Tip toe around the river

I am away for a week, working in Norfolk, a place I called home from age 11-20, and a place that has a very strong hold on my heart.
I love walking out in the dawn and dusk and seeing what treasure awaits me.
On Tuesday morning it was not very promising, low cloud and uninspiring light, but when I reached the estuary I found these magical foot prints in the silt of the Yare, where curlews had been tip toeing around the tide line.

Secret treasure

This is not a finished piece, by any means, but I wanted to work some things out on paper before developing a painting of this. 

From my parents house, the lane leads straight out onto the marsh. There is an old abandoned caravan small and round, disappearing into the reeds and the landscape, it was used by model airplane enthusiasts. 
On one of many walks past this last week, I thought I would peer in through open door.
I got a surprise as a swallow skimmed past me and I glimpsed a beautiful 'treasure' nest, a joy that still warms my heart, and so I have used gold to try to convey the magic of this old abandoned caravan and its secret inhabitants.
I love this part of the world, it brings stories into my heart and mind and makes me at peace.

I have been away . . .

. . . . visiting family and friends, two days visiting two days traversing the country by train, looking through the window at floods and broken trees.
However there were also fields of swans, floods of ducks and tree tops hopping with magpies. This is a geranium I met on my travels.

Chicken Coops of Norfolk

Cots to chicken coops, there is a reason for this strange passage of thought, and that is the cot reminded me of those lovely wheelie chicken coops. Then I was reminded of Joff's coops and his lovely broody goose, who hopefully has a gaggle of goslings to fuss over now.

Paintings by Mary Newcomb

Top: The entire Golfinch Flock 1977

Bottom: Hare with a Crown of Goose Grass 1976

Mary Newcomb's observations, transcribed into paintings, are full of humour, nature and warmth. Mary managed to catch those moments when nature; makes you gasp, makes you laugh out loud and feel alive. Mary lived most of her life on the broads of East Anglia, she is one of my favourite painters.

Mary Newcomb, painter, born January 25 1922; died March 29 2008

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-Newcomb-Christopher-Andreae/dp/0853319596