic walk from Sandbanks to Bournemouth – and back again.

I used a sketch of a life buoy and rocks to add some drama to the scene.

His actual owners were not far off behind him but like most dogs he had run off ahead. At the sound of the crashing waves he would look back to check he was still being followed.

I had a black Heinz 57 dog that had a similar disposition. She never treated the fences of our back garden as a deterrent against escape. In the first year that we had her we received a constant flow of phone calls from neighbouring roads where she had escaped over our back fence. She also managed to turn on the gas in the kitchen one time but that’s another story.

We also had a Yorkshire Terrier that disappeared on Brean Sands in Somerset in search of some liberated Fish and Chips.

I guess we have a history of badly behaved dogs!

Come rain or shine dyslexic Diane ate her sandwiches and giggled at the word Groynes.

 

During our epic walk from Sandbanks to Bournemouth, we experienced a wide variety of British weather.

But with our Stiff upper lips we carried on regardless, taking shelter where possible. And during one period of sheltering I saw Diane who was sat on a bench, holding a see-through umbrella – eating ice cream.

How very British.

A groynes is a sea defence - Wood sunk in the ground to ward off the approaching tide from stealing the sand.

I’m not sure what word Diane saw.

Sandbanks to Bournemouth…and back again

In 2010 Debs and I had a baby boy and desperate for a holiday we managed to blag a stay at my uncles flat in Sandbanks.

Samuel was only 6 months old and couldn’t sit up on his own. We took him on the train to Swanage and foolishly we walked from Sandbanks to Bournemouth and back again. It didn’t look far on the map but as it turns out it was a long way.

Samuel slept most of the way to Bournemouth and I was able to dabble in my past time of urban sketching and people watching. On the way back Samuel woke up and I remember carrying him most of the way back as he wouldn’t settle in the pram.

The following posts are the imagined stories of the people that I sketched/watched on the day.

Below are the initial sketches…

A place to stay

Having little experience of hotels in the area we struck gold when we booked the Hermitage Hotel on the seafront. I have heard people (mostly old) quoted as saying ‘Once you’ve stayed at the Hermitage hotel why would you stay anywhere else?’

Bang centre on the seafront there is access to all the amenities straight from the door. Indeed on every stay we have never moved the car from the car park.
The food is excellent, and most evenings you can be guaranteed locally caught fish. It was the in the main restaurant that I first found a love of scallops.

The picture above is Debs sat on our room watching Telly, perhaps not the best likeness but I thin the picture shows the ‘olde’ world feel of the place when we first stayed.  Subsequent stays have been more expensive as the hotel has climbed the star rating ladder.

In quiet times you can get room upgrades that are worth the view of the sea and the pier in all its glory at night.

A love affair with Bournemouth

 

Our love affair with Bournemouth started when Debs and I went to see Paul Merton’s tribute to the silent Films at the Pavillion theatre.

Separately we had both visited Bournemouth – Debs on a camping trip and I went with a friend on a day trip while I was attending a steam rally in Fordingbridge.

There is something very British about Bournemouth. I think it is the tea pot drinking eccentric Englishman with his stiff upper lip wearing his socks in sandals with pride on the seafront outside his beach hut. It’s a place for old people, young people, cats and dogs, hankys on heads and string vests.

If it’s possible, Bournemouth is my adopted home town.