St. Just, Sketching, Meandering
It was Sunday and it seemed like a good idea to stay near to the airbnb and go to the next town over to explore. St. Just is the most westerly town in mainland Britain. It is one of the ancient mining areas in Cornwall with two churches. It has an ancient area meant for games like open air wrestling, performances and teaching. I sat there at the end of the day and did a sketch while the rooks and seagulls feasted on something delicious in the grass. Apparently the area is where there are productions of the Cornish Ordinalia mystery plays.I’m planning to head there tomorrow before going to Falmouth to visit Kurt Jackson’s foundation and museum. I have three of his sketchbooks and am so inspired by his use of mixed media and way of responding to the landscape.
I had breakfast at a colorful cafe and practiced drawing people in small scale - heads and faces, proportions. It’s incredibly hard but like anything, should get easier with practice. I wandered down a side street towards the ocean and found a public footpath and decided to meander and see where I ended up. It took me onto a huge playing field and then from there I found a stile at the end and went down a dirt road, all heading downhill, and then found myself on an enormous golf course that went from the cliffs inland. It was breathtaking. And then I realized that a golf ball had just landed near where I was standing and saw the small figures in the distance with their caddies and golf carts and decided to hotfoot it off the course and find another way to meander before tempting fate.
I found a couple walking their dog up the road and asked them if they knew how to get back to town. We fell into conversation together and walked the rest of the way back to the town square only discussing politics for a brief time, thankfully.
After buying some water in the local CO-OP I settled in for some tea and sketching time, which also means listening to snippets of conversations around me and trying to sketch people without their knowing I’m sketching them. I’ve learned to take quick iphone photos to fill them in later but it is amazing how so many people are totally aware that is what I’m doing and are staring into the camera even when I do it without looking into the viewfinder. It shows me that people are acutely aware of one another and I often feel sort of invisible but realize I’m not at all. I get shaken from my invisibility cloak each time someone approaches and asks to see my sketch. I’m also moved by all these groups of families actually talking to one another and kids not on any phones but also interacting and playing and goofing around. I have especially noticed in the past few days that there are groups of men getting together and just having fun talking with one another, often with their kids there, too. The three Dads at the table next to mine were having a great time while their kids were all at the next table. It felt so good seeing that!
After struggling a bit with perspective and a not very well conceived composition of the buildings I was sketching I decided to get up and walk again and I found myself passing a field of cows. I set up my sketchbook on the wall and started to pencil in the landscape details realizing I had left my water back in the town center and couldn’t actually do any watercolor. I ended up at another spot in the town square and added the watercolor as the rain started to fall.
I headed back to the airbnb, read some of the book The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson watched some youtube tutorial on sketching faces and some mindless tv, did spelling bee and connections and called it a night.
Grayson the enormous cat that befriended me and is also a vicious killer of wildlife.